Page 49 of Broken Skulls

“Okay.”

I work on my meal while she hums on the other side of the wall. When I shove my plate back through, she sits up, locking eyes with me.

“There’s this spot not far from here. There are a lot of dragonflies there. Would you like to go see them?”

Kelsie was the first person to show me kindness in a very long time. I can’t tell her no. “Sure,” I say, even though I’m anything but sure.

As soon as we’re outside, she leads me over to her car. “It’s not mine. This is my mom’s car.”

I blink my eyes, shading them with my hand. Everything is bright to me, even though the sun is low in the sky.

“Wow, I love it,” I say, rushing over to the Volkswagen Beetle. “It’s so cute!” I let out a little laugh. The world always looks so much different after sitting in Jacob’s room.

“She’s had it forever.”

It’s a short drive from the junkyard before she stops in front of a cabin. “This is Petey and Katie’s house. I figured we’d come here. It’s much quieter than over at the warehouse.” She points across the lake.

“What’s the warehouse?”

She waves for me to follow her down to a little dock. “It’s the clubhouse. Some of the club members live there.”

As soon as I look over the water, I see them. Hundreds of dragonflies. I lower myself beside her.

“What do you think?” she asks, her gaze boring into the side of my face. “Much better than that plastic dragonfly outside your window at the nursing home, huh?”

I nod my head. “I’ve never met a group of people like all of you.”

Kelsie laughs. “I felt the same way when I first came here. It feels a bit like entering a fantasy world.”

She sets her shoes aside, and I watch as she rolls off her socks. “I wasted a lot of time worrying that it would somehow end and they’d send me away. Take my advice, don’t waste time. These people are the real deal.”

“Including you.” I follow her lead, taking off my own shoes.

It makes her smile to see me joining her. It’s sweet and genuine. It patches a part of my heart. I’m so happy for Tank to have found someone like her.

“I’m trying to be real. It’s hard when I’ve had to be something that I’m not in order to survive. I have to be very conscious about it. It’s exhausting.”

Again, a warm feeling spreads through my chest as she listens, genuinely interested in what I have to say.

“I’ve spent so much time pretending, that I’m not really sure who I am,” I continue.

Her arm wraps around me. “There’s no better place to remember than here.”

I let her keep her arm around me as we stare across the lake.

It’s peaceful for a bit, but as the lake begins to darken an uneasiness builds and builds in my gut. Maybe they won’t find anything. Maybe I imagined it all. Maybe he got rid of everything.

“Why don’t we go up to the warehouse and wait for the guys to call?”

I nod, anxious to hear from Jacob.

I’m starting to wonder if Kelsie really brought me here for the dragonflies. I think it was because she couldn’t stand the thought of me waiting alone in that dark room. But as the night rolls on, I begin to crave my retreat in the darkness. I feel safe there.

Eventually, the women’s phones begin to ring. I switch seats, moving close to Lily when she answers hers and then pulls it to her ear.

She speaks quietly. When she notices me sitting right beside her, she puts a smile on her face. She keeps it there, tightly, but she can’t hide the tears that pool along the bottom of her big doe eyes as she listens to, I assume, her husband on the other end of the line.

“I’m glad you got him,” she says after several minutes.

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