The Dead and the Dark
Page 22
Logan’s laugh was a bitter stab. She hadn’t expected to laugh. The sound felt hollow in her chest. “That’s terrifying. It explains how you’ve got three dead kids and no one outside Snakebite cares.”
Ashley’s expression darkened and Logan realized what she’d said a moment too late.
“You think he’s dead?”
Logan started to speak, but she didn’t have the right words.
Ashley looked out at the water. Her eyes were the color of freshwater in the hazy half-light. The breeze buffeted her hair over her shoulders. “I don’t wanna give up, but I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Hey,” Logan said. She cleared her throat, reshaping herself into someone with a softness she’d never had. “I didn’t mean it. He could still be out there.”
“You don’t think he is, though.”
Logan grimaced. No, she didn’t think Tristan was alive. But stranger things had happened in this town. She hardly knew who she was anymore—hardly knew what being alive even meant. Who was she to say Tristan was gone for good?
“I just don’t know anymore,” Logan said finally. “When I got here, I thought people were alive or dead. I thought you remembered things or you didn’t.” She traced the veins along her wrist. “I don’t know if we’re ever gonna figure out what’s going on. Every time I think I’m getting there, it gets more confusing.”
“I made it worse,” Ashley said. “I don’t know what I thought it would fix. I’m so sorry.”
Logan grimaced but said nothing. For a long time, Alejo had been the glue holding their family together. Without him, Logan understood how alone she truly was. How many days she could go without speaking, without leaving her room, without doing anything. “They’ll realize he didn’t do it soon, and then they have to let him go. But I wanted to solve this for me. I just wanted to understand.”
Ashley ran her thumb along the picnic table, considering. “What if you didn’t solve it?”
“I don’t know,” Logan said. “I’ll keep trying, but—”
“No, I mean what if you didn’t try to solve it?” Ashley shifted to face Logan, eyes wide with either fear or excitement. “What if we just gave up?”
Logan narrowed her eyes. The breeze off the lake was warm now. The suggestion sounded like nonsense, but Ashley seemed genuine. Something small and hopeful sparked in Logan’s chest. “What do you mean?”
“I could go to Paris and tell him Alejo didn’t do it,” Ashley said. “It’s the least I can do. I know we keep thinking we have to fix Snakebite, but what if we just … didn’t? What if we just left?”
“I…” Logan wiped rainwater from her cheek. “Are you serious?”
Ashley nodded.
Logan stared into her face—really stared—and tried not to cry. Because, for the first time since she’d been dropped into this hellscape, there was a way out. She wanted to understand everything happening here, but more than that, she wanted out. She wanted to breathe again. She didn’t want to be alone.
“Yeah…” Logan breathed. She laughed and dabbed at the hot tears welling in her eyes. “I think I’d like that.”
Ashley’s gaze fluttered to Logan’s lips. With surprising force, she leaned across the table and pulled Logan into her. The kiss was only a guess; it was a gentle hand reaching through the dark, wondering what it might meet on the other side. It was careful and quiet and unassuming. Logan held still, because this wasn’t the way it ever went. She was the black hole, the one always reaching, the one always starving. She wasn’t wanted—not in a real way. She wasn’t kissed in a way she felt.
She pulled away, eyes still closed. Her lips tingled in the cool wind.
“Was that…?” Ashley trailed off. Logan didn’t need to see her face to know it was contorted in panic. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
Logan cupped the back of Ashley’s neck with both hands and pulled her into another kiss. Unlike the first, this one was purposeful. It was shaking hands and ragged breath. It was Ashley’s fingers knotting in the back of Logan’s sweater. It was Ashley’s lips that tasted like freshwater and hibiscus tea. Logan pushed a loose strand of Ashley’s blond hair out of her face just to brush knuckles over her skin. Her fingertips left a gray smear of dirt on Ashley’s cheek, but it didn’t matter. Ashley’s lips parted and Logan sank into her, kissing her like it was more important than breathing.
Ashley put her hands on Logan’s shoulders and shifted to straddle her waist. Her lips moved against Logan’s frantically, desperately, like it was all she knew. She kissed like someone who’d never meant it before. Logan wrapped her arms around Ashley’s back and held her closer. She snaked a hand under Ashley’s T-shirt, raked fingernails over the hot skin of Ashley’s back, and her heart raced too fast. The world raced too fast.
Behind them, truck wheels crunched over the loose gravel on the highway shoulder. The steady thump of a country song was muffled inside the vehicle.
Ashley went stiff.
Logan pulled away and glanced over her shoulder. Her head still spun from the kiss, but the white truck parked behind them sent her crashing back to earth. She’d seen it on the gravel turnout to the cabin, outside the Chokecherry, outside the police station. John Paris jumped out of the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut behind him. Paul climbed out of the passenger’s side.
She gripped the side of the picnic table and forced herself to breathe.
“John,” Ashley said tentatively. She climbed off the picnic table—off Logan’s lap—and approached the boys. Her hands were raised in semisurrender as though she were a frightened hunter talking down a charging bear. “What’re you doing here?”
“Saving you.” John strode toward them with a confidence that made Logan’s stomach turn. He pushed past Ashley and leaned against the picnic table. Logan expected him to be angry, but he wore a strange, almost dreamy smile. He was looking forward to this. He eyed Logan and said, “I warned you.”
“Last I checked, people don’t have to listen to you,” Logan spat.
She wished she felt as brave as she sounded. Maybe Gus was right; maybe she needed to learn to shut her mouth.
“Warned her about what?” Ashley asked.
John kept eye contact with Logan. “I told her to back off from my friends. She’s supposed to leave you alone.”
“I don’t think she knows how.” Paul snorted.
“She didn’t do anything,” Ashley said. “I started it. And it’s not your business, anyway. I can make my own decisions.”
John turned to Ashley with such ferocity Logan thought he might charge at her. “I hope Tristan can’t see this, wherever he is. He loved you so much, Ash. And now you’re out here with the bitch that helped kill him.”
“I…” This stopped Ashley for a moment. “It’s not about Tristan.”
“It should be.” John turned back to Logan. His eyes were darker than the night creeping in on the horizon. “He was my best friend. Then you people show up and kill him and nobody cares. Everyone just forgets him. But I didn’t forget, and I’m not letting you kill anyone else.”
“John, what are you—?” Ashley started.
In an instant, John lunged across the table and grabbed Logan, dragging her to the dirt by the collar of her sweater. Logan fought against his grip, but it was pointless. The sweater tugged against her neck like a noose, cutting off her airway. Her calves skidded along the rocks, rubbing her skin raw and bloody. Somewhere behind her, Logan heard the lapping waves of the lake against the shore, but all she saw was starlight. Starlight and John’s face, contorted with hate and anger and grief and pain.
She was going to die.
She’d thought she was getting out, but this was how she was going to die.
“Let go of her,” Ashley screamed, but she was far away now.
John threw Logan down in the gravel, but before she could scramble to her feet, he reached down and grabbed a fistful of her hair. He pulled her into the cool Lake Owyhee water.
Logan clawed at John’s fist in her hair, but it made no difference. She couldn’t breathe. Somewhere, just beyond her memory, it came back to her.
She’d done this before.
Just as hard as he’d shoved her into the water, John pulled her back out. The night wind was hot and sharp as a whip on her cheeks and she screamed for help. She screamed until her throat was raw.
“That’s so loud,” Paul said from somewhere far away.
John laughed, hoarse and smug, and Logan knew he wouldn’t stop until he’d killed her. He was beyond stopping now, twisted up with rage and hurt. Logan couldn’t see anything but the water. John held her head steadily an inch above the water. She only saw black waves and nothingness.
“I’m calling the cops!” Ashley screamed. “If you don’t let her go, I’m—”
“Do it,” John thundered.
He said something else, but it was lost. John shoved Logan’s head back under the water with enough force to scrape her cheek over the rocks along the lake floor. Her lips parted in a gasp and her mouth filled with lake water. It rushed to the back of her throat and she was going to die. Black water closed over her vision, pulling her farther and farther into the waves.
And then, Logan was somewhere else.
She looked up at the surface of the water. It rippled like a sheet of glass overhead, distorting the moon into nothing but white light. The sounds of the lake disappeared and only starlight covered her eyes. There was no water anymore—she didn’t need to breathe.
The voice that spoke to her was cool and sweet.
You cannot die here. I still need you.
Logan was ripped out of the water again. Behind her, Paul and John laughed in chorus. John turned her over, and his laughter died on his face.
“What the hell?” he breathed.
Logan touched her cheek. Warm blood dotted her fingertips, but other than the small cut, she was okay. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been under the water, but judging by John’s shock, it should’ve been long enough. She kicked at John’s legs in another vain attempt to break free. Behind him, she heard Ashley’s muffled voice yelling into her phone.
John pushed Logan back into the water.
Come back to the place this all started, the voice from before whispered through the lake. Logan felt suspended. She was a weightless, untethered thing. She floated under the water’s surface for only a moment, but she felt time swirl past her in the black current. The voice sang, I saved you once. Let me save you again.
Logan was pulled from the water again, breathing and alive.
“Shit,” John muttered.
He released Logan and stepped away from her. She rolled to her side and spit water into the gravel. The sky was black with night now; red and blue flashed against the dark, and Logan realized that the police had arrived. She shivered, wet hair clinging to her neck. The sky and the black hills and the lake all spun around her.
Footsteps struck the gravel, and then a hand wiped the blood from her cheek.
“Hey,” Ashley breathed. “Hey, stay with me, it’s gonna be okay.”
Logan blinked up at her, but her vision was spotted with wild color. She lolled back on the gravel and took Ashley’s hand.
“We’re gonna be okay,” Ashley continued to whisper. “We’re gonna be okay, we’re gonna be…”
Logan’s eyes fluttered shut and she slipped into the dark.
32
At The Bottom Of Below
“You’re sure that’s everything?” Deputy Golden asked. “You’re making it sound like they had her underwater for over fifteen minutes.”
“They did,” Ashley snapped.
“And there’s nothing you’re leaving out?”
Ashley pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders. She hated this: hated Deputy Golden, hated Snakebite, hated the hot wind, hated the churning dread in her gut. She sat on the same picnic table she’d been sitting on with Logan only half an hour ago, but now everything was different. The bench was sweaty, the wind was hot, her fingertips were numb. Dry tears made the skin on her cheeks tight. Her throat was raw from yelling, filling her mouth with the tang of iron. The sky was only night now, stripped of the last dregs of sunset the moment John shoved Logan’s head under the water.
And she’d done nothing.
“Yeah, that’s everything,” Ashley said.
She didn’t mention the escape plans. She didn’t mention the grave. She didn’t mention the kiss. She didn’t need to. This was Snakebite—if John Paris had seen it, then everyone already knew.
She didn’t mention the voice she’d heard, softer than the wind. While Logan fought for air, a voice whispered over the water. Come back to the place where this all started. It was a low groan, just like the one she’d heard on the TV. Just like she’d heard at the cabin.
Sheriff Paris was parked on the other side of the highway. He delicately loaded Logan into the back of his cruiser wrapped in a wool blanket and gave Ashley a quick, uncomfortable wave. Even from the shore, Ashley could see the blood crusted on Logan’s cheek, the black hair matted to her neck, her smeared eyeliner. She’d warned Ashley a thousand times that Snakebite was wrong. Now, it had almost killed her.
Paris promised that John and Paul would pay for what they’d done here, but given that they had been allowed to drive themselves home, Ashley seriously doubted it.
Logan had been right all along.
There was something wrong with this place.
“Can I go home?” Ashley asked. She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes until the backs of her eyelids spotted with color. “I just wanna go home.”
“Ah, um … you seem pretty shook up.” Deputy Golden checked his watch. “Paris didn’t think you’d be okay to drive yourself. And with some of the legal stuff, he just wanted to make sure nothing bad happened.”
Ashley’s eyes narrowed. She prayed he wasn’t saying what she thought he was saying. “I’m eighteen. I’m a legal adult.”
Deputy Golden gave her a thin grimace, then glanced over his shoulder. As Paris pulled away from the lake and drove down the highway, a white Land Rover parked along the shoulder in its place. It wasn’t just any mammoth-size vehicle; Tammy Barton’s car was complete with a WORLD’S BEST MOM decal and a license plate frame that read OWYHEE COUNTY FARMER’S UNION. She threw the beast of a car into park, climbed out, and thundered down the gravel shoulder toward the picnic bench.
Ashley braced herself.
“Is she okay?” Tammy demanded.
“Yeah, she wasn’t hurt,” Deputy Golden said. “Paris is taking the other one back to the station, but Ashley’s free to go.”
“She’s not being arrested?”
Ashley gripped her blanket. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Tammy turned on her with a fire in her eyes Ashley had never seen before. This wasn’t like with Bug. Her mother wasn’t just happy she was alive. Tammy turned back to Deputy Golden and softened. “Well, I appreciate the call. We’ll head home. Call me if you need anything else.”
“Will do.”
Tammy motioned Ashley toward the car and Ashley followed.
The ride back to Barton Ranch was quiet as the night outside. Ashley sank into the passenger seat and watched the hills streak past her. Usually, they listened to Christian hits on the radio with the air conditioner on full blast, but tonight, the car was silent. Even the sound of Tammy’s breathing was subdued. This Tammy Barton was the one Ashley feared. She wasn’t soft and supportive. She seethed with a smoldering anger that was slowly working its way to the surface. Ashley felt it like a brand against her skin.
They parked in the driveway and Tammy threw open her door. She stormed into the house with Ashley at her heels.
“I’ve never been
this embarrassed in my life,” Tammy barked once they were both inside. She swept into the entryway like a hurricane, tossing her purse at the console table. The key dish clattered to the floor, but Tammy didn’t give it even a second glance. She turned to face Ashley. “In my life.”
Ashley stood in the open doorway, eyes fixed on her mother’s face. A warm, sickly breeze gusted into the hallway, but Ashley had long since forgotten how to breathe. The Tammy Barton Ashley knew was a monument—she was carved of marble, unshakeable against the storm—but now, bathed in sallow half-light, she slouched against the kitchen counter and peeled off her black heels, discarding them across the room like they’d just been caught kissing the town pariah. Like they’d disgraced the Barton legacy she’d worked so hard to cultivate. Tammy’s voice was small in the same way a star was small moments before exploding.
But this wasn’t fair.
The fear and guilt that’d been bunching up in Ashley’s stomach since the lake began to unfold into something else. It crawled up Ashley’s throat, forcing her to bite back angry tears. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “You’re embarrassed of me?”
Tammy considered.
“You know what? Yes. I mean, am I the last person in town to know about this? People have probably been talking about it behind my back for weeks.”
“Behind your back?”
“Yes, behind my back. We’re the backbone of this town. And you turned us into a joke.”
Ashley wiped her eyes. “Me and Logan aren’t a joke.”
“If it was serious, you would’ve told me.”
Ashley shook her head. Because telling her mother about Logan wasn’t like telling her about Tristan. It wasn’t like telling her about a failed test or a party she felt guilty about going to. There was an unspoken rule in Snakebite that said that this truth was different and dangerous. It was self-exile. It wasn’t the kind of thing Snakebite knew how to forgive.
“I couldn’t tell you.”