Page 20 of The Lies We Steal

“People joke that the match is there to light his short fuse. Last year he burned down the town’s oldest Willow tree. No reason behind it. Just did it because he likes to watch things burn. Every fire, every arson crime, everyone knows it’s him. But that’s just what I’ve heard.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. Tell her she was being dramatic, silly even. But I could feel how feral he was, it was in his eyes. The way they flared and crackled like a forest fire, just waiting to tear down anything in his way.

“A lovely welcome home, I believe.” The person behind him, his voice echoing like screams in an empty cave. It bounces off the inside of my chest and his ice blue eyes sting everyone in front of him, including me. They are the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen on a human. He’s the tallest and skinner than his counterparts, but by a longshot I think he might be the most intimidating.

Porcelain skin, paired flawlessly with his charcoal topcoat, an ironed black turtleneck and plaid slacks, I was envious of how well he was dressed. Everything about him told me he cared about how people saw him. Making sure every cotton blonde piece of hair was in place at all times.

“Thatcher Pierson. Death manifested into one perfectly made human.” Lyra breathes the same way she does when she’s admiring one of her dead bugs. With excitement.

“Capable of choking you with his bare hands and not feeling anything in his cold, dark heart. He is incapable of feeling anything. Which is why, it’s believed the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. His father was Ponderosa Springs’ one and only serial killer.”

“You’re fucking joking. A serial killer?” I hiss. I thought my parents were fucked up. Psycho dad beats broke parents in fucking spades.

“Do you—” I can’t believe I’m actually asking this, “Do you think he’s like his father? Does he ya know, kill people?” I whisper because I’ll be damned if he hears me.

All she does is shrug, watching him walk every step of the way to the cop cars.

“I don’t know and it’s not a theory many have tested out. So until then, no one will know.” Still moving her eyes with him, even when I ask her about the others.

“Uh, Silas Hawthorne.” She nods, “Heir to a technology empire. Diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was twelve. Of course his parents tried to cover it up, but there is nothing that stays quiet in Ponderosa Springs. Not forever, anyway. He never used to talk much, but now, since Rosemary, he’s practically a mute.”

I fan my eyes across the golden skinned one. An outside appearance designed forsunlight that carried eons of darkness on the inside. Pretty golden, brown colored eyes that were supposed to carry warmth, but I had a feeling they only harbored demons.

“Rosemary?” I question, feeling like I was being caught up on the local workings of a gang or some killer club.

She nods, shushing me, wanting me to keep my voice down, “Rosemary Donahue, mayor’s daughter. I’m not sure what exactly happened, but everyone else says she overdosed. Silas was her boyfriend. They’d been together since I think middle school. He is the one who found her body. They all did.”

It made sense. I could see the wrath that sat upon his shoulder. The reason darkness pooled off him in waves. The loss of someone he loved had turned him into something else entirely.

I had so many questions. So many feelings. There wasn’t enough time to clear up my thoughts.

It was then the clouds began to cry, heavy, wet tears that splashed on my thin gray, cloth jacket. It would be doused soon. The cheap material didn’t hold water well.

We needed to get inside before the rain came full force, but I stayed sitting in my seat. Because the last member filtered down cobblestone steps and I wasn’t sure he needed an introduction.

I knew him.

I’d remember those eyes anywhere.

The other boys had been dressed sharply, designer clothes, wearing their wealth as a badge of pride. But he was sporting a worn-down leather jacket that molded to his powerful shoulders. A gray Henley underneath and simple jeans.

The same feeling I’d had the other night slithered up my legs, in the dark he was alluring, but in the light of day he looks so striking it takes the breath out of my lungs.

“That’s Alistair Caldwell. They’d never say it out loud, but everyone knows he’s the one calling the shots. His family owns half the town, one of his great- grandparents founded Ponderosa Springs. He fights at The Graveyard every weekend, and he’s never lost. I doubt anyone has even laid a hand on him.”

Alistair.

So that’s the name of the mysterious guy I’d seen at the party.

My breath comes out in visible puffs, the chain on his waist, the rings on his fingers. It all worked so well to fit this image of an angry boy. An angry god. Not a single emotion registered on his face except rage.

I could feel it even from over here.

“The sons of the torturously wealthy. Ponderosa Springs’ worst nightmare. They are the Black Death of this town. Not because they are popular, but because they have the power to scare people. Legends. Pretentious and they own every single bit of it. I just, I don’t know why they are here.” Lyra says confused.

They were enjoying this. Each of them. Evoking terror and questions. The student body so concerned with what it was that required them all to be led out in handcuffs. They were loving the fear. Like hungry monsters and it was the perfect meal.

“They live here, why wouldn’t they come to Hollow Heights?” I somehow find my voice enough to ask another question.

---