The streets were dark and empty when Karyn quietly tiptoed out the front door, and strangely normal too. After everything that had gone down at the mall and the firestorm in the media, Karyn almost expected the streets to be filled with chaos and debris. Yet the cozy middle class neighborhood Karyn called home looked as it always had - clean and completely burning.
Jon’s house was located a few streets down from Karyn’s house. It was the sort of cozy, two-story suburban house you saw in sitcoms, complete with a well managed garden out front and white-picket fences. Tonight, it looked dark and lonely. Jon’s car was parked outside the garage like like it had never left and Karyn thought of her friend’s mom picking it up from the mall, not knowing where her son had gone or if he’d ever come back. She pushed the thought from her mind.
Karyn found the spare key under the doormat and slowly opened the front door. Everything inside was dark and still. She moved with the pace of a snail into the house and toward the stairs. Even though her eyes were still adjusting, she’d been inside this house enough to have it almost memorized like the back of her hand. She even knew to avoid the second step of the stairs so it didn’t squeak as she made her way to the second floor.
Jon’s room was directly down the hall, but as Karyn crept toward it, a light came on under a door to Karyn’s left. She barely had time to retreat into the shadows before the door opened and Jon’s younger sister Zoe stepped into the hall. She paused at the doorway and rubbed her bleary eyes.
Karyn’s heart was in her throat. The light from Zoe’s room was so close to her hiding place and if the younger girl only looked a little to her right, she’d surely see Karyn. Even being as close to Jon as she was, Karyn really doubted she could explain to his mother why she’d broken into her house in the middle of the night to steal her son’s property.
