Page 79 of Counting Quarters

Chapter Thirty Three

Kyle — Past

Laterintheday following her death, the news about Bonnie was spread all over town. Rayner had the nerve to act surprised, mourning along with the rest of our neighbors. I was so angry at him.

This was all his fault. All of it. And he stood before our town as if he hadn’t killed her himself.

I stared at him from across the town square, watching as he hugged our neighbors and shed fake tears, making a point to question why anyone would do such a thing. And I couldn't contain the pure rage that bubbled up in my chest. Before I could second guess myself, my legs cleared the square. Without an ounce of hesitation, I was slamming my fists into him right there, in the middle of the peaceful, mourning crowd.

I couldn’t believe he’d betray Bonnie, his own friend, that way. That he’d grown so obsessed with this idea of a movement that he was willing to attack a newborn baby over it to weaken the Quarters. Every punch and kick were a promise that when this was all over, he would pay. He would pay for Bonnie, for Mason, for Storie, for Asher, and for me—for the loss of my family.

It took three large men to pull me off him. By the time they did, he was already unconscious, his bloodied face frozen in shock. As they hauled me away, I spit on him and in the most menacing, threatening voice I could muster, I promised him this wasn’t the end. That I’d happily lose my life if it meant ending his, too.

It was Officer Cotteral who processed me at the station. We hardly spoke as he filled out the paperwork, lifting his eyes every few minutes. They didn't hold me at the station for long, either. I overheard Cotteral making excuses for me to the Sheriff.

“He's just lost his friend,” he mumbled into the old dinosaur's ear just outside my cell. “He clearly hasn't even slept since walking into that house. I'm telling you, it was gruesome. That kind of thing would take a toll on anyone, especially a young man.”

I scowled at that, remembering the traumatized faces of the grown men who took Bonnie away. The two men exchanged a few more words, and then the door to the holding cell was unlocked.

“You're free to go. Go home and get some rest, Kyle.”

And I did. I slept fitfully for the next forty-eight hours, stuck between the nightmares in my head and the one that was now my reality. Rumor had it that when Rayner came to, it was Cotteral who convinced him not to press charges.

Of course, the town believed it was the Quarters who killed Bonnie, given the tension that was surrounding the new generation being born and the allegations that the Quarters were hunting Counters. They had it all wrong, though, and no one bothered to listen to me as I tried to explain the truth of what really happened.

Rayner took the opportunity to feed that narrative and push his agenda on everyone. And since the Quarters were untouchable, the police overlooked every ounce of evidence Mason and Asher presented them the night before, too afraid to even look deep enough to see that it hadn’t been them.

In the weeks following her death, the whispers of Mason being guilty took on a life of their own, until a majority of Beacon Grove believed it was him.

“Why would they leave in the middle of the night like that if they weren't guilty?” I heard the question asked countless times.

Not, “Why would Mason murder the love of his life?”

Despite my protests, the police labeled him and Asher as the primary suspects in the case, while Rayner and the Quarters moved on with their lives. The legal system had failed them—failed all of us.

I tried to track down Mason and Asher two months later. I did everything I could think of to find them based on the loose plans they discussed on the night they left, but always came up short. It was like I was always a step behind them.

After three months of searching, I gave up.

A week later, I drove three hours into the next town and enrolled in the police academy, hellbent on making sure something like this never happened again.

Present

Rayner was back in Beacon Grove.

I confirmed it through the thoughts of his Members. He had somehow gotten the signal out to all of them, and every single one that hadn’t been caught yet was buzzing with excited anticipation. So many more than we originally thought. Their minds were racing so fast, I couldn’t pinpoint who they belonged to.

I only knew that we were surrounded.

That was terrifying, given the fact that their thoughts also revealed what Rayner’s plans were.

He wanted war.

And as he marched through the singular road that led into Beacon Grove, his army was preparing to fight for him. To give him just that.

I wasn't sure how I was hearing them so clearly and consistently. It was like he had somehow found out about my gift and tuned his entire Movement into the radio frequency of my brain as some special form of torture. Their internal voices streamed through my head in a distracting, chaotic hum.

I didn’t have enough time to warn everyone. The thoughts whirred through me so quickly, so aggressively, they jumbled my own mind.

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