My knuckle meets the grey paint, knocking twice before waiting. The street is empty like we'd hoped. Ben stands guard near the 'for sale' sign. We wait a couple of minutes before I step back and let Lib do her thing. She looks at me as if to say, keep an eye out, before she kneels down in front of the door.

I watch out over the street and the houses nearby. Ben does the same. It's quiet except the faint sounds of cars driving on the main road that this street connects to. I look over her shoulder, watching her stick something sharp into the slot. It makes me wonder how she knows how to do this. Nobody teaches you this kind of shit unless you did it before. So, Liberty, whose house have you broken into before and why?

Math club student and knows how to break in? It sounds a little unbelievable to me.

The gentle sound of a door unlocking pulls my attention.

"Jesus Lib," Ben mutters from behind us.

She pushes her hair behind her ear and pulls my arm, forcing me inside. She pulls Ben in too and closes the door behind us.

"Shh," she mutters, holding a finger up in the air, motioning us to listen. So we do. We wait it out for a while, listening to any sign that someone was inside. Finally, we move forward together into the first room. It looks like a living room. There's a couch draped in a linen cloth and a bunch of carboard boxes with magazines and other miscellaneous things.

"Looks abandoned to me," Ben says, swiping his finger across the dusty mantle.

"Let's split up," I suggest. "I'll take the upstairs. You two cover this floor."

I don't wait for an answer and make my way upstairs, wincing at one of the steps giving out a creak. There are two bedrooms up here with beds still in place. They don't have mattresses and the rest of the rooms are practically empty. In the bigger room which I can only assume belonged to Stewart and his wife, there's a cactus sitting by the window. I focus on it for a moment longer than I intended. Why'd they leave behind the plant?

I turn away and open their wardrobe which is empty except for a few hangers. The drawers are next. I pull them open one by one, searching them for something that stands out. Something out of place or odd lookin'. After wedging it away from the wall to have a look at the back side, I take in a shaky breath. Turns out, the wardrobe was a waste of time.

I leave his room feeling pretty defeated. I can only hope Liberty and Ben have found something promising. I look at the stairs from above when my gut tells me to look into the kid's room again. I don't know why but I got a feeling.

The kid's room is smaller but the window's bigger in here. I can see branches reaching out from the tree in the back yard from here. There are no curtains anymore. I look up at the ringlets that still hang from the curtain rod. I guess they forgot to take those with them when they were leaving.

There are two single beds in opposite corners of the same wall. Their empty metallic structures make the room look more like a holding cell. There's a nail above each of the beds. I wonder what kind of pictures hung from them.

I search under the bed frames and the bathroom cabinet. Then I look through the white clothing drawers. They're empty which shouldn't surprise me but it does anyway. Disappointment feels heavy. Like a weight chained to my midsection. I open the last drawer slowly, as if it'll make something appear magically. It doesn't though. The blank slate of white coated wood stares up at me. 

I stand up, my stomach tight with anxiety. If I were hiding something, where would I hide it? Assuming there was something to hide.

I slide my hand behind the drawers, feeling around for anything. There's nothing there too. Come on you bastard.

The grim expressions on Liberty and Ben's faces as I descend the steps tells me what I need to know. The house was a bust.

"Did you check all the rooms downstairs?" I ask.

"Yup," Ben answers.

"Nothing in the kitchen or the closet under the stairs?"

He shakes his head.

"And the yard?"

Their eyes widen slightly. Of course they forgot the yard. We enter the yard through the kitchen door. The overgrown grass tugs under my shoes and past my legs. I can hear bugs, a lot of them. Probably from the massive bushes along all three fences.

"It's just plants," Liberty says.

"Just try and stay vigilant," I sigh, knocking over some of the stones.

 I walk to the only tree in the yard, pointing my flashlight at it. I stare up at the branches I'd seen moments ago from the bedroom then back down at the dense trunk.  I circle it, searching the ground. My skin crawls. I'm not sure if it's a bug up the leg of my pants or just my hair standing on end.

"There's nothing here," Liberty sighs.

"Ben?" I ask, spotting him close to the wire fence. His silence fills me with unjustified hope.

"Guys," he calls. "Does this count?"

We walk over to him to find part of the mesh has been cut. It looks deliberately cut but there isn't any way to be certain of it. Maybe I'm biased. Or maybe not. I really don't know.

"I don't think it's anything special," Ben goes on.

"It could be," I reply as I crouch and waddle through the hole to the other side.

The part behind the yard is just more shrubs and tall plants that practically attack my skin as I wade my way through. My shoe kicks through the tall grass and I discover part of the missing wire beneath some dirt and overgrowth. This isn't a coincidence. Someone must have cut their way in. Or out. The question is, why?

"Look at the ground, see if anything looks out of place," I tell the rest while I do the same.

I scratch my arm, over the small bumps the mosquitoes leave behind. Nature's fucking vampires. The desperate curiosity keeps me groveling through the weeds. The bites won't matter in time, dead or alive. A part of me is determined not to leave before I find something to work with. A sign. Anything.

Come on you bastard, give me something.

We search in silence. I'm unaware for how long though. It isn't until Ben speaks up that I'm pulled back to reality.

"Guys, I don't think there's anything out here. We're wasting our time," he whines.

"The hole in the fence was done purposely," I tell him.

"Could have been a squatter," he shrugs. "Or it might have been here for years and nobody thought to fix it."

"Keep looking," I shake my head, ignoring him. "There has to be something."

Ben sighs, "We've been out here for a long time. Someone will see us, Omar."

"I don't care," I keep looking through the grass.

"Lib?" Ben tries.

I zone back out after that, splaying my hands now through the plants. With every passing moment, I grow more a little more desperate. My heart beats loud enough for me to hear it pressing against my ear drums. Come on, you fucker, give me something. My mind replays this like a chant, as if Stewart will hear me and a treasure box will rise out from the dirt somewhere.

 It's easy to hope when you're dying. No matter how impossible or miniscule the spark is- you keep going, keep pushing. Dirt collects under my nails as I find a patch of dirt under the light of my phone. I dig and Liberty walks over, crouching beside me as I unearth the patch, layer by layer.

  "Found something?" she asks, lightly.

"I think so," I reply, putting my weight into it now.

Liberty rolls up her sleeves of her hoodie. I look at her but she begins to dig with me, pummeling the soil. I scoop soil out alongside her and Ben stands over us, holding up a light.

   "Wait," Liberty says, suddenly.

I stop digging and watch as she brushes some of the dirt from her hands, her finger looped over something.

"There's something here," she looks at me.

I feel around the dirt, taking over from where she'd left. She's right. I can feel a latch, maybe a hook. I link my finger through it, pulling it as I keep digging with my other hand. Liberty takes the torch from Ben. 

"Shit, it's heavy," I grumble, scraping away the dirt as fast as I can.

Finally, I dig enough that I can see more of the secret object. Ben comes over and we pull it out of the ground together. It's a box of some kind of metal. For a moment, we look at each other in uneasy silence.

 "Guys," Ben cuts through the quietness. 

I look over my shoulder. Someone in the neighboring house has turned a light on upstairs. I haul the silver box under my armpit and stand up, leading the way out of the garden and then the house.

  We run out of the street, the box and its contents, causing a commotion for the main chunk of our escape. When we get to the main street near the overhead bridge that connects either side of the road, we slow down. 

I move the box into my hands, holding it up to get a better look at it. The small lock on the latch clangs against the surface of the box. Ben and Liberty scrutinize it over either of my shoulders before Liberty speaks up.

"We can find something to break that lock," she suggests. "Looks small enough."

"What do you think it is?" Ben asks.

"Don't know," I reply. "Could be anything."

  We walk down the road, watching out for any hefty looking rocks. Liberty picks one up beside the gate of a public park. Setting the box down on the ground, I take it from her.

I raise the rock above my shoulder and hold my breath.