Page 66 of Together We Rot

“If you’ve come to stop me, you’re too late,” I tell him. I don’t care if each word plants a bullet in his chest. I’m not going back with him. I can’t. The wind picks up and that earlier confidence drains right out of him.

“Please.” His voice has grown weaker, less demanding and more pleading. His lips quiver and I see my grief manifested back in him tenfold. I force myself to look away. “Please don’t do this. We can move out of this horrible town. I’ll take any job and we’ll find a place—”

“No.” I’m calmer now, but I’m not backing down. “I don’t have a choice. I can’t lose him.”

“I can’t lose you,” he counters, and those four words squeeze at my resolve. I force myself to be firm. “I’m going. You can’t stop me.”

He pales even further at that, and I can see him running the idea over in his mind. His eyes are penetrating; they chip me down to my core. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” But I’m not the only stubborn one in the family. I can tell there’s no arguing with him by the sharp set of his jaw alone.

“I’m coming,” he repeats, with no room for argument. I gotta say, I’m shocked to see him standing strong on this. And dare I say... proud?

“You’re in luck, Mr.Greene, my car holds five,” Lucas chimes in, effectively breaking us out of our emotional side huddle. “And the sooner we get out there, the better.”

He doesn’t have to explain why. All the missed time weighs on me already, but I force myself to drown out the what-ifs.

I’ll find you, Elwood. I promise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ELWOOD

Nature is violent.

Some wasps stalk their prey in flower beds, chopping them into tiny pieces with their mandibles. Others live in burrows beneath the earth, dragging prey underground for their children to feast upon.

And then there’s my father.

He’s come to watch me squirm one last time before devouring me. In his eyes, I’m nothing but an unfortunate moth, one that flew too close. They’re the natural prey for praying mantises, moths. I never made the connection before, but now it’s all I can think of. It’s nature’s explanation for me dying by his hand. And even God doesn’t interfere with the natural world. He’s the one who designed it.

“So where is my mother?” I ask. “I thought she would enjoy this sort of thing.”

He scowls in response. “She didn’t care to watch.”

“She’s never had a problem with it before.”

My mother, the spicebush swallowtail. Butterflies are violent, too. Caterpillars have been known to cannibalize one another from time to time. They do away with the competition, killing their kin in an effort to stay alive.

Father strikes a match and lights one of the mounted torches along the wall. It’s grown impossibly dark down here, cold enough for my breath to hang in a permanent stubborn cloud. He straightens himself up, wiping the dust off the sides of his robes. He blinks slowly, peering at me from bulging, sadistic eyes.

“So it’s time for me to die?” I taste every syllable as I ask it, the rotten curve of letters in my mouth. The dark shell of the seed shines through, accompanied by a pathway of green roots snaking through my ribs. It’s no longer hidden within me, my skin growing more transparent by the second.

“I’ve come to plant you,” my father answers, and his calloused palm smooths back my hair. I shudder beneath his touch, especially as he cradles my face. His thumbs hover close to my eyes. He could gouge them out easily. “You’re a seed, after all.”

I flex my fingers into fists. “Then let’s get on with it.”

With a nod, my father unshackles me. When one restraint is removed, another one is put in its place. My hands are bound tightly behind my back.

We carry forward under the dark earth. All this time, the rot has been spilling upward from these tunnels. It’s noxiously potent down here. So many bones encased in the frozen dirt, bodies worn away to nothing. There must be hundreds, if not more.

“Fertilizer,” he whispers as if it’s amusing. “It’s a funny thing in Pine Point. The cemeteries are empty and they don’t have the slightest idea. Their bodies are wasted on them. They’re better served down here.”

I fight the bile slithering up my throat. Maybe it’s vomit; maybe it’s the tickling stem of a weed shooting upward.

“How far do these tunnels go?” I ask, and my voice sounds strange. It’s got a scratchy quality. Less like a voice, more like the scrape of a branch.

“As above, so below,” my father answers cryptically, but he isn’t looking at me. He’s just staring ahead. “We’re the roots of this forest.”

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