Page 42 of Together We Rot

But I’ve got my spear, and I’ll be damned if I let him eat me alive.

“Elwood!” Ezekiel grabs his wrist and his face is pure desperation. “Where in God’s name were you? You have no idea what you’ve done!”

Elwood might be horrified and distracted by his father’s words, but I’m not. I swing and he howls at impact, his fingers slacking and giving me a second reprieve. I take that moment like my life depends on it—and it probably does.

My instinct-driven lizard brain takes over as I grab Elwood and clamber out the back door and into the cemetery. Every breath I take propels my feet forward.

“You’re going to kill them!” Ezekiel shouts in the distance. “You’re going to kill all of us!”

I wonder if this is how Mom felt in the final moments. Wind barreling on all sides, flesh frozen with ice, heart slamming into her ribs.

Snow steals the road right from under us. It’s replaced in the distance by a soupy stretch of fog. I used to think it was cliché when people said they could feel eyes on the back of their neck. Not anymore. I feel the burn of eyes on my skin as we run.

The car’s where Lucas parked it, and I’ve never been so relieved to be inside of a Honda Civic.

“Oh thank God,” Ronnie cries from the front seat. She twists back and grips my arms in hers, a nervous tremble rippling through her. “I told him he had to wait. That we couldn’t just leave you here. That—”

I don’t let her finish. We don’t have time. “Floor it.”

No sooner do I say the words than Lucas slams his foot on the gas. Ice crackles underneath the tires and I worry in this weather that one wrong turn will send us careening into a ditch.

Winter makes a lethal game of driving. We drive like our lives depend on it—and this time, they actually do. It’s five minutes of gunning through the town in dead silence. Five more before anyone breathes. By the time Lucas skids into the motel parking lot, the nerves have plummeted to my stomach and two more letters are shot out from our sign.

Dad will never fix them, so they’ll stay dead forever until the last light burns out and joins them.

And by that time, the motel will be buried away for good. I stare into the trees, but for now, they are quiet.

Lucas is lucky we rarely have guests. The barren parking lot gives him plenty of leeway to violently lose control of his tires. He lets off the brakes, and we jerk to a lurching finale in front of the main doors.

I feel sick, and it’s got nothing to do with Lucas’s driving and all to do with my mother’s black-and-white “Missing” smile, her face stapled in every corner of my mind. Dead. In a sick way, I should be thankful for answers. I’d long suspected the Clarkes of foul play. I spent every waking moment accusing them of my mother’s disappearance.

I should be relieved. I’m not.

In fact, I wish she were still missing. I long for the inkling of doubt burrowed beneath my suspicion. That secure sense of what-if. Mom left on her own, but she won’t be gone forever. She’ll come back any day now, tanned and smiling and apologetic. It will hurt, but it will be okay again.

There’s no returning from the dead.

“I can’t do this,” Lucas blurts, breathless. Zero involvement in any of this and yet he’s the one losing his mind. “I cannot fucking do this.”

His fingers tap furiously at the wheel. The last twenty-four hours have whittled his sanity away, and it shows with every hiss of his breath. “I knew your parents were weird. I knew Vee’s mom was weird. Not murder-weird, though. Not sacrifice-your-son-like-he’s-the-second-coming-of-Christ weird. No, no, I tap out. I cannot fucking handle this.” He jerks his head toward the clock. “It’s Christmas. I should be at home with my parents, asleep. No. No. No. No. They’re probably cult members too, because that’s my luck, isn’t it? Giving my grandpa his last cult-y rites.”

Ronnie lets out a breath. She’d been silent the whole ride over here, but it clearly wasn’t for a lack of things to say. “I forgot. Everything is about you, even when it isn’t. You think you’re the only one going through it?”

Lucas huffs but doesn’t dignify her question with a response.

“Typical,” she snaps, the word breaking in her throat. “You’re somehow the one suffering. I’m the one who had to find out that my mom and Elwood’s family—”

“Don’t say it.” I must’ve bitten my tongue at some point. I speak and blood wells with every word. “Please, don’t say it.”

Her anger fizzles at my request and the heartbreak that shows after says it all.

Meanwhile, Elwood says nothing besides me. He can’t look me in the eyes.

Kevin is the first to speak again. “What did the sheriff mean about you being dangerous, Elwood?” he interrupts. “They kept saying that.”

“Dangerous to be around, maybe,” Lucas mutters before quickly backtracking a second later. Hard not to with the clear anguish breaking over Elwood’s face in the rearview. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry; it’s not your fault, man. You should call the state police, or I don’t know. There’s gotta be a higher-up somewhere.” He rests his head on the steering wheel. “But what I mean is, I don’t think I can do this. Not anymore.”

“Oh, I get it. You’re done caring.” I channel every ounce of emotion into rage. Spite is an easier companion than sorrow. “You’ve helped enough to earn a Good Samaritan badge on your Boy Scout vest and now you don’t give a shit about us. Cool. That’s fine.”

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