Chapter 3
Chapter Three
T he air was brisk as the group stepped out into the evening cold. Lilia tugged at the sleeves of her fitted blazer, her dress feeling suddenly too tight against the rawness of the moment. The fabric clung to her as she descended the steps from the police station. She glanced at Augustus beside her, the tailored lines of his charcoal overcoat draping his tall frame effortlessly, his sharp cheekbones set against the dim light. It was almost too perfect—a facade that masked the roiling turmoil beneath.
The transition from the suffocating interior to the biting chill outside felt surreal, as if they had stepped from one realm into another. The station’s harsh lights and sterile walls gave way to the dim glow of the twilight, casting long shadows that danced on the pavement.
“I never want to do that again,” Eleanor murmured, breaking the oppressive silence. She pulled the cuffs of her sweater down over her wrists, her delicate features nearly swallowed by her oversized piece. Her voice was a fragile thread, easily severed by the weight of their shared tension.
The group murmured in agreement, their eyes casting furtive glances at one another, the sound of their shoes muffled by the cold, damp air. Augustus shifted his stance, his dark wool scarf tucked neatly into the high collar of his coat. Even in his quiet moments, his presence was commanding, as if he were an anchor for the rest of them, though he bore his own weight just as heavily.
“Ellie’s Diner?” Augustus suggested, nodding toward the flickering neon sign down the road. The old diner, a relic from another era, seemed to call to them with its promise of temporary refuge. “We need to talk.”
Ellie’s Diner stood as a sentinel of the past, its brick and wood facade cloaked in ivy that twisted like creeping fingers. Inside, the dim lighting cast an amber glow, reflecting off the worn leather booths and dark mahogany tables. The scent of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the musty aroma of old books, creating an atmosphere thick with nostalgia and unease.
They slid into a corner booth, the leather creaking under their weight. A waitress with tired eyes and a weary smile took their orders, soon placing steaming mugs of coffee before them. The rich, dark liquid swirled with hints of smoke and bitterness, a reflection of their turbulent thoughts.
Lilia wrapped her hands around her mug, the warmth seeping into her cold fingers. “I got text from an unknown number,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Right before my interview.”
“What kind of text?” Sebastian urged her on, his lean frame slouched against the back of the booth. His hair was starting to fall into his eyes, his tie slightly loosened, as if the gravity of the night was finally catching up to him. The subtle edge of his tone mirrored the tension that hung in the air. He was always polished, always in control—until he wasn’t.
“It was odd. I don’t know if someone was trying to scare me or knew that there was a chance I would get in trouble for lying about something. I didn’t want to worry you.” Lilia toyed with the edge of her dress. “But it was almost as if someone knew that we were hiding something from the police.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Sebastian ran a tired hand down his face, sighing.
“I just didn’t want you guys to worry. It was probably nothing—some asshole trying to scare us. Half the town was at the funeral. They all saw us get into the detective’s car. Maybe someone thought it was a joke.”
“Some joke,” Augustus murmured.
“Do you think someone knows what we did?” Eleanor asked, her fingers trembling slightly as they rested on the table.
“We should’ve gone to the police.” Delilah shook her head.
“We all know we couldn’t have done that.” Lilia ran the edge of her thumb along her cup.
The group fell silent, the only noise the soft hum of the air conditioning overhead.
“I was going to tell you guys,” Lilia pressed.
“Debatable.” Sebastian snorted, leaning back against the cool booth. “We’re all a bit too acquainted with lying. The chances of us telling the truth—let alone to each other—are about as possible as a penguin flying.”
“Lay off, Sebastian.” Augustus glared.
“Am I lying?” He raised his brow. “You’re going to sit here and tell me that you didn’t lie through your pretty boy teeth during your interview? That you told about that night, that we fucking?—”
“Please stop.” Lilia’s voice was hollow. “Arguing isn’t solving anything. It doesn’t change the fact that our friend is dead—someone murdered her. And the police are going out of their way to connect us to her death. So yes, we lied. We had no choice but to. It’s what Willow would’ve wanted us to do. It was an accident.”
“Who gives a damn what Willow wants? She’s dead. She won’t go down for anything we did. But we will. But then again, that’s what she always wanted, isn’t it?” Sebastian sneered.
Willow Montgomery was a presence. She had this ability to make you feel completely on top of the world—unshaken. She would build you up just to tear you down to get what she wanted. She was magnetic that way.
Addictive.
There was a stillness in the air after his words.
“Do you guys remember that night?” Eleanor glanced out the window as she spoke.
“She was so happy that day, so carefree,” Delilah said.
“Yeah, maybe that was the issue,” Sebastian muttered.
“We should’ve told someone what happened.” Delilah’s eyes bored into the table.
“We couldn’t have, no matter how much we wanted to. We were all completely wasted that night. It wouldn’t have gone over well for any of us—least of all Willow.”
“I can still hear it.” Eleanor’s voice was haunted. “Every time I close my eyes. All I can hear is the sound of his freaking body hitting the glass—Willow screaming. No amount of therapy or good deeds is ever going to make that go away.”
“So, what—you think someone, whoever sent the text, knows about that night? Is that what you’re saying, Lilia?” Augustus asked, shifting the conversation.
“I don’t know,” Lilia said, “I can’t think right now.”
“No one else knows about that night, and the only other person who does is dead,” Delilah said gravely.
Eleanor shook her head. “We are so screwed.”
“We don’t know that. For all we know, it’s some joke. Someone is trying to scare us,” Augustus attempted to calm her. Eleanor had always been anxious.
“Why would someone be trying to scare us?”
“We’re friends with the girl who went missing and then died. We’ve been subjected to public scrutiny for months. The world is full of sick freaks. It could be a joke.” Lilia hoped to God that it truly was a joke.
“Yeah, and what happens if it’s not?” Sebastian titled his head. “Should we all be expecting to receive some cryptic messages from the boogeyman? What do we do if someone does know what we did—then what?”
“We made the wrong decision that night,” Delilah finalized. “It doesn’t matter what you think, or what you say, nothing is going to make it better. We killed someone. We took someone’s life.”
“We didn’t do anything, Willow did,” Lilia reminded her.
“And we just sat there and covered for her as usual,” Delilah shot back.
Sebastian scoffed, shaking his head. “You know, maybe she got what she deserved.”
Eleanor winced. “You don’t mean that.”
“Maybe I do. All the hell that she’s put us through these past few years . . . maybe she just got what she deserved. She finally got what was coming to her. Maybe we need to stop walking around mourning the dead.” He pushed his coffee away and stood from the booth.
“Where are you going?” Lilia turned to watch him saunter away.
“Home.” He shrugged, slipping on his jacket. “See you guys around.”
“This is just typical Sebastian, isn’t it? You’re just going to leave?” Augustus called after him. “Our friend is dead.”
“What does that have to do with me?” His hand curled around the pack of cigarettes in his coat pocket. “Willow’s been dead to me for a long time.”
They watch as he walks out of the diner, the cool air from outside filling the space. Delilah shook her head, pursing her lips as she leaned back against the booth.
“Someone should go after him. It’s late.” Eleanor glanced nervously out the window.
“Let him go. Going after him is only going to make things worse.”
They all nodded in silent agreement.
“Do you guys remember that night?” Augustus asked.
“I try not to.” Delilah loosened her braid.
“It was the week after she found out her parents were separating,” Lilia added. “She just wanted to forget everything. I remember she wore that dress that her dad hated just to piss him off.”
“She got so drunk that she fell in the mud and she didn’t even care.” Augustus let out a haunted laugh.
“We should’ve stopped her,” Lilia whispered, “We should’ve never let her drive home that night.”
The memory of that night was seared into their minds, a haunting specter that lurked behind every conversation and shadowed their every thought. It had been a frigid, starless night, the kind where darkness felt impenetrable. They had been returning from a party, their laughter and music spilling out of the car windows as Willow insisted she was fine to drive. The alcohol had made them all bold, invincible in their youthful arrogance. The winding roads outside the town were deserted, the headlights cutting through the inky blackness as they sped along.
Lilia sat in the front passenger seat, her nerves frayed as she watched Willow’s grip on the steering wheel tighten and loosen with a careless rhythm. Delilah, Sebastian, Eleanor, and Augustus were crammed into the back, their drunken banter a dull roar in Lilia’s ears. She wanted to say something, to demand that they pull over, but the words stuck in her throat. She didn’t want to be the killjoy, the one who always worried too much.
The events unfolded in a blur. One moment, they were speeding down the empty road, taking the neck, when a figure emerged from the shadows. Jacob Finley. He had stepped out, maybe to cross, maybe just too lost in his thoughts. His form was barely visible until the last second. His face, illuminated briefly by the headlights, was a mask of terror as he realized the car was barreling toward him too quickly to stop.
“Willow, look out!” Delilah screamed, her voice a piercing cry that through the din.
Willow’s hands jerked the steering wheel, her foot slamming on the brake, but it was too late. The tires screeched in protest, the sound shrill and deafening. The car skidded, the momentum throwing them all forward as they braced for impact.
The collision was sickening. The thud of the car hitting Jacob’s body was a sound none of them would ever forget. It was a dull, heavy impact, followed by the sickening crunch of bone and the shattering of glass. Jacob was thrown onto the hood, his face a frozen mask of pain and shock, before being flung into the air and landing in a crumpled heap on the asphalt.
The car skidded to a halt, the smell of burning rubber and metal filling the air. There was a moment of stunned silence. The only sound was the rapid, panicked breathing of everyone inside the vehicle. The world outside seemed eerily still, as if holding its breath in the aftermath of the disaster.
Willow was the first to react, her hands shaking violently on the steering wheel. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she repeated, her voice rising to a hysterical pitch. “What have I done? What have I done?”
Augustus was the first to move, unbuckling his seatbelt with trembling hands and pushing the door open. The others followed suit, their movements sluggish and disoriented. They tumbled out, their senses overwhelmed by the smell of burning rubber and the sight of Jacob’s lifeless body sprawled on the asphalt. He lay in the middle of the road, his body twisted at unnatural angles. Blood pooled from beneath him, a dark, spreading stain that seeped into the crackle of the asphalt. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the sky, his face pale and lifeless. Willow collapsed to her knees, her hands shaking violently as she reached out, then recoiled from the sight.
“Oh my God,” Eleanor whispered, her voice barely audible over Willow’s sobs. “Oh my God, what have we done?”
“We have to call for help,” Lilia said, her voice shaking. “We can’t just leave him here.”
“Call for help?” Sebastian echoed, panic rising in his voice, “Willow is drunk! We’re all drunk, we’ll go to jail!”
“We can’t just leave him!” Delilah cried, tears streaming down her face. “We have to do something!”
Willow was the one who made the decision, her face damp from her tears. “We have to bury him,” she said, her voice trembling. “We can’t let anyone find out what happened. We have to. We need to protect ourselves.”
“You can’t be serious,” Lilia rasped.
“We have no choice,” Willow whispered.
The others stared at her in horror, but the cold, hard truth of her words sank in quickly. They had no choice. They couldn’t undo what had been done, but they could try to cover it up.
They worked quickly, their movements mechanical and driven by fear. They found a secluded spot off the road, digging into the dirt with their bare hands and anything they could find. The soil was cold and unyielding, and their fingers scraped and bleeding, numb by the time they had a shallow grave.
They moved Jacob’s body, their faces contorted with the strain and horror of what they were doing. They laid him in the grave, covering him with the earth they had displaced. Each handful of dirt felt like a betrayal, but they couldn’t stop. They couldn’t let anyone find out.
When they were done, they stood around the makeshift grave. Their faces were pale and their bodies shaking. The reality of what they had done settled over them like a suffocating blanket, the weight of their actions pressing down on them.
“We can’t speak of this,” Willow said, her voice hoarse. “Not to anyone. We take this to our graves.”
They nodded, their faces haunted. The night seemed to swallow them, the stars above cold and distant, as if mocking their feeble attempts to hide their sin. They returned to the car, their footsteps heavy, and drove away from the scene of the crime, leaving Jacob Finley behind, buried in darkness.
“Maybe he’s right, maybe we do deserve it,” Eleanor murmured. “Maybe we’re being punished for what we did that night—maybe that’s what happened to Willow.”
“Stop,” Lilia whispered, “What happened to Willow has nothing to do with that night. We covered our tracks. No one can trace us back to the accident.”
“How do you know that—it very well could,” Eleanor pointed out.
“What if they can trace it back to us?” Delilah pressed.
“They won’t,” Augustus spoke firmly.
“We should go,” Lilia interjected. “The longer we stay here, the more we risk being overheard.”
They paid their bill and left the diner, stepping back into the cold night. The air felt even colder now, the chill seeping into their bones as they walked away from the warmth and relative safety of Ellie’s Diner.
As they moved outside, Augustus frowned. “What are you still doing here?” he asked, spotting Sebastian.
“Whisper, whisper, how well can you tell lies from six feet under?” Sebastian flashed his phone. “Seems like our cryptic friend decided to pick another recipient.”
There was an embedded image attached.
“What is that?” Augustus peered over his shoulder.
“It’s a casket. That’s a casket, isn’t it?” Lilia pulled the phone closer.
“Why the hell would someone send you a picture of a casket?” Delilah moved closer to see.
In the distance, the loud wail of sirens could be heard. Augustus swallowed thickly, turning to glance down the road.
The group exchanged grim looks, each of them knowing that their past sins were catching up with them. They were liars, in their own right—bound by their tethered sins to one another for the rest of their lives. It was only a matter of time before someone snuffed them out.