Chapter 12
Indy
It’s only night three of the festival, and I feel like I’ve been here for a month. My body is exhausted, my limbs ache as I drag myself off the blow-up mattress.
Looking down, I notice I’m completely naked. My clothes from last night are folded neatly on my makeshift side table. Well, that was kind of sweet, in a creepy way.
I scramble to get dressed, opting for a lightweight sweats and a short-cropped hoodie that shows off my black square-neck sports bra underneath. It barely covers my boobs, and effortless yet comfy as fuck outfit that I can still look hot as sin in.
I’m met with my zipper not wanting to unzip, letting out an exasperated grunt, trying to be released from the nylon trap I'm in.
After a few moments of silently cursing to myself and trying to move it every way, it finally slides open.
Stepping outside, I take a deep breath of forest air and slide on my other pair of crocs, the black studded ones, before walking over to my canopy.
Pulling out the press coffee maker, I throw in some espresso powder. I move silently, making the perfect dirty bean concoction. Once my coffee is done, I grab some homemade maple creamer out of my cooler and fill the rest of my tumbler before tightening the lid and plopping down in my chair.
I pop open my cigarette pack, pulling out a THC crystal-coated sativa joint. I wrap my pashmina around me and light up. After a few puffs, I notice how bright and happy everything looks. It’s like the world is alive and I’m seeing it for the first time.
Either this joint is fucking loaded with that high-potency shit, or it’s the leftover from whatever mystery pink juice I drank last night, but I shake the thoughts away. Avoidance is one of my top personalities after all.
“Ohhh my God! You’re here!” I hear a high-pitched scream as a tiny body slams into me. Wrapping its arms around me tightly. A frantic Tini looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed and wet.
“Tini, oh my Gods,” I huff out, trying to catch my breath after the momentary scare. “Why wouldn’t I be here?”
She takes a deep breath, rising to her feet slowly.
She seems visibly shaken up, like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to.
My momma bear instincts immediately take over.
Rising to my feet, I motion for her to sit in my chair, and I drop down in front of her.
Placing my hands on her knees, I search her eyes.
“Hey, I’m here. I’m okay. What’s going on?” I question, trying to get some context on what the fuck is happening.
“Tommy is missing,” a gruff voice behind me says. The wook that was testing our drugs the other night is standing next to my canopy, a nic-vape between his lips as he takes a puff.
“Wait, what? He’s missing? What do you mean? What happened?” I counter, rising to my feet and turning to him.
“I honestly wish I knew,” he says, running his hand through his disheveled hair. His eyes dart around, full of anxiety. “The last time I saw him was around when you walked off the other night, after we all took that Euphorium.”
I glance at Tini, who’s sobbing into her palms; her whole body is shaking. Stepping closer to him, I lower my voice so she can’t hear my next question. “Do you think it was an overdose?”
“That’s the weird part, Tommy has been to Hallow Lands before. He told me he had taken that same pill at least four years in a row.” He fidgets with the edge of his pashmina, like he’s wondering if he should tell me more.
“I saw him,” I hear Tini say brokenly between sobs. “I fucking saw him,” she hisses.
The wook looks at me, exhaustion framing his face. “Tini is convinced she saw him last night. Says she was at the rail when she looked behind her and spotted him. But, he wasn’t alone.” He takes a deep breath, jaw ticking as he thinks of how to explain it.
“She said there was a guy in a bird mask standing behind him. Before she could catch his attention, the guy moved abruptly, and Tommy fell to the floor. She was too far away to see clearly, but she thinks he killed him. She’s completely convinced.”
“What the fuck,” I practically seethe. He was with me last night. And now he’s supposedly killed someone. What in the fucking insane ass bullshit is going on here?
I rush back to Tini’s side, trying my best to comfort her. Her body shakes, constant quakes of anxiety rumbling through her. The poor girl is broken without him.
We spend over an hour convincing each other that we’re better off figuring it out ourselves versus trying to involve the law.
Disappearances happen all the time at Hallow Lands. People go missing, and no one ever seems to care. Not the staff, and especially not the town, or its police.
There’s always been conspiracy theorists throwing around the idea that it’s all a ruse, that it was never even created as a music festival in the first place. That it was always meant to be something deeper, it just took on the face of something easily digestible to the population.
Money laundering, sex trafficking by high-ranked politicians and CEOs, or even that it’s possibly used as a ploy for aliens to abduct people. The list goes on and on.
Some theories are plausible, some outright ridiculous, but there’s always been something.
Hallow Lands’ secrets run deeper than any of us know, and we’re going to do everything we can to bring Tommy back home.