Creed Read Online Free PDF Page B

three-bedroom white cape with the black shutters and a black front door. Even the flower beds looked the same, artistically curved around the base of each mailbox, each one planted with the exact same shade of nearly dead yellow and burnt-orange flowers.
    Stripping off my gloves, I blew hot air into my hands. The houses lining the streets didn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. In fact, they had me wondering what kind of dull, repressed people lived here.
    Something about this whole neighborhood felt wrong. Horribly wrong. My senses hadn’t been this jacked up in years. Not since that first night in the group home when I realized the girl bunking below me kept a makeshift knife tucked into the springs of her mattress. I’d spent my entire two-week stint there trying to avoid falling asleep, and I had a distinct feeling that if we didn’t get out of here soon, I’d spend tonight doing the exact same thing.
    “Holy house farm. They even have the same landscaping, right down to the flowerpot on the front step,” Luke said.
    “You think we’ll get lucky and find a house key under one of those pots?” Mike asked.
    “From the looks of it, I bet one damn key opens every house,” I replied.
    “Probably right. Let’s go to that first one. I’m already halfway to hypothermia here,” Mike suggested, only pausing when he noticed Luke counting the houses. “No. Don’t even go there.”
    “House number three. We need to go to house number three.” Luke grinned at me, no doubt preparing to take another verbal lashing over his idiotic fascination with triples. He played both football and lacrosse and insisted his uniform number be three. He’d applied to three colleges, and each one had to be within three hundred miles of home. He was even born on March third.
    “Oh God,” I sighed, dropping my head into my hands. “Here we go again.”
    “Hell no,” Mike said. “We’re going to the one right there.” He pointed to the house closest to us. “Screw your lucky number obsession. I can’t feel my legs anymore, and my nuts are already the size of raisins.”
    Luke smirked, undeterred by his brother. “It’s not an obsession. It’s lucky. I won big on it last week!”
    I held my hand up to stop him. “That was a pee wee football ticket you bought from your cousin, and you won two tickets to a movie we’d already seen.”
    I was only half joking about my annoyance. The fact was, Luke had always favored the number three. Last spring he had it tattooed onto his middle finger. He claimed it was his own personal lucky charm. I’d laughed and told him I was supposed to be his lucky charm. I smiled whenever I thought about that tattoo, knowing full well he didn’t choose that finger randomly. And I was fine with his little obsession back home, when it meant nothing more than watching the third movie in our Netflix queue rather than the first.
    “Come on, guys. It’s not like I’m asking for much,” Luke said. He kissed my cheek, his dark eyes begging me to approve. “It’s just two houses farther; we can see it from here. Plus, I’ve got a good feeling about this.”
    “Fine,” I mumbled. “But if I end up with frostbite because of this, you aren’t getting any for a month.”
    “Fair enough,” Luke said as he came up beside me. “And I promise, Dee, I’ll make it up to you later.”
    I grumbled under my breath. His hushed words left little to the imagination. Usually that tone would have left me feeling warm and buzzed, looking to ditch his brother at the nearest curb, but not tonight. Tonight was quickly turning into one giant bag of suck, and thoughts of being alone with Luke had died the second we hit that cemetery. There’s nothing like the heel of your shoe sinking into a freshly dug grave to ruin the mood.
    “Well, here we are,” Mike said as we approached Luke’s chosen house. “Should we try knocking?”
    I took two more steps forward before I realized that Mike and I were