“Yeah,” Julian answered. “Why?”
Cassidy grinned at him as she stepped out of the apartment and lifted a large, metal container from Dante’s hands.
“Are you really going to do this?” he asked.
“Damn right, I am,” she told him.
“You’re vicious.”
She winked at him. “Oh, this is nothing.”
“Vicious and crazy.”
“You remember that if you ever decide to mess with me.”
He held his hands up. “That will never happen.”
Cassidy kissed his cheek before pushing the door further open and stepping into the apartment.
“What’s that?” Aida asked.
“I have some presents for Kyle,” she replied sweetly.
Aida and Julian exchanged a look before Julian started to chuckle.
“What’s going on?” Aida asked.
Cassidy didn’t answer as she strolled down the hallway to her old room. Chairs scraped against the floor as Julian and Aida rose, and Dante followed her down the hall. She knew from years of living with him that Kyle always slept in shorts and never brought a girl home with him, so she felt it was safe to open the door.
She poked her head inside and smiled when she spotted Kyle lying on his stomach with his face turned toward the wall. Cassidy set the container on the floor and turned it on its side to release the two dozen rats she bought from the pet store.
“Run free, my little friends,” she whispered as she shooed them out of the container.
“Are those rats?” Aida asked in disbelief.
“They are,” Cassidy confirmed. “Don’t worry, I know how many there are, and I already have homes for them.”
“He’s going to kill them.”
“No, he won’t,” Julian and Cassidy said at the same time.
For one thing, he was too afraid of them to get close enough to kill them. For another, he wasn’t cruel to other living things, and this wasn’t her first time torturing him with rats.
She went easier on him this time. Last time, she caught them all and dumped them on him while he was sleeping. They’d been sixteen at the time, and it was the last time she did anything major to him. It was beyond time he had another prank pulled on him, but she couldn’t be as mean as the last time. She blamed Dante for her newfound softness.
She would have loved to superglue his ass to the sofa and his hands to his game controller, but she couldn’t figure out a way to pull it off. Plus, Aida would probably kill her if she ruined their somewhat new couch. She’d figure it out one day, but until then, rats were the perfect revenge.
“Run free, and when you’re done running free, I have lots and lots of treats for you,” Cassidy said as she scooped a cute little black rat from the container and set it down.
The rats waddled around the room, sniffing the air and enjoying their newfound freedom. Cassidy closed the box and set it in the hall. She removed a large, fake rat from inside her pocket. Its bristly hair poked her palms as she kissed the tip of its very realistic nose.
“What are you doing?” Aida asked.
“A rat bomb,” she said.
“What? Why?”
Cassidy smiled at her sister-in-law. “This will teach him to hang out the window and make kissy faces at me.”
Cassidy lobbed the rat toward Kyle’s bed at the same she shouted, “Kyle!”
Kyle jumped, and then the rat landed on the side of his face. “What the…?”
He smacked the rat away, and a second passed before he realized what it was. When he did, a strangled cry escaped him, and he bolted upright in bed.
“Holy shit!” he shouted as he leapt up to stand on the bed.
His hair stood on end, and his shorts hung low on his waist as he gazed in slack-jawed horror at the room. When his wild eyes landed on her, Cassidy blew him a kiss and closed the door.
“Cassidy!” Kyle yelled. “Cassidy, get back in here and get these things!”
She laughed as she held the doorknob and planted her foot against the wall to help keep it closed. A few seconds passed before Kyle crashed into the door and started jerking at the knob. His palm slammed against the door.
“Let me out of here!” he shouted.
“Are you ever going to hang out the window and act like an asshole again?” she asked.
“What? Are you…? Is this really about that day? It was weeks ago! Let me out of here. Their little noses are twitching all over the place, and they’re squeaking!”
Julian and Dante burst into loud laughter as Aida shook her head.
“You’re all crazy,” Aida muttered.
“The prank wars were never something to mess around about, and we all knew we’d get payback if we acted like assholes,” Julian said. “Most of us stopped messing with Cassidy years ago; she is the reigning queen.”
“And Kyle needed a reminder of that,” she told Aida with a smile as Kyle jerked at the door.
Cassidy kept her foot braced against the wall as the door opened an inch before she pulled it closed again.
Aida laughed. “I’m never messing with you.”
Kyle banged on the door. “They’re eyeing my stomach as they plot the best way to eat me!”
“Oh, that reminds me. I did forget to feed them for a few days!” Cassidy called back. “That’s a lie,” she whispered to Julian and Aida. “I fed them before we came over.”
“Your whole family is insane,” Aida said.
“It’s true,” Julian confirmed.
“Are you going to screw with me again?” Cassidy called through the door.
“Never!” Kyle shouted back.
Cassidy released the knob, and Kyle flung the door open. Dante, Julian, and Aida jumped out of his way. His knees practically hit his chest as he fled down the hall, slapping at his skin and shuddering while he ran. They laughed at him as he reached the end of the hall and turned back to glower at her.
“You’re fucking nuts!” he shouted.
“That’s what I said,” Aida said as she strolled down the hall toward him. “And she’s also the one who has to go in there to catch them.”
“You better get every last one of
