Chapter Seven
The road in front of us is pitch-black.
We are traveling out of Devil’s Peak toward Shadow Heads, a small town an hour away.
Harlen had mentioned that Bryce’s parents' place is halfway between both towns, up Devil’s Peak mountain, nestled deep in the bowels of the densely-packed woods.
They’d been out here a few times, but me and Jade hadn’t.
Chase’s truck slows down, the indicator signaling a left turn off the main road. Headlights in front of us pierce through the front window, and though it’s risky, Chase tempts fate and makes the turn anyway.
The whoosh of a car flying past with its horn blaring has the corner of Chase’s lips tilting. He adjusts the shifter and begins the heavy ascent up the sketchy mountain.
A spider of fear, and something else, something warm and exciting, skitters down my spine.
“Please, don’t fucking kill us,” Jade mumbles, reaching forward and flicking her brother on the ear.
His palm pushes against the side of his head, repelling his sister.
“Would be a pretty cool way to go though, right?” He smiles wider.
Jade huffs, changing the tone of her usual voice to something condescending. “Oh, yeah, real fucking cool.”
I snort, and Chase adjusts the rearview mirror, his dark brown eyes seeking mine. He pushes a long strand of hair behind his ear, his eyes deepening. “Come on, Laik. You agree with me, a little thrill before shaking hands with death doesn’t sound too bad?”
His words speak to a darker side of me. Adrenaline and heat releases into my veins, like an itch that begs to be scratched.
When I don’t reply, sucking on the inside of my cheek instead, Harlen speaks, “You crazy fuck.” He reaches forward, adjusting the knob of the stereo, hiking the volume up.
I drop my chin to my chest and suck harder on my cheek when I feel the back of my best friend's hand slap against my bicep. Turning, I find Jade staring at me in bewilderment.
“Please, tell me you don’t agree with that idiot?”
I shake my head, then force a laugh, searching for the right words to appease my best friend.
“I don’t.”
She falls back into her seat with a sigh, popping her bright pink bubblegum. “Thank fuck.”
And I don’t realize I’ve shifted my eyes to the rearview mirror until I find Chase’s already there, on me.
He smirks and mouths, “Liar.”
The speed of his truck picks up again, Chase’s foot pushing on the accelerator and when a sharp turn approaches, he doesn’t slow down, instead, he flicks his headlights off and takes it in the dark, eyes transfixed on me.
Jade’s scream is piercing, yet my silence screams louder.
My best friend’s brother knew I liked it.
The road glows when Chase flicks his headlights back on and takes a swift turn onto an off road. Jade is reaching over and clipping him on the ear again. She is berating him, and yet, I can’t hear anything, lost to the adrenaline of being young and stupid…free.
I stare out the window, watching more roads pass by. There wasn’t a shortage, and they were all littered with sharp curves and turns. It seemed to me that it could be an easy place to disappear.
The smell of weed hits my nose, and I notice Harlen sitting in the passenger seat pulling on a blunt.
I tap his shoulder and when he spins to look at me, I jerk my chin.
“You sure?” He raises his eyebrows in question. “You ever done this shit before?”
I nod and lift my chin higher. We both know it’s a lie.
Harlen passes the blazing blunt over, and I take it, pushing it to my lips.
I hit it hard.
The racing behind my ribcage slows, the jabs at my heart weakening. I feel lighter and brighter as the sweet taste drifts through my lungs. And for a moment, I wished Mom had stuck to something like this, something that didn’t fuck you up completely.
“Gimme,” Jade urges, tapping my arm. I sink back into my seat and exhale into the space above me, eyes screwed closed.
“Off With Her Head” by Icon For Hire pulls through the speakers and Jade’s excitement has me laughing out of my clouded stupor when she shouts, “Oh, turn it up.”
She’s singing and it’s kind of painful and I kind of want to scratch my ears off.
She wasn’t privileged with a set of lungs like her brother's, but she was having fun and that’s what mattered.
A smile stretches the corner of my lips, extending across my cheeks as I watch my best friend lose herself to the music, and when the chorus hits, when she slaps me, squeezing into the flesh of my thigh, I know it’s all downhill from here.
“Sing with me,” she demands.
My heart thuds, nerves billowing in my chest, and I don’t know what has me glancing toward that same rearview mirror, but I catch Chase’s steely gaze.
I hadn’t sung for anyone before, aside from Jade. It was something I kept private and never wanted to share. But anyone that can sing, knows that forcing yourself to sing badly, when you don’t, is an impossible mission.
“Come on!” She encourages me, and I kind of want to slap her.
I wasn't sure I was ready to give this side of myself away yet, but when I see how much fun Jade is having, not wanting to be the dampener, I slide my fingers between my best friends, close my eyes and join her.
But my eyes pop open almost instantly when I hear Chase’s voice hit mine.
It’s dark and deep and ragged and I reach for his gaze the way I always have.
I feel my voice fading away, quieting and softening, and he nods his head incessantly, urging me to continue, to not let go, to surrender to the music, to him, to let him lead the way.
An elbow to my side pulls me away. Jade is grinning, her eyes glistening.
Chase screams the last note as I belt it, and then softly, our voices disintegrate around the cabin, disappearing like what just happened between us didn’t really happen, a figment of my imagination.
“Wow,” Jade whispers.
Harlen scoffs in a laugh, “Wow, alright. What the fuck was that, Laik?”
I swallow a lump of emotion, any coherent words congealing in the base of my throat. I shrug, but I’m still watching Chase.
I had no idea.
The indicator ticks. I take my eyes away, stare at a beaded line of bright dotted lights embedded at the edge of a dark slate-gray driveway, a guide toward a massive modern house tucked into the thick of the woods.
Sharp black parapets make up different heights, accents of polished wood at the eaves and glistening white marble with splashed gray veined planter boxes hold overgrown greenery that falls and cascades off the edges. It’s huge, a perfect picture of modern architecture and money.
Over a dozen cars are looped around the edges, parked in the scrub. Chase pulls off the driveway, and nestles his truck deeper into the woods and the pair of headlights behind us does the same, parking us in.
And I wonder for a moment how we are going to get out when we want to leave, but I let it go quickly, realizing it's not a problem now and something we can hurdle over later.
The four of us pop our doors. I jump out of the cab last, the base of my black strappy sandals crunching leaves beneath their flat soles. I stumble and Harlen reaches out, latching onto my elbow.
“Fuck, thanks,” I laugh.
He smiles, flicking his golden curls out of his eyes. “You owe me.”
A scoff sounds from me, then I’m shoving him playfully. “As if.”
Laughing together, we walk around the ass of the truck and the four of us begin to move toward the house. Jade and Harlen walk ahead of me and Chase now, teasing each other the way they do, but we fall back. I feel Chase’s arm brush mine and I try not to shiver.
“Looks like we missed the memo,” Harlen throws over his shoulder, wrapping his arm around Jade’s neck and pulling her smiling face to his chest.
I allow my eyes to dart around, noticing people in costumes. Girls with bunny masks, others with cotton ski masks that lowlifes use to commit faceless crimes.
“Fuck the memo,” Chase replies, stepping closer toward me. He nudges my elbow, but I pretend I don’t feel it.
Persistent as ever, he does it again, and I continue to stare off into the woods.
He takes a stride in front of me and turns around, inserting himself in my line of vision.
His hands are pushed into the front pockets of his black ripped jeans, his biceps flexing and ticking as he raises his shoulders to his ears and asks quietly, “What the fuck was that?”
I smile. “I could ask you the same thing.”
My words are directed at his reckless and exhilarating driving, not the song…we both know what happened there.
“Your voice, Laik. What the fuck?”
Shrugging, I try to step around him. He doesn’t let me though.
“It’s no big deal,” I breathe.
He latches his hand around my bicep, stopping me, and goosebumps trek a stippled path across every surface and layer of my skin.
“It kinda is to me; you know what music means to me.”
I snort. “Yeah, but you’re good at it, there’s a difference.”
He laughs, and when I don’t say anything, he scoffs and when we reach the bottom of the large white and gray marbled entrance steps that Harlen and Jade have already climbed, I take the first, leaving Chase behind.
“Didn’t think you liked fishing, Laik!” he calls.
I snap my head over my shoulder, pausing. “What the hell does fishing have to do with what we are talking about?”
He grins and ascends the first step. I step backward, keeping space between us, feeling my heart rattle against my ribs.
Chase’s teeth are stark white in the darkness when he smiles wider. “Little fisher for compliments.”
I try to bite my own smile away, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip. “I don’t need you to tell me I’m good—”
Chase speaks over me, “Good?” he questions, his dark eyebrows rising, pushing into his hairline.
“Fucking good?” he repeats, taking the next step, landing on mine.
Chase is shaking his head, staring at his feet and when he swallows, he looks up at me and whispers, “You’re fucking great, Laik. ” Before taking the rest of the stairs.
I pause at the entrance of the living room.