Page 13 of Deviant

Once I’m safely tucked inside, my hands tremble so much that it takes me a few tries to insert the key into the ignition.

“Get a hold of yourself, Rowen. Snap out of it already,” I scold through gritted teeth.

I let out a sigh of relief when I finally get the engine to start, but just as I’m backing out of the Larsen driveway and briefly glance up at the rear-view mirror, I find Elias still standing on his porch, attentively watching my every move with that damned sardonic grin of his that makes him look both lethally dangerous and enigmatically irresistible.

A man that toxic shouldn’t wear it so well.

There should be a warning sign—cautioning to stay clear—hanging around his neck instead of that smile that promises all sorts of devilish delights.

Argh.

Pissed for allowing myself to be rattled in such a way—considering that the initial idea was for me to rile him up for my own personal benefit—I drive off toward the police station in town, knowing full well that I still have another two hours to burn before midnight when my father’s shift ends.

It’s a nice night out for a midnight swim.

As I stop at the red light on the crossroad, Elias’s left-field suggestion comes back to me in full throttle. When the light turns green, I make a left on mere instinct and head over to Grove Bridge instead.

If only he knew that I’d been trying to go for a swim for the better part of the year now.

If he did, maybe he wouldn’t have been so callous to suggest such a thing.

Or maybe he would have anyway.

Maybe he’d love nothing more for me to take a long walk off a short pier.

Well, that makes two of us, asshole.

Thankfully, when I arrive at Grove Bridge, Elias is no longer front and center in my mind.

There wouldn’t be any room for him here anyway.

Here, in this sacred place, only Nora holds reign over me.

And like I’ve done for the past three hundred and forty-six days, I step out of my car and go through the motions of reuniting with her again.

It’s like I’m sleepwalking through my own life when I’m up here.

It’s like this body is mine… but it isn’t.

It has a mind of its own, doing what it wants and how it wants it, uncaring of how I feel or wish it would behave.

Here, on this bridge, my actions are not just my own.

They are Nora’s, too.

Memories begin to assault me with each step I take, recalling all the times when Nora and I would sneak off to this very bridge at night and talk about all our plans for the future, fully knowing such a future might not ever be in the cards for us.

That’s the thing about living in Blackwater Falls—you can’t ever make plans. Not real ones, at least. Because you never know if your name will be chosen come harvest season, and all those plans will wither in dust, just like our bones will afterThe Scourgehas its way with us.

Still, there was a time in our lives when we were young and naive enough to play make-believe and pretend that we were both going to find a way out of this place and live somewhere where death could never touch us so easily.

I had no idea that, during our talks, Nora would, in fact, devise a plan to attempt just that—one that would get her and her family out of this cesspool once and for all.

A plan that, to my frightened ears, would undoubtedly steal her away from me, never to return.

So what did I do?

What did my fear… my lack of faith, contribute to her great escape plan?

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