“I don’t know that I’m even grieving.” I slid my nail along the thick layer of gloss laid over the wooden bleachers. A thin line of the wax-like substance splintered off the seat. “I just hate the not knowing.” The deaths didn’t bother me half as much as the gnawing emptiness in my mind. “There’s this hole in my head, and it’s driving me crazy.”
Derrick opened his mouth to respond, but fell silent when Felicity Day, Drew’s girlfriend, entered the gym. Her footsteps echoed as she walked to Drew’s picture and knelt to add something to the pile of mementos.
Her friends, Hannah and Alyssa, waited for her by the door. Felicity stood, wiping at her eyes, then reached for the blown-up portrait, slowly, as if in a trance. Her fingers brushed against his lips. Then she let out a keening sob that sent shivers up my spine. Her friends rushed forward, gathering her into a hug.
“Well, that was brutal,” I murmured when she left the gym.
Derrick didn’t respond, and I glanced over to see him frowning at his phone. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“What?”
“The coroner’s initial report estimates the ‘postmortem interval’, which near as I can tell means time of death begins at midnight, if I’m reading this right. But that’s not possible.” Derrick scrolled through the email, his dark eyes troubled.
“Do I even want to know how you have that?”
“I hacked Mom’s email. Don’t tell her,” Derrick said distractedly as he read.
“Course not.” I hated adding more lies to the ever-growing pile.
“You got to my house at midnight, twelve-o-three at the latest.”
And the bonfire was at least forty minutes away from Derrick’s house. “Then the coroner’s wrong.” I shifted, feeling uncomfortable under the watchful eyes of the dead football players. There was something exceptionally wrong with Derrick reading that report here. “We need to tell her, Derrick. Between the timeline and the dress . . .”
Since the police didn’t know I’d come home covered in blood à la Carrie, they were looking into the possibility that I’d hitchhiked. They kept wasting time and resources in hopes of finding a non-existent witness who could narrow down the timing and maybe heard me say something helpful.
Worse, identifying the bodies was taking time. More than one of the parents reasoned if I’d made it all the way home in a state of shock, their kid might be out there somewhere, confused, disoriented, but alive. Maybe they’d even driven me home. If one more hysterical parent begged me to remember something, anything, from that night, I was going to lose it.
Oblivious to my thoughts, Derrick continued scrolling through the email and highlighting the bits he wanted me to pay extra attention to. “I don’t think they would believe us at this point.”
Sighing, I raked my fingers through my hair. “What if the blood wasn’t from the bonfire? What if I actually did hitchhike and something happened on the way home? Or what if something else happened at the bonfire, and they’re looking at it all wrong.” I was grasping at straws, and I knew it. “We could call in an anonymous tip, say someone saw me knock on your door at midnight. That’ll fix the timeline.”
“If they believe a random anonymous tip.”
“Then let’s leave the dress somewhere they haven’t looked yet. That way, if there’s anything they need to know, when they find it, they’ll—”
Derrick shook his head. “There’s no way to hide the fact that the dress was in a different environment at this point. Finding that would start an entirely different type of search. Honestly, we need to destroy the thing.”
I buried my face in my hands, overwhelmed by the colossal mess we found ourselves in. What Derrick wasn’t saying—something I appreciated more than he’d ever know—was how much trouble he’d get into if anyone ever found out what he’d done. And not just him, his mother. There weren’t exactly a ton of people in Willow County vying for the job of Sheriff, but even I could guess what it would do to her career if it came out that her son willfully obstructed evidence on the biggest case this town had ever seen.
Derrick’s hand brushed against my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know this sucks, and if I could do things over—”
“You were scared.” And I’d asked him not to call 911. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t remember doing it. Whatever happened because of that request was my fault.
“Yeah, but it was still stupid.” He studied the pictures of the football players in the center of the gym. “At the end of the day, does it even matter? Who the hell cares what time Smokey the Bear chowed down? Dead is dead. It’s not going to bring them back.”
“It wasn’t an animal attack.” I gritted my teeth when he shot me a hopeful look. “I mean, I don’t remember anything else.” Not until I closed my eyes at night. But the nightmares didn’t linger in the morning long enough for me to make sense of them. “But an animal attack doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been a person,” Derrick insisted, fingers flying across his phone’s screen, no doubt looking for facts to back him up.
“These weren’t small guys,” I argued, motioning to the photo stands beneath us on the gym floor. “No way some random animal goes through nearly thirty of them and misses me . . . I mean, I know everyone keeps saying they were passed out drunk or something, but they wouldn’t just sit there and wait their turn.”
“There are signs of major struggle.” He lifted his head to look at their pictures. “They fought back.”
“Then how did I get away? And why weren’t there more people there? It was supposed to be like, a party. So why only invite the football team, plus one?”
Derrick rubbed the back of his neck. “You think they uh . . .”
My face heated. “The doctor um . . . checked for that.” In a humiliating and invasive check-up they’d put off as long as possible, waiting for my mom to arrive at the hospital. When it became clear she wasn’t going to bother, Derrick’s mom sat with me for the examination. Afterwards, she’d taken me back to her house and said I could stay for as long as I wanted.
And all I’d done to repay her is offer lie after lie. I’d never be able to balance this.
“And?” Derrick prompted after a long minute of silence.
“Nothing happened. I mean as far as they can tell, which given that I’ve nev—uh, I mean, they don’t think—” I stopped talking. This conversation could go nowhere good. “Nothing happened to me. I’m the only one who got out of there without so much as a scratch, remember?”
“Good.” He shifted, looking uncomfortable. “You wanna . . . grab lunch?”
I laughed despite myself at the clumsy change of topic. “How can you even think about food after reading that?”
“I’m not thinking about food.” Derrick jumped off the bleachers. “I’m thinking about being somewhere else.” He gave the pictures a significant look, then offered me his hand as I climbed the rest of the way down. “Staying in here isn’t giving you the creeps?”
Yes, but I was more surprised it was getting to him. “I’ll meet you on the field. Can I just . . .” I motioned to the memorial photos. “I’ll just be a minute.”
“Yeah, of course.” He stepped out of the gym, holding the door open as he added, “I’ll be right outside.”
I nodded as the door swung shut, then made my way to the middle of the gym, pausing to look at each photograph, careful to keep a respectful distance. My gaze snagged on the canvas Felicity had placed near Drew’s portrait.
“The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.”
“Auden,” I remembered. Tears pricked my eyes, if not for Drew’s fate, then for Felicity’s grief. So
I wasn’t a total monster, then, right? But why couldn’t I extend that same sympathy toward the dead?
It’s not like it’ll help them, I rationalized. But still . . . my lips parted, an apology prepped on the tip of my tongue, though I couldn’t articulate what I felt sorry for. That I’d lived when they died? No. Maybe that they’d died at all?
The door to the gym opened and closed. Josh Worthington walked to Brett’s photo, holding a letterman jacket. He hung the jacket on a corner of the heavy frame and took a deep, shuddering breath.
I shouldn’t be watching this, I realized, turning to leave. I hadn’t made it five steps when a hand grabbed me and yanked me around. I found myself staring into Josh’s grief-stricken eyes.
“How?” His face contorted in rage, and he grabbed my arms, giving me a rough shake. “I saw you burn, bitch. How the hell are you still alive when everyone else is dead?”
“What?” I struggled against his grip, shocked at the rough handling and the hatred coloring his voice. Panic flooded my chest as I glanced around and realized the gym was empty. “Let me go!”
“What the fuck did you do!” He shook me again.
Surprise drowned beneath a wave of anger so intense, I actually saw red.
“Answer me!” he shouted.
“I said let me go!” When I slammed my hands into his chest, something inside of him snapped. Josh went flying backward and crashed onto the floor.
Chapter 11: Derrick
Thursday, September 15th
“MAJORITY OF THE bite patterns inconsistent with that of known local wildlife,” I read off the coroner’s report. “So what the hell are they consistent with?”
I sat on the half-wall outside the gym scrolling through the autopsy report in search of something helpful. It wasn’t casual reading, and I was not a pathologist. The line about bite patterns might be crystal clear, but gems like that were few and far between. I’d have to wait until I got home and had some major time to devote to deciphering several documents’ worth of medical jargon. And something told me Google would only help me so much.
An image of Tess’s blood-soaked grin flashed through my mind, and I shuddered. I hadn’t had much time to look into the science behind determining the time of death they’d come up with, but I doubted it could be off by enough for Tess to walk home.
Tess wasn’t fast, the terrain wasn’t even, and the lighting wasn’t good that night. But even an incredibly unlikely consistent ten-minute mile would take what? Five hours?
A crash in the gym sent me leaping to my feet. Tess burst out of the double doors and slammed into me.
I stumbled back, grateful when the cement half-wall separating the sidewalk from the grass stabilized me. “What happened?” I brushed my fingers against the angry marks decorating her arms. Fingerprints?
Rage, pure and visceral, flashed through me in such an intense wave, I almost missed her next words. But a single name pulled my focus back with a blistering intensity.
“Josh.” Her voice sounded muffled from speaking into my shirt. “He . . . grabbed me, and I—”
“Stay here,” I told her, breaking free from her embrace.
“No, Derrick.” She shifted, blocking my path to the door. “You don’t understand. I . . . I think I really hurt him.”
“Tess.” I put my hands on her shoulders, careful to stay above his fingerprints, and gently urged her to the side, away from the door. “Stay. Here.”
“Something broke,” she insisted, her voice desperate. “Derrick, I did something, and—”
“Good.” Something in my voice must have scared her because she froze, and I stormed into the gym.
I was tired of feeling helpless and confused and lost while my best friend, who’d gone through God knows what, tried to put together what happened to her. None of this would have happened if he’d never asked her out to begin with.
Josh Worthington lay in a crumpled heap against the wall groaning, but that didn’t bother me one bit. “What the fuck did you do?”
“What did I do?” He cried out in pain when I yanked him up until he was eye level. “That bitch broke something—”
I hit him. Hard. “I’m about to break something if you don’t tell me what the hell you did to Tess!”
Josh’s hands closed around mine in a futile attempt to loosen my grip as his feet found purchase with the ground. “Nothing, man, we just talked.”
“I mean at the bonfire!” Ghosts of my voice echoed off the rafters and walls. For a second, I thought I could feel the heat of the flickering candles, half a basketball court away, burning my skin. Then I recognized the fires of rage coursing through my veins. My heart slammed against my chest in violent bursts. “You never so much as looked her way before—”
“The way she dresses?” Josh raised an eyebrow and scoffed. But his cocky, self-assured demeanor rang hollow, as if he was trying to gain control of the situation through the force of his charisma alone. I’d seen him pull that crap ever since we were kids. It wasn’t going to work on me. “Dude, everyone’s looked.”
I slammed him into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of him. “You know who my mother is. I can get away with murder.” I tightened my grip as he gasped for breath. “So don’t test me. She was the only person there who wasn’t on the football team. Why?”
Josh swallowed hard, and when he spoke, his voice sounded hoarse. “Luck.”
“Luck?” I growled through gritted teeth.
“State championships were the next day, we have a . . . team-building thing we do.” Sweat beaded on his upper lip. “It’s stupid.”
“What kind of team-building thing?” I could guess. But I wanted to hear him say it out loud. To admit exactly what he’d planned to do.
“D . . . doesn’t matter. It never got that far. I don’t think. I don’t remember, okay!” His gaze darted to the center of the gym where the portraits of his dead teammates watched dispassionately.
He sounded near tears, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. My knuckles turned white as his words fueled my fury. A team-building thing? I thought back to how excited she’d been when she told me Josh asked her out. The fear in her eyes when she’d stepped into the light, the skin under her nails, the whispers, the rumors, the questions she couldn’t answer. The bodies, the death, the fact that she could have been one of them. A team-building thing.
My fist crashed into his face. He slid to the ground, but I yanked him up and hit him again and again.
Chapter 12: Derrick
Thursday, September 15th
“YOU DID WHAT?” Mom demanded, pacing in front of the entrance to the school.
It took two teachers to pull me off Josh, and I still wasn’t sure how long I’d been hitting him by the time they intervened. All I knew was that Josh left in an ambulance. “Why are you so mad at me for defending her?”
“Are you kidding me?” Mom grabbed my shoulders. “Let’s get one thing very, very clear, Derrick. Beating up that boy was not defense. Tess defended herself when she pushed him down. Had you, in that moment, incapacitated Josh and then stopped, you could claim defense. But by your own admission, Tess was out of the gym and in absolutely no danger when you decided to hospitalize your classmate.”
Mom drew in a deep breath. When she spoke again, her words came slower, calmer, and much quieter. “What you did—” She took another breath and rolled her neck, clenching and unclenching her hands. “What you did was revenge, pure and simple. And it scares me that you’re capable of such—”
I crossed my arms. “It scares you, Mom? How would you prefer I react to someone admitting they plotted to gang rape my best friend?”
“You call me!” she shrieked, losing all semblance of calm. “My God, Derrick, that’s what I’m for. You don’t take justice into your own hands and use my name to threaten mur
der.”
“He deserved it!”
“Maybe. But you don’t know for sure, because despite your complete and utter overreaction, he didn’t actually admit to doing anything.”
I gave her an incredulous look. “I told you what he said.”
“That they invited Tess along for a ‘stupid team-building thing’ they do for luck?” Mom waited until I nodded before continuing. “Okay, let’s break down that language, shall we? A team-building thing they do. Sounds like something they’ve done before, yes?”
My eyes widened. How many times had they brought some unsuspecting girl up there?
“Honey, I get you’re new to sex, but—”
“Mom!”
“That’s the part of this conversation that embarrasses you? Not your violent outburst that landed a fellow human being in the hospital?” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve raised you better than that.”
I bit my tongue, slouching against the brick exterior of the school.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “I’m glad the logistics of gang rape elude you, but since you’re launching that accusation, you should probably know that intercourse with the entire football team would land a girl in the hospital. It’s something that probably would have been brought to my attention if it happened once, much less on a regular basis. But let’s say I’ve somehow,” she waved her hands, “overlooked ritualistic group sex happening in my back yard. Did anything in his ‘confession’ indicate it would be non-consensual?”
Heat shot through my body. “Tess would never—”
“She wasn’t raped.” Mom’s expression softened. “Whatever else happened at that bonfire, I can assure you, sexual activity, at least involving Tess, wasn’t a part of it.”
I glanced around. Everyone was in class right now, so there was no one to eavesdrop, but I lowered my voice anyway. “I know, she told me they checked for that.”
“So either she said no,” Mom followed my gaze around the parking lot, lowering her voice as well, “and they respected her answer. Or karma stepped in before anything else could happen. Or third option—their stupid ritual doesn’t involve sex at all. Nothing in his statement indicates it did. You jumped to that conclusion with almost nothing to go on.” When I opened my mouth to object, she cut me off with a raised hand.
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