Deviant by Adrian McKinty

Author:Adrian McKinty [McKinty, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YA, Mysteries & Detective Stories
ISBN: 9780810984202
Google: Q_gQIvEv5mUC
Amazon: 0810984202
Barnesnoble: 0810984202
Goodreads: 10805997
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

A noise before the dawn. Danny bolted out of bed and shouted “Aha!” pointing his finger at Tony, Tom, or whoever else she’d brought with her in this latest bedroom invasion.

There was no one there.

Jeffrey wasn’t there either.

He looked at the clock. The luminous hands of SpongeBob SquarePants were pointing at the five and the two. He squinted a little and saw that it was ten past five.

It was Monday morning.

Sunday had been a total bust.

Tony hadn’t come round to see him.

Tom hadn’t texted him.

He’d skated to the Cobalt Sheriff’s Department, but their office had been closed. Everything in Cobalt turned out to be closed on Sundays. The 7-Eleven, the Safeway, the Laundromat, the hardware store, the sorry excuse for a strip mall on Manitou Springs Road. Everything except the two Pentecostal churches, which were packed—at least, they appeared to be from the number of cars in the parking lots.

The sun had come out and Danny had skated around aimlessly.

He’d seen Cooper drive past with his mom and he’d waved to him, but Cooper had frowned like he knew Danny from somewhere but couldn’t quite figure out where.

Danny skated home and sat there all day with no books or TV or computer.

And now it was Monday.

Monday morning, eleven minutes past five.

And something had woken him.

“Jeff?” he said. But Jeff wasn’t there.

He went to the window and stared out at the blackness. Some of that void was mountain and some forest, but it was impossible to tell which was which.

Danny slapped his forehead. “And I forgot that stupid flashlight again!” he muttered, and then forgave himself, because unless they’d gone into Colorado Springs there was nowhere to buy the flashlight anyway.

“Jeff?” he tried one more time.

He hadn’t gone out there, had he?

Danny stared into the nothingness.

He couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. If it hadn’t been for SpongeBob’s hands there would be no—

Wait a minute. Wait a minute, what the hell was that?

Out there in the woods, that little bobbing rectangle. There, just for a moment at the edge of his vision and then gone. And there again. And gone again.

Danny knew exactly what it was. It was the fluorescent patch on a pear of sneakers. There was nothing animal, vegetable, or mineral about it; it was a person. Someone was definitely out there.

His first instinct was to call out “I can see you!” but he thought better of it immediately.

He fumbled for his jeans and pulled them over his pajama bottoms, shoved on sneakers and a sweater, and grabbed his new ski coat before realizing that it was covered in fluorescent patches, too.

He got his leather jacket instead and opened the bedroom door.

Down the hallway he could hear Walt snoring loudly.

Maybe he should wake him and his mom? No, they’d do more harm than good.

He jogged down the stairs, went to the back door, picked the key from the hook, turned it in the lock. The large yard at the rear of the house had a wooden fence around it with a gate in the fence that led directly to the forest.

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