Chapter 36 Vale
Vale
As I wait for Quentin outside the police station, I absently scroll through social media, taking in all the shocked, grief-stricken, and, of course, conspiratorial posts about what happened tonight.
Tim McPherson.
I didn’t know the guy beyond his name and the fact he was a senior and on the wrestling team. He might as well have not existed until tonight, as far as I’m concerned.
Now, as a dead guy, he’s more popular than ever. A friend of everyone’s. A nice guy. The life of the fucking party, with a smile that could light up a room.
I snort under my breath, locking my phone. Reaching for the dial on the radio, I crank up the volume to the SH4RD song playing through my phone’s Bluetooth.
Leaning back, I roll my head around until I feel a satisfying pop in my neck. I crack my knuckles next and inspect my nail beds for any lingering traces of dirt.
It’s now been two hours since the body of a Grady Prep senior was found slain in the mines.
A little over an hour since Quentin drove me to the station.
Twenty minutes, give or take, since I gave my statement, clearing not just Aston’s name, but my own. Not that I was even on the radar as far as possible murder suspects go…
After I was dismissed, Quentin handed me the keys to his Navigator—he drove us together—and told me to wait in the car while he hung back to make sure everything was sorted out in a timely manner.
Nothing like the threat of a damn good defense attorney to get the ball rolling. Otherwise, Aston would’ve likely been kept here overnight, under the guise of paperwork. Any excuse to make their failure to adequately investigate a crime feel worth the time. As if it’s his fault they jumped the gun.
From the moment they pulled up at the mines, people started pointing fingers, all too happy to provide the cops with every bit of gossip they’d heard since Aston’s arrival.
“I heard he pulled a knife on someone at a party! Who does that? It has to be him.”
“I heard he murdered his own father. Stabbed him over a hundred times. In the FACE.”
“Yeah, he pulled a knife on me once. Even drew blood before I was able to disarm him. I was so badass.”
“Someone told me that he was sent to Ashwood because he tortured and killed kittens as a kid. And everyone knows that’s the first warning sign of a psychopath!”
“My uncle’s best friend’s girlfriend’s brother works at Ashwood. Said they should’a never let that monster loose.”
“He’s cute…but he’s also kind of scary. Definitely scary. Way more scary than cute.”
“He doesn’t have any friends. He’s a freak.”
It also didn’t help that, apparently, Aston had a small altercation with the victim earlier tonight. At least, according to some chick’s social media post.
He pulled a knife on him! Threatened him while we were riding down into the mines.
Tim thought maybe it was a fake knife, so he didn’t take it too seriously.
Tim didn’t deserve this! No one does!! Aston St. James needs to be locked up for life!
!! He’s a threat not just to his town, but to humanity as a whole.
I’d rolled my eyes extra hard at that last part.
Last I looked, the post was already shared over fifty times. Commented on at least a hundred.
And the ironic thing is the girl doesn’t even go to Grady Prep. She’s from Crowley High. But apparently she’s dating a friend of McPherson’s. A friend, who was happy to back her story up, along with the others who apparently shared the same mine car.
How they knew it was Aston under his costume, I have no idea. They didn’t say. Maybe he didn’t wear the mask going down. Or he gave himself away somehow. Or it was just a damn good guess, seeing as there’s only one knife-wielding whack job living in Crowley.
Or so everyone thought…
And it’s not like he’s ever pulled that thing out at school, with the exception of when I ran into him in the bathroom weeks ago. Otherwise, he would’ve been long gone before tonight. He’s an idiot, but he’s not as oblivious and careless as he makes himself out to be—that much I’ve gathered.
No, he sealed his fate the night at the Furnaces, after the Bell Game.
Before he even started going to school with us.
And while the guys and I did our best to get all video evidence of what went down that night removed from witnesses’ phones, it’s only a matter of time before someone can’t help themselves and broadcasts it across the internet, regardless of the risks to the team.
“How are you so certain it wasn’t him?” Quentin had asked when I called him after the cops let everyone go, shifting immediately into lawyer mode and playing devil’s advocate. He knew as well as I did that is was highly unlikely this was Aston’s doing.
I was supposed to head to the Furnaces but lied and told my friends I had to run home first. Figuring by the time they realize I never showed, they’d be too wasted to care…
“The victim’s throat was slit,” I say into the empty car, stalling.
“And Aston wouldn’t do that because…” Quentin’s voice filters through the speakers.
“It’s too…organized. Planned. Whoever did this wanted to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
“You know that won’t be enough to clear him. He needs an alibi,” Quentin tells me pointedly, his tone almost gentle, like he knows where this is heading. Why else would I have called him if I wasn’t one-hundred percent confident he could help.
Jaw working, hands squeezing the wheel, eyes fixed in a glare on the narrow, empty back road, I tell him succinctly. “He has one. Me.”
I floor the gas, the engine surging, tires squealing—
Back in the parking lot of the police station, movement up ahead catches my attention through the windshield. Pulling me from my thoughts just in time to see Quentin emerge from the brick building and cross the lot toward me.
Dressed in simple jeans and a sweatshirt, you’d never suspect he’s a cutthroat lawyer who probably just robbed Crowley’s finest of all their fun.
After all, it’s not every day someone gets murdered in cold blood. Not here. This is probably the most exciting thing to happen in this town in decades.
The car dings when Quentin opens the driver side door.
Lowering the music, I reach behind me for the belt and buckle up.
Quentin doesn’t immediately do the same once the door’s shut.
For a long moment he just sits there, hands lightly gripping the top of the steering wheel, staring introspectively ahead.
My eyes narrow slightly. “All good?”
It takes him a moment to respond. Nodding slowly, he says, “Yeah, he should be out any minute.”
Before that can happen, he shifts the SUV into drive and pulls us out of the lot. Buckling as he slows to a stop, he cuts me a sideways glance, before making a wide left onto the main road.
If he was expecting me to object, and tell him to wait, he’ll be sorely disappointed. The last thing I want right now is to see Aston.
Sure about that?
Jaw tightening, I look out the passenger side window, watching the world pass by as I kick that line of thinking right the fuck out of my head.
It’s late, the streets mostly empty, save for where some are parked along the curb of the few bars and restaurants positioned along this stretch of town. Light posts cast the night in a golden sheen.
Music continues to play quietly, one song giving way to another. When we pull into our development minutes later, Marilyn Manson is crooning about maggots putting on shirts and selling shit, and the world feels eerily empty of everyone and everything.
Our sprawling gray and black brick three-story sits dark, with the exception of the spotlight over the three-car garage kicking on when we pull into the concrete driveway. He waits for the middle door to fully open before easing in and parking, killing the engine, and with it the music.
It’s only then that Quentin breaks the silence. “I met with Aston.”
I still, relaxing my hold on the seat belt I’d just unbuckled. It snaps back into the retractor with a loud whoosh and snick. “Why?” He was only supposed to ensure he got released. That’s it.
Removing his glasses, he polishes them off on his sweatshirt. “I was curious.” He must sense my waning patience, because he sighs and adds, “I wanted to get a feel for his intentions with you.”
For a long moment, all I can do is stare at his profile.
Barking a short, disbelieving laugh, I say, “Are you serious? I…” I turn toward the windshield without really seeing anything. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“You know what I mean,” he says, voice laced with a dry sort of amusement.
“Do I? Because all I’m picturing now is you pulling a shotgun on Aston and threatening him with bodily harm if he hurts me.” I huff, shake my head, and run my fingers through my hair. “Talk about ridiculous for a number of reasons.”
“I just…I worry.”
The mood sobers, the air thickening with tension.
“Whatever you think is going on between us, you’re wrong,” I say tightly.
“Oh, and tonight was what, then?” he says, completely unfazed by the unspoken warning in my tone.
I take a long moment before I’m able to respond, unsure even how to explain it. I’m still reeling myself. What happened earlier, in the fields…what we did, what I did…
Or rather, what I didn’t do.
As it would turn out, it’s one thing to want to break someone wholly and irrevocably. To fantasize about it. To crave it.
It’s another to act on it when faced with the reality of such a choice.
And once I realized what it would take to destroy him—what I would have to do to rid him from my life for good, and that doesn’t involve snapping his neck—I just couldn’t go through with it.
I know I could have, but I didn’t.
I didn’t want to.
Not because of a sudden shift in conscience—I don’t have one of those.
No, it’s far simpler and more selfish than that.
I might like the thrill of the chase, the hunt—the whole salacious taboo nature of it all—but at the end of the day, if my prey isn’t giving as good as they get, I want no part of it.