Russell’s churning emotions froze. His thoughts came to a complete halt like a computer crashing due to an error.

“But…But how?” he asked. “Didn’t you say it was dead?”

“It was—it is—I’m sure of it.” Serena wrapped her arms around herself, and she began stroking her forearm. “There was a flash of bright light, and then…”

“Dude, there was nothing in front of your truck when we arrived,” Clayton finished for her.

“Then it must’ve survived, right? That thing is still alive. That’s the only explanation for this.” Russell turned to the others. “What are we even doing here wasting our time? We should be on the lookout already!"

He needed them to listen, to be prepared for the worst. But most of his old schoolmates stared back at him like he was a crazy person while the rest wouldn't meet him in the eye.

Clayton clasped his shoulder. “What’s the point, bud? No one else here would believe it exists.”

“Congratulations, Knox,” Bradford said. “You said something sensible for once.”

A flicker of light caught Russell in the eye, and he rubbed away the frustration from his face. He looked at the only two people on his side before facing Bradford. The man was smirking back at him, his expression smug.

Russell gritted his teeth. Was that it, then? After all he and Serena had been through, should he just accept being labeled as a liar? They had run around for their lives in that parking lot like headless chickens, and they had gotten themselves trapped inside his truck waiting for death to come…all for this?

He blinked. His truck. The monster had made a pinball machine out of Big Bertha.

“Then what about my truck?” he asked, looking around. “Surely you can tell that something roughed it up."

Caleb scoffed and nudged the quiet Tommy beside him. “Look at this guy trying to claim insurance fraud. You can’t trick us, Rusty. That old truck of yours was already trash, to begin with.”

Bradford eyed his teammate. “Insurance fraud? Good one, bro.”

“Watch it, Brad,” Serena said.

“What? Tommy said it, not me,” Bradford replied, feigning innocence as the rest of the team snickered.

Russell scowled at their indifference. He needed to come up with something, but his mind was grasping at straws as his headache returned. If not his truck, then what? What else was there? Who else was there?

“What about you and Harper?” he asked Bradford. “We saw you two go outside. You were there. You must've seen something.”

“You think I saw something? When there wasn't even a speck of moonlight out there?” Bradford cackled with laughter.

“Harper, then?” Russell scanned the crowd, and it didn’t take him long to find his target.

Harper had slipped in front of the gathered audience sometime during this debacle. Her eyes barely reached his even with high heels on. And although she wore plain-looking eyeglasses and had her black hair cut short, the woman looked even more beautiful than he remembered.

He couldn’t help but notice she stayed well away from her escort for the evening.

“Harper?” he asked again.

Her light brown eyes shifted between him and Serena, then down somewhere between them. For a long, tense moment, Harper stared at nothing, then she took a deep breath and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

He blinked, not following. “You’re sorry?”

“I didn’t see much,” Harper said, her voice tinged with resignation.

“But…”

“All I saw was a vehicle heading straight for us—a silhouette of one, to be precise,” she said, her words slow but smooth, her tone slow but steady. “It didn’t have its headlights on, and it was too dark outside to be sure of anything.”

Bradford approached her and reached for her hand. Harper crossed her arms under her chest, deftly avoiding his gesture as she averted her gaze.

“I just moved on instinct,” she continued, refusing to even look at Bradford. “That's all I’m certain of. I didn’t—“

Bradford stood in front of Harper, blocking Russell's view. “She didn't see anything else. I didn't see anything else. No one saw anything else,” Bradford interjected. “Now, is that clear enough for you?”

“That’s…it?”

Snorting, Bradford turned away from Russell, removed his blazer, and held it before Harper. With a sigh, she nodded begrudgingly, giving him permission.

Stolen novel; please report.

Russell recalled Harper’s reaction; she had seen something back then. And yet now she claimed she hadn’t? There must be some mistake.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his mind growing hazy. “Are you sure that’s all you saw?”

Shaking his head, Bradford muttered something under his breath. He draped his jacket over her shoulders as Harper remained silent.

“Ace?” Russell whispered. Why was she doing this? Why was she taking Bradford’s side?

“C’mon, Flynn.” Bradford turned back to face him. “Stop beating a dead horse here. This is getting beyond pathetic, even for you.”

Russell scowled, his patience wearing thin. “I knew you still have a grudge against me, Collins,” he said, seeing nothing but disdain in the douchebag’s face. “You’ve even made it clear many times tonight.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Bradford said in derision.

“Even so, do you not have any shame?” Russell hissed.

Bradford’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

“No matter how much you can hate a person,” Russell said, “how could you just stand here in front of me—in front of everyone—and lie about what happened?”

Bradford froze.

“Have you gone completely mad?” he snarled as his wide eyes bulged out from their sockets. “You’re saying I’m lying about it? You’re saying I'm the one who's lying right now?” He drilled a finger into Russel's chest, his face turning red. “Take a look around, dumbass! Who do you think is the real liar here, huh? Who do you think sounds like they’ve been lying the entire time? Who do you think these people are still refusing to believe even now? Who?!”

Russell blinked and looked past Bradford, at the faces of the people behind him, at the faces of the crowd all around them. And Russell felt a sinking feeling in his gut.

Murmurs of disapproval. Looks of disgust. Sneers of disdain.

Bradford had been right. Russell had failed to earn their trust. He had squandered his chance to make them believe his words. No matter what he did now, these people had already judged him as a liar. It was a foregone conclusion.

The clamor of the crowd reached a new level. Nothing was going his way. He had been trying to solve a puzzle he couldn't even begin to understand. All the pieces were there, but they didn't make any sense to him, let alone to anyone here.

His story contained the clues. The events that had happened were the pieces. And the puzzle…Was there even a puzzle? Did those things actually happen, or was he just losing his mind?

He clamped a hand on his forehead. Freakin’ great. Now he was starting to question his own memories. Serena had mentioned something about amnesia or coma from a head injury. Was that it? Was short-term memory loss messing with his head?

He closed his eyes and struggled to think straight. Serena had been there with him throughout the attack. She had been there with him the moment he woke up. How could he be wrong when he had never been alone? He couldn't have possibly fantasized about them. Those events had happened.

His eyes snapped open and he stared in the direction of the lobby exit. Without bothering to say another word, he moved away from the center of the crowd and left. He had had enough of these mind games. He was done with this impromptu inquisition.

Someone stepped before his path, and the guy moved faster than anyone else to block his way.

“And where do you think you're going?” Caleb asked.

“My truck,” Russell said. “So I can show y'all what happened.”

“No shit?” Caleb smirked. “Looked to me like you were trying to leave us hanging.”

“Get out of my,” Russell said even as the rest of his former teammates formed an impenetrable wall before him.

“You're goin’ nowhere near that worthless piece of junk, Rusty,” Tommy said, breaking his silence as he positioned himself beside his buddy.

“What did you say?” Russell asked.

“Did no one tell you yet?” The former center wore an ugly sneer on his face. “Your truck’s a complete wreck. Totaled with a capital T.”

Russell narrowed his eyes. Tommy must have been lying. They were playing games with him. His truck was the only working vehicle left. It was his only way home.

“I said get out of my way,” he growled.

“No tryin’ to run away now. No, sir.” Caleb shook his head. “You'll be staying right here like a good little boy and wait for the cops to arrive."

The stale air in the lobby grew cold, and it chilled Russell to the bone. “The cops…?”

Someone chuckled from behind him, and he looked over his shoulder.

“Well, you are a suspect, my friend,” Bradford said, his smile turning to a triumphant grin. “And from the looks of it, you might just be convicted as a criminal."

It took Russell embarrassingly too long to comprehend what the douchebag was implying, and uneasiness gripped his heart. Even after he had been given a chance to explain his side of the story, even after he had recounted what had happened as best as he could, people still refused to believe him. Worse, they thought he had purposely driven toward Bradford to hurt him. They thought Russell had crashed his own truck to kill him.

Russell shook his head. How could these people suspect him of such a thing? How could they twist his words, twist what had happened, and convict him of something he didn’t even do?

“You good, Flynn?” Bradford asked, stepping closer.

Russell pressed his palm to his temple, his head aching with all the shaking. Putting aside the state of his truck, what about Bernard? What would happen once his body was discovered? Will his mangled corpse prove Russell’s innocence, or will these people find some other excuse to pin the old man’s death on him?

People started calling out questions. A few began calling Russell names. A feeling of deja vu swept through his mind, and his stomach turned at the realization—it was the state championship game all over again.

“C’mon, admit it,” Bradford whispered close to his ear. “You intended for the crash to happen, didn’t you?”

Russell’s bile rose. His thoughts jumbled into an incoherent mess. Lightheadedness threatened to drop him to his knees. He couldn't make out what he was thinking. He couldn't even make out what he was seeing. The room spun around him as his thoughts spiraled inside his head.

His vision flashed as everything turned bright. He blinked his eyes clear, but white filled his vision. Blinding light replaced the darkness of the lobby, bright shapes replaced misshapen silhouettes, and he thought he was hallucinating.

“Just confess,” Bradford hissed in his mind.

Clashing voices flooded his ears. Various sensations saturated his senses. Russell grabbed for his head and gritted his teeth in concentration. He struggled to calm down, to empty his mind of everything. He grasped for a lifeline, for clarity, for something to anchor him back to the present. But nothing worked.

He was still drowning, so he stopped fighting against it and let himself sink into its depths. Slowly but surely, he regained his composure. He could feel himself breathing. He could feel his heart beating. Yet when he finally got his mind to focus on what was real and his eyes to focus on what was right in front of him, he saw words, actual words in glowing white letters, words he could read but couldn’t understand, words occluding all sense of reality—and he knew for sure he had lost his mind.

Local dimension unsupported.

Anomaly detected.

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