4. Hailey
HAILEY
The bus hissed and belched diesel exhaust as it pulled away, leaving me alone at the end of our stupid, cracked road. Just me, my overstuffed backpack cutting off circulation in my shoulders, and the dead, suffocating silence of Tillington. Even the air felt lame here.
I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets and started down the long road toward the house I already hated.
Not that the house had done anything to me in particular.
It just . . . wasn’t my home. The wind whispered through the bare trees, like the woods were passing notes back and forth about me.
We were probably in agreement that neither of us believed I belonged here.
About halfway down the road, I felt something.
A presence loomed behind me, and I instinctively glanced over my shoulder.
There was a boy about half a football field away.
He was maybe sixteen with messy dark hair that fell into his eyes.
He wore a faded leather jacket, or maybe it wore him, the way it swallowed his frame.
He didn’t walk so much as drift, and he kept his hands in his pockets and his gaze glued to the ground.
My stomach tightened, and I picked up my pace.
I looked over my shoulder after ten seconds to see how much distance I had created between us, but he was even closer than before.
Oh, hell no. If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was this: The second you let something scare you, it owns you.
That’s how things went down at my old school.
It started when I moved up to high school—one older girl decided I was an easy target.
Then a few more. They were relentless. Hallways.
Social media. The kind of stuff that followed you home whether you wanted it to or not.
I stopped wanting to go to school. Stopped caring about grades. What was the point?
And I couldn’t talk to my mom or dad about it. They were too wrapped up in Henry—too busy with feedings and schedules and whatever my mom was unraveling from. I didn’t want to be another problem, so I just withdrew from them too. Out of sight. Out of mind.
This was a new town and a new me, so I decided to play it differently this time. It was my turn to set the tone.
I spun around hard and fast on my heels. “Hey! What’s your problem?” I snapped.
He stopped suddenly, and his eyes widened as he looked up from the ground. “My problem?” He pointed to his own chest.
“Yeah! You’re literally following me. Why?”
He blinked at me, slow and confused. “I’m . . . just walking home.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, crossing my arms. “That’s funny, since you weren’t on the bus.”
He shrugged. “I don’t take it.”
“Why not?”
Another shrug. “Don’t need to.”
“So let me get this straight. You walked. I took a bus. And you got here at the same time I did? How is that possible?”
“The bus makes a ton of stops. Plus, I cut through the farm fields. Saves a bunch of time, and none of the farmers seem to mind. If anything, I scare off the sandhill cranes for ’em.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Riiiigghhhtt. So then where do you live?”
“Around.”
“Wow, what an incredibly vague answer.” I clapped my hands together.
Something like a smile tugged at his mouth. “Didn’t realize I was being quizzed.”
“Didn’t realize being a creep who stalks girls was part of the local culture.”
His smile widened just a little, like he found me more amusing than offensive. “You’re not from around here.”
“Gee, what gave it away?”
“Mostly your attitude.”
“Ha.” I looked him over. “You know what gave you away as a local?”
He tilted his head. “What?”
“Your fashion sense,” I said, letting my eyes drag from his long, shaggy hair to the oversized leather jacket.
He chuckled and said, “Well, you’re right. I’ve lived here for a while.” He glanced down the road toward our driveway. “But I figured I should . . . y’know . . . welcome you to the neighborhood.”
“If you’re supposed to be the welcoming committee, then it’s no wonder your town isn’t growing.”
That actually made him laugh, a real one this time. It softened his face in a way I didn’t expect. “Fair enough. I’ll start over.” He cleared his throat dramatically. “I’m Eddie.”
I hesitated. But he wasn’t standing too close or giving serial-killer energy. He was just an awkward boy on a lonely, creepy road.
“Hailey,” I said, because it felt stupid not to.
“Hailey,” he repeated, trying it on. His gaze flicked past me toward the house, and his smile dimmed a little. “So, you’re at the Thorn Manor now?”
“The Thorn what?” I asked because I hadn’t heard it called that. To me it was just a boring house with a crappy pond on Balagan Road. Not something worthy of having a title.
“You really don’t know your Tillington history, do you?”
“And I don’t care to,” I said, turning away from him.
His voice followed me, quiet, but heavy enough to reach over my shoulder and anchor me in place. “What if knowing made the difference between life and death?”
Against my better judgment, I stopped and turned back. “All right, then. I’ll bite. Enlighten me.”
“The Thorn family,” he said. “They were some wealthy high-society types from Chicago or Detroit or something, made a bunch of money in manufacturing after the war, and figured Wisconsin could use its own Henry Ford. They found this patch of untouched land with its own private pond, not too far from Milwaukee, and bought up dozens of acres. They had your house built exactly how they wanted and carved out their own slice of paradise.” He paused, the wind lifting his hair as his eyes found mine.
“But then they crossed paths with the Buckners.”
“Who are the Buckners?”
His mouth tightened. “They were nasty people. Greedy. The kind of family that acted like every inch of Tillington had their name stamped on it. If they wanted something, they took it, and if you stood in their way, they took you out. The Thorn family didn’t know any better, and when the Buckners started encroaching on their land, they pushed back. ”
“Sounds like classic, boring, small-town drama. ‘Your fence is on my land,’ pitchfork and flames emojis?” I smirked, but his expression didn’t change.
“I wouldn’t call murder small-town drama.”
A chill shot up out of the frozen ground through my spine, causing my shoulders to twist. “Murder?”
He nodded. “The whole Thorn family was murdered, and nobody was ever charged. With no evidence or witnesses, the sheriff’s office concluded it must have been a drifter passing through. No one really believed that, but no one was going to turn on the Buckners either.”
The woods around us quieted, like they were waiting for me to react.
I forced myself to continue being the girl who didn’t flinch. “Wow,” I said. “That’s quite the story.”
He didn’t smile. “I’m serious.”
“Right.” I crossed my arms tighter.
“Just trying to help.”
“No, you’re just trying to scare me, and it won’t work.”
He stepped closer. “Why would I want to scare you?”
I scoffed. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s, like, a Tillington hazing ritual? Freak out the new girl, sacrifice a casserole, pray to the corn gods so the cows keep making cheese curds.”
“Just don’t trust the neighbors around here.”
I lifted my chin. “Even you?”
“Even me.”
I laughed. “This tiny little shithole? This is nothing.” I gestured to the endless road, the trees, the air that smelled of boredom. “I’m from the big city, country boy. Your one murder story happens a dozen times a week in Chicago.”
“It’s not the size of a place that makes it dangerous,” he said. “It’s the people who live there.”
“Relax, Dollar Store Dracula. It’s daylight.”
The wind howled through the trees, and something unnerving shot through me, causing me to step back from him. I hated that I did. I forced a smirk to act as though I were just readjusting myself.
“Fair enough,” he said. “If you need anything, I’m around.”
“Oh yeah?” I let out a short, unimpressed laugh. “What? A cup of sugar? Some ghost stories around the campfire? Maybe a flashlight when the power goes out?”
He shrugged, but there was something almost teasing in it. “If that’s what you need.”
And then he lifted his hand, not a wave, not exactly. It was more of an old-fashioned little acknowledgment you’d see in a black-and-white movie. It shouldn’t have worked on me, but it did.
“See you tomorrow, Hailey.”
The way he said my name felt like a tiny spark in the cold air.
He walked past me, down the fork toward the woods.
I watched him go, my annoyance melting into something else, something I refused to name.
Weird boy. Weird town. Weird everything.
But the thought of seeing him again didn’t bother me. Not that I’d ever say that out loud.