“Ray, get her away from there, I’m calling the cops,” Kerrie pulled out her phone to dial 911.

“C’mon, babe. Let’s go.” His voice was tender. I desperately swallowed to get the taste of Xanax out of my mouth, but without a drink, I didn’t see any hope in that.

I let him peel me off the ground, my black jeans sticking to my knees where Matthew’s blood had seeped into the thick denim. I shimmied as I tried to pry the fabric loose without having my hands anywhere near the blood.

“Yes, hello? My name is Kerrie Jeffers. My friends and I just found Matthew Radanelli.” Kerrie’s voice shook with every word—so much so that she repeated herself a moment later.

“I don’t want to stay here,” I whispered from my hunched position near Ray’s armpit.

“I know, I know,” he said. “But we have to. We’re witnesses.”

“Shit,” a soft curse from Samuel threw our attention and Kerrie’s. She shot him a glare and headed off a few feet down the path as she spouted off where we were and what we had found in as much detail as possible.

I watched in awe of her. How could she be so calm with our friend’s corpse just a few feet away? My heart was pounding in my ears as she was describing entrails like she was giving a book report in class.

“How can she do that?” I whispered up to Ray.

“Because someone has to,” he answered before turning to Samuel. “What’s wrong?”

“Betty,” was all Samuel said as he pointed to the discarded knife on the edge of the path.

“Fuck,” Ray’s face fell. There was no way Sheriff Doonan would let Ray keep a knife at his age—especially with how massive she was. Betty was one of those old Rambo knives with the hollow handle and a shitty little compass on the end. Something all boys should have according to Ray’s dad, Frank.

“Hide her, dude,” Samuel motioned for Ray to pass me over to him, like I was a human football, so he could save Betty. I didn’t want to let go. Ray was my security blanket. However, I also didn’t want to be responsible for Ray losing Betty.

Reluctantly, I stumbled to the waiting arms of Samuel. It was something I never saw myself doing. He had tried his routine on me when I first arrived, and I had turned him down as soon as I heard some girls talking loudly about how he had just been with one of them the previous week.

Samuel brought me close to his solid body and stretched his fuzzy cardigan around me. He buttoned it shut, leaving my head and shoulders free, and wrapped his arms around me.

I frowned at the proximity along with Ray who didn’t look happy. His usually kind eyes were shooting daggers at Samuel who took the change in demeanor in stride and shrugged. They never fought and I was worried with tensions being so high that this would break their streak.

After seeing that Ray’s glaring wasn’t going to change the situation, as Samuel hadn’t moved an inch other than to shrug, Ray put some pep in his step and retrieved Betty from the ground after wiping off the blade in the pine needles. He then loosened his belt and slid the knife carefully into his pants. He cinched the belt tight to keep it from moving further and pulled his windbreaker low.

Ray turned to us, bushy eyebrows raised expectantly as he motioned to the side of his body where betty was hidden.

“See anything?”

“Nope, you check out,” Samuel assured him.

I was about to respond with an affirmative when my nose caught a whiff of rot. It was the scent of Matty’s corpse mixed with garbage, sweat and sulfur. My nose scrunched as did Ray’s.

“The fuck is that smell?”

I tried to shrug by I was trapped. I hadn’t been around a dead body before, so I didn’t know if this was normal or not—or how long Matty had been in the bag for, but this was a hot smell. A wet smell. Not one I felt was normal for an end-of-Winter night.

A movement in the woods over Ray’s shoulder caught my eye. It was over twice my height at least, and a sickly gray color. Its legs were elongated and rickety looking. Its arms were just long tentacles whose ends writhed on the ground.

As my gaze went up it’s naked form, I noticed a distended gut, and a hollowed chest. Every bone was visible under taut leathery skin. When it moved the space around it seemed to shudder as if the air itself was disturbed by its presence.

Another scream erupted from my throat as soon as I got to the bald bulbous head of the creature. The vertical mouth bisecting its head was wide open and pointed right at me.

The scream had no sooner left my mouth when the air shuddered again, looking like someone pressing into clear plastic. At the height of the distortion, the creature disappeared leaving nothing but the inky blackness of the forest behind it.

“Woah!” Samuel jumped at the sound of my scream, and stumbled back a few steps taking my trembling form with him, the heels of my boots dung into the soft earth as he moved back.

I struggled against the cable knitting of his cardigan. I wanted to get as far away from here as possible. I didn’t care if we were witnesses, or whatever. I just wanted to be out of the damn woods.

“The fuck, dude,” Ray looked between us and the spot in the woods I was fixated on. Not able to spot anything out of the ordinary, he turned back to the two of us.

I continued to flex and push against my fabric prison and the bulk of Samuel’s arms. Maybe I had finally snapped.

Ray jogged to where Samuel stood and tried to keep me in place. It didn’t phase me in the slightest. My eyes stayed on the spot in the forest where the creature had disappeared. The smell, though fainter, still lingered around us—and I wasn’t all too sure it wouldn’t pop back up again.

Ray cupped my face in his hands and forcibly moved my head to look at him. My eyes strained as they tried to keep watch off to Ray’s left.

“Soph. Sophia,” Ray’s thumbs gently wiped tears off my face. “Come on, babe, you gotta calm down.”

My body stilled at his command though every muscle was still tense as it waited for my release so I could run. Samuel’s arms relaxed slightly giving me a bit of room to work with. It seemed like he was putting his trust in me to stay in place.

Just then, the wail of police sirens cut through the silent night. Not just a few, from the cacophony the entire Sheriff’s station was headed our way.

I had just enough space now that if I ducked out quick enough, I might be able to escape and get the fuck out of here and back to the safety of Janice’s house and avoid the cops. I would curl up with the boys and put on that stupid fish movie again for a palette cleanser and wait for sleep to come.

“Should I let her go?” Samuel asked from above me.

“No, just keep her there. That way she can’t run.” Samuel’s arms locked down again before I had the chance to make my move.

The discomfort in Ray’s voice didn’t go unnoticed, and though I was terrified, some small part of me felt bad. He just gave Samuel the go ahead to keep me pressed against his body, which meant Ray must be really worried about me. Well, at least more than he was about Samuel getting hands-y.

We had spoken before about trust, especially concerning the other males in the group and I told him the only way to build it was to test it. I would never do anything to betray Ray’s trust—I just needed his insecure ass to see it.

The beam of a flashlight blinded me. Kerrie returned and flipped her phone shut as the shrill scream of the sirens grew. They had to be nearing the turn off for the school.

“Is she going to be okay?” Kerrie asked as she pointed the beam down to my feet. “What did she take?”

“Anti-anxiety,” Ray’s offhanded response was immediately noticed by Samuel who piped in:

“Wait—she has the good stuff and she didn’t share?” His brawny arms contracted around my middle forcing a small gasp of air out of me. “What gives?”

“She needs it,” the ire in Ray’s voice was ill-concealed. “There’s…stuff, okay? Stuff you and Ker don’t need to know but trust me. She can’t afford to share.”

“Shit, alright. Calm your tits, I was kidding.” Samuel’s chin knocked into my head as he looked down at me. His tone changed completely from his loud joking voice to his usual soft pattern of speech:

“You’re safe, Soph. I swear. The cops are almost here.”

“Here, turn her away from Matty,” Ray instructed and took a hand from my face to guide Samuel back to Kerrie and the center of the path as the sirens barreled down on us.

My head turned the opposite of my captor as I tried to keep my gaze on the woods beyond, but Samuel’s shoulder eventually blocked my line of sight.

As soon as the cable knit obscured my view of where the creature was, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I blinked to moisten my dry eyes and shifted my focus to Kerrie wo was assessing me from a short distance beyond Ray.

She looked uneasy and I was pretty sure it wasn’t all due to the body on the side of the road. I had gone to great lengths to keep my instabilities private for this reason.

“You okay, Ker?”

“I dunno…are you okay?” She looked like she was going to step closer to see me, but then thought better of it. “You freaked me out.”

“I’ll be okay,” I assured her. I felt the Xanax enough that I could sense my muscles slowly unclench as I relaxed into Samuel’s chest and got a disgruntled ‘humph’ in response.

I was about to request my release from my makeshift cage when all four of us were bathed in the yellowed headlights of a conga line of Sheriff’s SUV’s and cruisers.

I screwed my eyes shut since I was unable to cover them with my hands as the others did. The screaming of the sirens bouncing through the trees had been growing during our conversation and now it was near impossible to hear anything.

Samuel backed us up to the chain link to give the Sheriff and her deputies more room to maneuver. Ray and Kerrie followed suit after the first SUV nearly clipped her on its way to park.

I counted eight cars when all was said and done. They were all lined up on the far side of the path, opposite Matty’s body. The sirens shut off one by one leaving a ringing in my ears. The red and blue lights lit up the area so much that our flashlights no longer seemed necessary.

The driver’s door of the fourth cruiser down swung open to reveal Sheriff Doonan wearing her puffy fur collared jacket over a tan uniform. Her long blonde hair was bulled back into a severe bun under her state issued hat. There was something off about her though…she didn’t look as pissed as she usually did.

Doonan’s dirty black shoes kicked up dust as she B-lined to us practically shoving one of her deputies out of the way as he exited from his own cruiser.

I suddenly felt very exposed for being trapped in a sweater as her intense gaze locked onto the four of us. We were now all lined up as we prepared for the verbal beating, we were sure to get for breaking curfew.

“You kids okay?” The Sheriff’s concern was off-putting. Usually she couldn’t give two shits about any of the kids in town. To her we were generally a nuisance that made her job harder.

“Not really,” Kerrie mumbled, head bowed.

“Been better,” Samuel added.

Doonan looked to her left at Matty’s body and even in the red and blue light of the chain of cruisers, I could see the lights take on more of their full hue as the color drained from her face.

“Fucking hell,” she grumbled. Doonan spoke into the radio mounted to her shoulder and requested forensics step on it before turning back to us, pity in her eyes.

“Come on, guys. Let’s get you away from here,” she stretched an arm out to guide us back down the path to the end of the gaggle of cars.

Samuel took a moment to unbutton the cardigan and released me back into the waiting arms of Ray. His relief was palpable as he tucked me under the arm opposite Betty and kept pace with me while we left Matty behind one last time.

As much as I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night around a dismembered corpse, I also felt guilty leaving him there in the leaves all alone. Matty was a gentle guy and was always worried about being left behind by the others. Now here we are showing him our backs.

“Babe, how you feelin’?” Ray asked.

“The only thing keeping me together right now, is the Xanax,” I replied honestly. I still felt everything. The terror, the sorrow…I just didn’t have the energy to react to it anymore.

“You have a prescription for that, McLellan?” The Sheriff looked over her shoulder at me, her expression back to its normal sour self.

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded. “I have the prescription bottle back at home.” The Sheriff seemed to take my word for it, but as soon as she turned around, Kerrie and Samuel both took the opportunity to shoot me quizzical looks.

“Later,” I promised. I’d been here for a little over a year and a half at this point, but I had never been totally forthcoming with the people I considered my closest friends. There wasn’t a specific reason for it, either. they hadn’t done anything to make me think they were untrustworthy…I just didn’t trust anyone with that knowledge.

The only reason Ray knew of my panic attacks and my history with them was because I had an episode at his house and had to medicate in front of him.

After that, there was no hiding anything from him. He’d always been sweet about it and constantly check in with me to make sure I hadn’t forgotten my meds if we were going out or would get me home in time for my next dose.

Kerrie nodded and turned back to keep an eye on the Sheriff. Samuel on the other handheld out a pinkie for me to latch onto. I smiled at the grade school gesture and wrapped my little finger around his.

We got to the trunk of the last cruiser and Samuel and I parted ways. The Sheriff turned to us and folded her arms over her puffy jacket.

“So…how about that curfew I set? What happened to that?”

Kerrie who buckled under the presence of any authority figure pointed straight to me. “Sophie got a text from Matthew’s number asking her to meet up to talk—”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Doonan stayed blank faced as Kerrie explained the bare bones of the situation, sans Betty. We all nodded along with her at the appropriate times while the recount of the event was going on.

“And that’s it,” Kerrie bowed her head again.

“That’s it,” Doonan repeated and widened her stance. She looked at each of us in turn as she picked apart our expressions to see if we were lying. Other than Kerrie, who stared at the Sheriff’s shoes, we all looked her in the eye.

“Okay, so that’s it,” Doonan looked to where I was huddled under Ray’s arm and her frown deepened. “I’m a little disappointed you didn’t just let us know what was going on so we could help.”

“I know Matty. He would’ve run,” my voice was sluggish but sure. “After nothing happened when he reported his dad, he didn’t trust you guys anymore.”

Doonan scowled and whipped her hat off. Her frizzy blonde hair trailed after her due to the static electricity built up from a long day of wear. “There wasn’t anything I could do. Trust me. I wanted to help the kid.”

“Doesn’t matter. he’s dead now.” My matter of fact tone caught the Sheriff off guard. Her eyes widened momentarily before she caught herself and returned to her mask of mild irritation.

“We’ll catch whoever did this,” Doonan’s statement sounded more like it was for her benefit than ours. “But first we were calling your parents and getting you kids home.”

She took out a notepad, retrieved our numbers and began to call. We all stood there taking turns listening to our parent’s muffled shock on the other end of the line. Except for me. The Sheriff tried Janice’s cell and the house line six times and got no answer. Once Janice was passed out, she was gone—but there was no way I was outing my foster mother’s habit…or the fact that I had knocked her out. I settled for playing dumb and just said she was a heavy sleeper.

Doonan groaned and scratched out Janice’s number violently.

“She can come home with me,” Ray offered.

“We’ll see what your parents say,” the Sheriff replied and flipped the notebook closed. She waved a deputy over to our little group. “Right now, I’ve got to go deal with the shit part of this job, so Deputy Gomez is going to look after you until your parents get here.”

Without another word the Sheriff stormed off back down the path to Matty’s body. Deputy Gomez took up sentry a few steps away from us.

Samuel eyed Gomez for a moment before swinging a foot forward to give the deputy a full view of his broad back.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I am not sleeping tonight.”

“Me neither,” Kerrie sniffed.

“Agreed,” I shuddered at what might happen when I eventually did close my eyes.

“Group call?” Ray’s suggestion was a valid option. However, that would depend on where I ended up for the rest of the night. If the Vena’s wouldn’t let me stay, then I would probably be chilling with the cops.

The other two nodded and we all fell silent for a moment. There wasn’t much to say. Joking felt inappropriate given the situation, and anything other than the body down the road seemed utterly unimportant.

Kerrie twisted her necklace idly around her finger and stared in the direction their parents would be arriving. Her eyes were red from crying, and I knew she was hoping her father, Reverend Don would be the one to pick her up.

Samuel had his hands jammed deep into his pockets. I could tell from the way the gray wool moved he was trying to fight the urge to play with his camera. He stared up at the sky and softly hummed this indie song he had tried to get us into a few days prior.

I slid an arm around Ray’s middle, being extra careful not to jostle Betty and sighed into his chest. I was mentally wide awake, but the Xanax was making my eyes heavy.

“How much trouble do you think we’re in?” Kerrie muttered out of nowhere.

“Not much,” Samuel shrugged. “Yeah, we’re all out past curfew, but we found Matty…so I think we’re in the clear.”

“He’s right,” Ray rubbed my back. “We saw some shit. I know what bone marrow looks like and it wasn’t from research. I think I’m getting a pass on being grounded.”

“You might be, but when Janice wakes up, she’s going to be pissed. I know how she thinks. If the cops show up again asking questions? I’m screwed.”

“Why?”

“Because she wants everyone to think she’s perfect. That our home is perfect. I already got the neighborhood talking last time Doonan showed up, and she flipped shit about that, too.” Tears welled in my eyes and I gripped the fabric of Ray’s US Marines shirt. “I can’t fucking win, man.”

“You don’t’ know that, Soph,” Kerrie leaned back against the trunk of the cruiser. “No one blames you, and Janice…” Her eyes flitted to Gomez for a moment before continuing: “Well she’s a cunt. Don’t listen to her.”

“She may be a cunt, but she’s the cunt with the ability to send me away,” my voice quaked.

Over the past couple of months, Janice’s patience with me had taken a severe nosedive. I wasn’t sure what started it, but it didn’t help when the Sheriff had show up about Alys. I had been pulling extra weight around the house with the twins to make up for it, but she still just had this weird look on her face when she saw me.

“We’re not going to let her send you away,” Ray said, but his voice betrayed him. He was just as unsure about it as I was. Not hat he had much experience with Janice. As soon as she found out we were dating, she barred him from coming into the house.

“Thanks, babe,” I rubbed his side and turned my face into his shirt ot give his chest a quick peck.

“I’m not usually one for mushy shit, but it’d suck to see you go,” Samuel added.

While the rest of us giggled softly over Samuel’s attempt to be sweet, a new set of headlights lit up the path and muted the colored lights of the cruisers.

Deputy Gomez finally moved from his spot and went to the sedan to see who had arrived. When the headlights dimmed, Kerrie straightened up from her relaxed position against the trunk of the police car and gulped.

We all murmured words of encouragement as the driver’s door to the sedan opened and made way for Birdie Jeffers, the dutiful Reverend’s wife.

As soon as she saw Kerrie, Birdie clutched her ever present strand of pearls and nearly tripped over a rock in the path during her mad scramble to get to her daughter who immediately began tearing up again at the sight of her mom.

“Oh baby,” Birdie cooed as she held onto a crying Kerrie and smoothed her hair to her back. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Kerrie just sobbed into her mother’s auburn hair wordlessly. She was finally breaking down after holding it together for the cops.

Though I knew she was sixteen like the rest of us, due to her appearance, I always saw Kerrie as being older and therefore more mature, somehow. She rarely, if ever cried. I think I could count the number of times I’d had to console her on one hand.

The rest of us just stood there while deputy Gomez radioed to say the parents were starting to arrive. We all tried to look elsewhere as the Jeffers’ hugged. I was getting second-hand embarrassment from being so close to such a private moment. As much as I wanted to move away, the ever-present deputy Gomez kept us rooted to the spot.

After a few minutes, Kerrie’s wails turned to sniffles and after an especially long throat clearing session, she let go of her mom.

“Where’s dad?”

Birdie’s perfectly lined lips pursed as she considered her response.

“He went to Morton Radanelli’s house. He…he felt he was needed there.”

“What the fuck?” Ray’s swear was barely audible. I could feel the heat rising off him as his anger built.

“Oh,” Kerrie began to pick at her cuticles, which quickly turned into full on scratching at the sensitive skin.

“He sends his best,” Birdie ran her hands down over Kerrie’s arms to her hands to stop the self-destructive behavior.

“Does he?” Kerrie exploded suddenly and wrenched her hands from her mother’s reach. Birdie backed up, grasped her pearls and glared disapprovingly at her daughter.

“Kerrie this is not the time or place,” I saw Birdie’s eyes slide over to the three of us, her first sign of acknowledgement. “Don’t put on a show because your friends are here.”

“’Put on a show’? Are you serious? I’m a human being, mom! I have feelings, which I guess aren’t allowed by you or Dad. I can’t possibly like boys and girls because I’m too young to know what I want, and I can’t be upset that my father hates me for it, because it’s ‘putting on a show’?” Kerrie’s white knuckled fists pound against the trunk of the cruiser. Birdie jumped along with the rest of us at the loud ‘thwump’.

“Calm down, Kerrie Anne,” Birdie hissed from a safe distance.

“No, this is bullshi--…crap. I found my freaking friend dead in the woods and his first thought isn’t to come see if I’m okay?”

She had a point. Though if Reverend Jeffers did go to see Matty’s dad, I could also see the importance there as well…but there was no way I was telling Kerrie that.

“We’ll talk about this when we get home,” the cords in Birdie’s neck were sticking out as we strained to keep her cool in front of us. She straightened her sweater over her knee-length skirt as if looking presentable would fix the situation.

You could almost see the smoke coming from Kerrie’s ears as she stared her mother down, torn between her upbringing to respect her elders and her mounting rage.

Another car came down the path and parked behind Birdie’s sedan, effectively trapping the Jeffers’ here for the time being. Deputy Gomez didn’t even get half-way to the little two door affair when Samuel’s grandmother popped out and shuffled her way through the loose dirt to us. she rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she introduced herself to Gomez.

“Wow, she actually came,” Samuel’s quiet surprise carried its way to the old woman and made her shake her head and mutter something. I could only catch the word: “idiot.”

“Hey, Gran,” Samuel reached out a bulky arm for his grandmother and brought her into a one-armed hug. The older woman’s face lit up at the affection and she returned it with a few simple pats on the chest.

“Sammy, don’t you ‘hey gran’, me! You shouldn’t have been out here, what were you thinking? I know what you were thinking—you wanted to know what the quickest way to give me a heart attack would be. Well getting woken up by the Sheriff is a sure way to do it!” Her light pats turned into a hollow slap right on Samuel’s sternum.

Samuel flinched and swore. The rest of us chuckled, save for Birdie who just flashed him a severe glare.

“Don’t do it again,” she cupped his chin with a bony hand and sighed heavily.

“I won’t do it again, Gran,” Samuel gave her a boyish grin.

“Good,” she turned from him to the rest of us, her old watery eyes scanned our faces. “You kids doing alright?”

“We’ll be okay, Hattie,” I smiled at the woman who always had kind words for me.

Hattie Peppard was that special kind of person who was always doing something for others. Whether it be for someone in her active living community on the edge of town, or just by painting kindness rocks and leaving them on the popular hiking trails. She always went out of her way to make people smile.

“Thanks for asking,” Ray added. Hattie waved him off with a toothy grin.

“No need for thanks, kiddo. You tolerate my Sammy and keep him out of my hair. Had to see how you were fairing.” She let out a sharp cackle.

“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Birdie scolded the older woman as she looked down her nose at Hattie.

Hattie stopped mid-laugh and turned slowly to Birdie and I could swear I saw her crow’s feet deepen as her eye twitched. “Excuse me?”

“A boy is dead. We should act with a level of decorum, don’t you think?”

Hattie nodded slightly as Birdie spoke ant tucked a strand of her dyed strawberry blonde hair behind her ear.

“No, actually, I don’t,” came Hattie’s measured replay. “When you get to be my age, you get a certain amount of clarity on the subject of death. No one reacts the same, and there shouldn’t be a rule saying you have to be all mopey and dour all the time. You’re alive. Live for Christ’s sake!

“Matthew was a dear boy. Miss him, mourn him, and continue to love him. Just don’t do him the disservice by shutting down and falling into some dark pit of despair out of some preconceived notion of solidarity.”

“They just found his body,” Birdie’s shrill voice cut through the center of the group. “They should be upset. They should be depressed. They should all be wrecks right now because of what they saw!”

“I can’t cry anymore,” Kerrie sounded ashamed. “I just…I don’t feel anything right now.”

“—And Sophie’s high as balls,” Samuel cut in with a chuckle. Hattie and Ray both struck out in unison. Hattie slapped Samuel’s chest while Ray punched him hard in the arm.

“I knew it,” Birdie muttered while sizing me up.

“First off, I’m not high—I’m calm,” I snapped my head to Samuel. “Second I have a prescription, you incredible douche.”

Hattie laughed at my summation of her grandson and reached out a worn hand for mine. I put my hand in hers and got an affectionate squeeze in return.

“You have such a spirit, my dear. It’s lovely.”

“Thanks, Hattie,” my cheeks heated up at the wholehearted compliment. Hattie patted the back of my hand before she released me and turned to Kerrie:

“Sounds like you’ve dried out your reserves, my dear. There’ll be days when you can’t do anything but, and then days where your eyes are dry as the Sahara. It comes and goes.”

Birdie’s lips were a thin line while she listened to Hattie address her daughter, but she was way too polite to cut her off. That was the good thing about Birdie—she had her husband’s reputation to worry about, so she always through carefully about her words and actions.

“I just don’t cry,” Samuel smirked, like lack of tears was some sort of feat.

“Bull crap, you little twit,” Hattie glared up at him. “I’m old but I’m not deaf.”

Samuel went red because of Ray’s snickers and took a step back from the group. A glance over at Hattie’s convertible later and I figured he was debating on going to sit in the car to hide.

“Don’t be a baby,” Hattie groaned and reached out for Samuel’s hand which he took without pause and stepped back to her side. it was cute to see him showing affection without him trying to jam his tongue down some random girl’s throat.

We rarely saw Hattie as she lived in a gated fifty-five and up community on the North edge of town. Samuel lived there with her, but he had to get special permission to be there in the first place. However, we would chat with her on the random occasion she decided to drive Samuel to wherever we were hanging out for the day.

The group devolved into small talk after that, with Birdie dutifully ignored everyone but Kerrie, and Hattie took every chance she could to make us laugh.

Hattie was in the middle of describing what theme she was going to use for her current batch of kindness rocks when the roar of Frank Vena’s huge Dodge Ram shattered the stillness of the night.

A few moments later, the white monstrosity zoomed around the bend in the path at a break-neck speed. It barely stopped in time to avoid Hattie’s convertible.

“Oh shit,” Ray paled and gently removed himself from my hold before his parents exited the truck. I relented and took a step back from him as he self-consciously patted Betty from where she was hidden. I think he was more worried about his mom would do if she found Betty, than the Sheriff.

Deputy Gomez high-tailed it to the truck. He got to the Ram and knocked on the window down to reveal the hard jaw and graying hair of Frank Vena.

After a silent exchange, Gomez backed off and Frank slowly and purposefully opened the door. He hopped down into the dark dirt, said something over his shoulder, and paced a few steps forward before he stopped to wait for Anita.

The passenger door opened for a few seconds then closed. Around the front fender came Anita. She looked disheveled. Her hair which was usually sleek, was mussed, and her clothes were even worse. Knowing Anita, she got dressed in a hurry and just grabbed whatever clothes she could find off the floor, wrinkles and all.

She floated forward, her eyes locked on Ray her nails getting nibbled as she approached.

Frank seemed on high alert. His head jerked back and forth as he took in all the sights and sounds along the path. I could feel the tension from where I was standing. It wasn’t just from Frank, though. Ray nearly vibrated with nerves as he wilted under his father’s presence.

“Frank! Anita,” Hattie turned to greet the Vena’s with her usual warm welcome.

Frank grunted, let go of his wife’s hand and walked past the group to the school. He ignored Gomez who sternly tried to remind him that this was a crime scene, and continued on like a man possessed. Gomez radioed the Sheriff of an incoming parent.

“Okay,” Hattie focused in on Anita who was just staring at Ray, nail between her teeth. “You don’t look well, Anita.”

“I just…” Anita’s head bobbed on her shoulders as she looked around at the surrounding woods. Her fingers twitched as she did so, like she was silently counting. Her wide eyes settled back on Ray. “The energy here is so wrong…it feels…dark?”

“Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Birdie muttered and moved further from Anita as she put herself between Ray’s mother and Kerrie.

“Well a boy died here, hon,” Hattie shrugged, not bothered by Anita’s statement whatsoever. Hattie habitually chatted with Anita whenever she dropped Samuel off at the Vena’s house, so she was used to the younger woman’s oddness.

“It’s more than that,” Ray tensed further as his mother approached him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the dark that changes. It’s marked my son.”

“I’m fine, Ma,” Ray leaned forward and put his head on Anita’s shoulder. She cupped the back of his head and sniffled. Ray rubbed her shoulder and sighed. “Don’t cry, Ma. I’ll be okay, I swear.”

He grinned at me from her shoulder and rolled his eyes. Of course, he would end up consoling his mother after he found a dead body.

Birdie didn’t find any of this amusing. She cleared her throat loudly to get the attentions of the other guardians and when that didn’t work, she interjected an extremely exasperated ‘excuse me’. Kerrie went red, her eyes silently apologized for her mother’s behavior.

Ray released his mother so the adults could talk. Anita, watery eyed, took up residence next to Ray and Samuel across the circle from Birdie and did her best to smile at the other woman.

“Birdie, so nice to see you.”

“And you, Anita,” Birdie replied in the most insincere tone I’d ever heard come from an adult. “I think we need to discuss exactly what happened here tonight and how this came about.”

I gulped and glanced at Kerrie who shrugged and kept her mouth shut.

“What do you mean?”

“Well one of the kids had the bright idea to break curfew and roped the others into doing the same. I know it wasn’t Kerrie who did that.”

“Birdie, what’s the point of the ‘blame game’?” Hattie scoffed. “Even if they hadn’ta snuck out, that poor boy would still be dead.”

Birdie adjusted her pearls, her mouth transformed into a scowl.

“That’s not my point. My point is, I don’t want my daughter around negative influences. My baby say God-knows-what tonight, and if she hadn’t been…cajoled into sneaking out she would still have that innocence.”

“Mom—”

“Don’t ‘Mom’ me, Kerrie Anne. You’ll thank me when you don’t end up in a detention center.”

Fucking bitch.

I set my jaw to keep from going ape shit on my best friend’s mom and from the hand that gripped mine, I could tell Ray was having a hard time not losing it as well.

“They’re kids, Birdie, lighten up,” Hattie drawled. “Am I happy my Sammy broke curfew? No. We’re going to have a long talk about that, trust me…but is separating the kids really the way to go here?”

“I think Hattie’s right,” Anita chimed in. “They went through a trauma tonight. It could make it worse if we keep them apart.”

“The church has counseling, which I can give you all information on,” Birdie rummaged through her purse and pulled out three pamphlets she held them out and waited for us to take one.

“That’s your answer?” Hattie balked. “I’m not saying I’m against counseling, and I’m not against believing in something, but I’m not sure the two mix…”

Birdie retracted the pamphlets and shoved them back into her purse violently.

“Fine…but I’m not going to stand aside and let my child be surrounded by s-called friends who can’t follow simple rules.”

“Okay, you know what, Mrs. Jeffers? It was me,” I blurted. “I got a text from Matty that asked to meet up, and I didn’t want to be alone in the woods, so I figured we’d be safe in a group. I knew we shouldn’t go out past curfew, but I wanted Matty to go home.”

“Sounds like Sophia was trying to do the right thing,” the deep voice of Frank Vena barked from behind me. I jumped and looked over my shoulder to see him walk to us just as quick as he’d left.

Frank stopped behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.

“You can’t commend a child for breaking rules,” Birdie was astonished. “Heart in the right place or not, the rules are there for a reason!”

“I can, and I am,” Frank’s voice was alarmingly even. “That boy had been in that bag for a while. At least a day. If Sophia got contacted today, then it wasn’t Matthew doing it.”

Wait. What?