Page 79 of Sorrow

Suddenly, I don’t feel broken anymore. Those jagged edges I’ve lived with all my life are slowly fusing together because of her. “You want kids with me?”

“Okay, this really isn’t the fucking time.” He isn’t whispering anymore, and I turn my attention toward Boo’s backup best friend as he continues. “In case you forgot, there aredead bodies bleeding on your floor, and you’re standing in the room with a cop still in uniform. Figure out your next move and talk about making babies later.”

“The door is right fucking there, Reeve. No one asked for your help.”

One look at Boo says that’s not at all correct, and the fucker knows everything that’s been going on already. “Guess again, dumbass.”

Yeah, I’m definitely going to kill someone else.

I step forward to do just that, only stopping when Samara steps in between us. “He’s right. He might be a dick, but he’s right. We have to make sure we’re all on the same page and then Boo needs to call this in.”

“Do you still want to leave, Samara?”

It isn’t until the question leaves my lips that I realize I meant it. I’d actually leave with her.

She pauses, exhaling hard. “I’m sorry, Hayes. I wish I could say I’d stay for you, but yes. I never want to see this fucking town again.”

“Then let’s go,” I rush out. “We’ll deal with the bodies, clean up the evidence, and leave.”

“I vote we torch the place. I can make it look like an accident, but you can’t pack too much if that’s the case.”

Finally Reeve isn’t a waste of space.

I meet her gaze to see her reaction, and it’s the first real light I’ve seen in her eyes since before I decided to do some late-night work. “I don’t have much to begin with. I lost everything to a fire once before, why not one more time?”

Boo holds up his hands. “Wait, wait. We can’t just leave, do you know how suspicious that would be?”

“Not you,” Samara says roughly. “You’re staying here to fucking cover for us. You got us into this mess, now you’re gonna stay and get us out.”

I shrug because none of us have an argument for that, Boo especially. “Anyway, can you torch it after we’re in the wind?”

I don’t really want to see it burn, but if she does, I’ll stay. I’ll do whatever she needs.

“We’ll handle it,” Boo promises. “Just take what you need and leave your phones here, okay? Get new ones wherever you end up. I’m gonna have a fucking field day trying to explain five missing people.”

“Good thing most of those people have a lot of enemies.”

Silence spreads as all four of us let the truth sink in. Nothing will ever be the same again — Samara will be irrevocably changed, I’m losing my home, Boo’s in for a wild ride trying to make it go away, and Reeve... fuck that guy. No one invited him.

“So what do we do with the bodies?” Samara cuts in. “Leave them here to burn, or bury them?”

Boo huffs. “Neither. We load them up in the Silverado and drop them in Bleak River where they belong. God only knows how many people they put there themselves, and we can’t risk burying them. If they demo the remains of the house once it burns, they could find them. And bones don’t burn like this.”

“I can make a fire hot enough to burn bones, but it’d be obvious at that point that it was arson. Not worth the risk.”

He’s lucky he’s actually being helpful right now. “So it’s settled? They’ll rest with their victims?”

When no one argues, I meet each of their gazes and then move in to grab Samara. “I’m going to clean her up and then we’ll deal with the bodies.”

I don’t want her to have to carry any more of this mess.

34

Bleak River churns wildly as it washes my sins downstream. It’s unnatural, this river. It doesn’t behave like it’s supposed to. Never frozen, never stopping. No one’s even sure where it leads. It wraps around our town like a noose and travels on, wherever it pleases.

Maybe I have something in common with this river after all. I too, managed to thaw out in this arctic hellscape. We’ve got secrets buried deep, and chaos on the surface. I too, wrapped myself around this town like a noose and wish to travel on.

We’re also wildly misunderstood. The river isn’t evil, and neither am I. It’s the people who surround us, poisoning us and twisting our natures. We were forced to be what we are — the river, a resting place for the dead, and me, the personification of acurse. But while Bleak River’s original name was lost to time, mine won’t be. Married or not, I’ll live the rest of my life as Samara Sarro since that’s who I became tonight. But Samara Radley won’t fade. The little girl who clutched her pet rock and let hope for the future fill her chest will never die, never be forgotten.

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