45
ANSON
I woke in my bed back at the Quick, covered in sweat.
My sheets were tangled around my feet, and my clothes from the night before were piled on the floor at my side.
I woke with no memory of returning. The last thought I could grasp was running around that cottage, dabbing drops of glue on each of the window seams and door jams. Single drops, as Twill instructed.
There was nothing in my head after that, like the memories had been erased, and as my eyes snapped open, even my memory of the last window began to fade.
I couldn’t help but wonder—had it all been a dream?
Part of it? I knew there was some truth to it, evident by the first voice I heard. What he said.
“You were out with her all night, weren’t you?”
I swiveled my head to find Vincent sitting on the edge of the empty bed to my right, fully dressed, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. As I sat up, he handed it to me.
I wasn’t much of a coffee drinker, but I’d never been known to turn it down. Caffeine was a siren’s song after a night of little sleep. This particular blend carried a hint of vanilla. It tasted fantastic, and I nearly drank half before lowering the mug from my lips.
“I spit in that,” Vincent told me, stone-faced. “Twice. Big ol’ snotty loogies.”
I waited for him to laugh, when he didn’t, my stomach twisted into a knot and threatened to expel whatever it could. Somehow, I managed to hold things back. I didn’t know what this was, but something in the back of my head told me not to show weakness—not with Vincent, not now.
I carefully set the mug down on the corner of the dresser next to my bed and responded with a phrase Paul was fond of saying. “That was a dick move.”
Normally, I would never use such language, but in my years on the planet, I’d learned it’s always best to speak in the tongue of the locals, even when it’s beneath you.
“Twill is off limits.” Vincent’s voice remained flat. Uncharacteristically calm, he retrieved a folded sheet of paper from his back pocket and tossed it at me.
A drawing of Libby.
One of Paul’s sketches.
Possibly the best sketch he’d done yet. Libby was standing at the mouth of the barn back at Finicky’s, her hair swept to the side by the wind, this half smile on her face.
Her eyes looked so lifelike that the image could have been a photograph.
She was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a white button-down blouse.
At the sight of her, I forgot all about the tainted coffee.
A lump formed in my throat and my eyes grew moist.
“Holy shit.” Vincent’s mouth fell open. “Is Anson Bishop actually having an emotional reaction?”
“When did he draw this?” I managed, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his comment.
“Who the hell knows with that guy. At least she’s got clothes on. The point is, we’re here for Libby, Tegan, and Kristina. You keep losing focus on that and we’ll never find them. Twill is bad news; you need to stay away from her.”
“There’s nothing going on between me and Twill.”
With that, he laughed. “Like you could handle a girl like her. You’ve had sex, what?
One time? With Libby, no less. Over within ten seconds of getting your dick out of your pants.
Paul told me all about it. Libby’s safe; Twill is not.
You don’t go from a bike with training wheels to a tricked-out Harley.
You gotta get some practice and work up to it.
Twill is like a praying mantis. She might throw you a mercy fuck, but she’ll just as easily bite your head off when she’s done with you. You don’t mess with her.”
“It’s not like that.”
“I don’t give a shit what it’s like.” He jabbed his finger into the drawing. “Get your head in the game.”
I remembered the look that passed between Vincent and Twill back at the hospital, and I said something I probably shouldn’t have. “Is there something going on between you and Twill? Is that what this is really about? Because that’s what it seems like.”
Vincent glared at me, his face growing red.
As much as I wanted to, I didn’t break eye contact. “I think something happened between the two of you and seeing her again is bringing it all back.”
“I’m looking out for you.”
“You sound like a jealous boyfriend.”
He got to his feet, and I thought he might take a swing at me, might leave, maybe both. Instead, he turned his back and lowered his voice. “Back at Finicky’s, we think Twill killed one of the other kids. A boy named Mathew.”
“Mathew?” I’d never heard the name. My mind’s eye flashed to all the photographs on the wall leading up the staircase. All the kids who had been there before me. I imagined he was up there somewhere.
“He was older,” Vincent went on. “Seventeen going on eighteen. About to age out. Rough. Gangbanger from Assbackward U.S.A. Big dude. At least six-one and pushing one-eighty, on his way to two hundred and twenty. From the moment he got to Finicky’s, he fixated on Twill.
Hardly ever spoke, but he’d stare at her.
Follow her around. Generally creeped her out.
If he laid a hand on her, none of us ever saw it, but he seemed like the kind of guy who would.
Even Finicky was scared of him, and that’s saying something.
She’d lock her bedroom door at night. All the girls did.
That’s the only time I remember them doing that.
Then one night comes, and Twill comes downstairs in shorts and a cut-off top, looking hotter than any of us had ever seen her.
I figured Welderman and Stocks were picking her up; she was dressed for a date or something, but no.
She said she was going for a walk. She went outside and vanished into the cornfield.
Mathew went out right behind her. Did nothing to hide the fact he was following her.
He stepped out into the corn, too.” Vincent went quiet for a few seconds.
“The next morning, Twill was at breakfast, and Mathew was not. None of us ever saw him again. Paul and me even looked—we went up and down those corn rows systematically, one at a time, and found no sign of him. I’m sure he’s out there, though.
Feeding the corn. Buried with all the other bodies Welderman and Stocks planted over the years. ”
“Maybe she was defending herself.”
Vincent huffed. “She led him out there and he didn’t come back.”
There was more to it, I could tell. Even without seeing Vincent’s face, I knew he was holding something else back. I thought I’d have to push him, but a moment later, he went on.
“The night Paul and I searched the field,” he said, “I woke up and found Twill on top of me. Fucking me. When I went to throw her off, she pressed a knife to my neck and said, ‘You’re done looking for Matty. I catch you out there again, and I’m telling Kristina you put your dick in me.
Before that even registered, she got off of me and left my room.
” Vincent turned back around and faced me.
“You tell anyone any of that and I’ll rip your fucking head off. ”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I said nothing at all.
After a long moment, Vincent started for the door. “Get dressed and come to the Kid’s room. He found something.”