Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the time fourth period let out, the rain had thinned into a damp mist that clung to the air instead of falling from it.
The parking lot shimmered darkly beneath the gray sky, puddles trembling under the slow crawl of tires as students flooded outside in clusters.
Wet leaves stuck to the cracked pavement.
I tugged my cardigan tighter around myself as I crossed the lot toward Andy’s truck, my stockings soaking through from the shallow puddles I kept stepping into without looking.
Andy stood next to the driver-side door with Jack, Lindsey, and Morgan gathered around him in a loose circle.
Jack leaned against the side of his truck with a joint tucked behind his ear, his hoodie damp around the shoulders from the rain.
Lindsey sat perched on the tailgate, absentmindedly kicking one leg while she adjusted the stack of gold bracelets on her wrist. Morgan stood closest to Andy, arms folded tightly over her chest, her blonde curls frizzing bigger in the humidity.
Something about the expression on her face made my stomach tighten immediately. She looked like she was trying very hard not to cry.
“We’re trying to figure out rides,” Jack said as I approached, straightening slightly. “The parking lot at the church is too damn small for everybody.”
Andy nodded toward his truck. “I can fit people in the bed of my truck.”
“I can too,” Jack added with a shrug. “As long as nobody minds smelling like gasoline and wet football players.”
Lindsey grimaced. “So…death, basically.”
Jack pointed at her. “Exactly.”
I forced a smile that felt stiff around the edges. “My hatchback can fit a bunch of people too.”
Jack barked out a dry laugh. “Your clown car? Barely.”
“It’s fuel efficient,” I shot back automatically.
“It’s held together by prayer.”
“Which is fitting, considering where we’re going.” That earned me a snort from Lindsey and the faintest twitch at the corner of Morgan’s mouth, though it disappeared almost instantly.
Morgan rubbed her palms against her jeans before speaking quietly.
“I’ll go ask the Misfits to come too.” Fear crawled all over her body in tiny visible ways—the stiffness in her shoulders, the way her jaw kept flexing, how tightly she hugged herself like she was trying to physically hold herself together.
My chest ached unexpectedly at the sight of it.
I stepped closer and touched her arm gently. “Hey,” I said softly. “I’ll drive them.”
Morgan looked up at me then, startled almost. Like kindness from me still surprised her.
“Okay,” she whispered.
She lingered for another second before hurrying back toward the school building, disappearing into the stream of students spilling out beneath the awning.
Andy exhaled heavily beside me, dragging a hand down his face. The strain in him had only gotten worse since lunch. He looked wound too tight beneath his skin.
“I’ll take half the team,” he said finally. “Jack can take the other half.”
Jack gave a lazy salute. “Yes sir, Captain America.”
Lindsey hopped down from the tailgate. “I’ll ride with Jack and Emily then.” She glanced around the parking lot before looking back at me. “Speaking of, where is Emily anyway?”
For one awful second my stomach dropped hard enough to make me dizzy. I answered too quickly. “Oh—she started her period and went home to change. She said she’d meet us later.” The lie slid out smooth as syrup. I hated how easy lying had become lately.
Lindsey accepted it immediately with a sympathetic grimace. “Damn. Poor thing.”
Andy didn’t look at me when he said, “We should head out soon.”
Our little group broke apart after that, everyone drifting toward their vehicles beneath the low gray sky. Engines started around the lot one by one. Mud sucked at tires. The damp air smelled like wet asphalt and an earthy scent that rose from the crops after rain.
I walked across the lot toward my vehicle and stopped short when I saw the crowd already gathered around it.
Morgan stood near the passenger side clutching her backpack to her chest while Wyatt leaned against the trunk.
Ben sat on the half wall in front of my car beside two girls I vaguely recognized from Morgan’s grade—one with lime green highlights in her black hair and another wearing striped tights beneath ripped shorts despite the cold.
August stood at my driver-side door with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dark jacket. The sight of him loosened the knot in my chest before I could beg it to stay put. His eyes found mine.
“Where’s Pen and Angelica?” I asked as I reached them, fishing my keys from my pocket.
August pushed damp curls back from his forehead before answering. “Ditched school.”
I blinked. “Why?”
“The Amen Thieves are in town.” His mouth twitched faintly. “They went to the meet-and-greet at The Record Exchange.”
Morgan muttered, “I still think skipping school for a punk band is insane.”
Ben pointed at her dramatically. “They are not punk. They’re heavy metal.”
Wyatt let out a misty breath. “You sound insufferable.”
“I am insufferable,” Ben agreed easily.
I unlocked the car and everybody immediately started piling in with the sort of chaotic choreography that came naturally to teenagers used to cramming too many bodies into too-small cars.
Morgan and the girls squeezed into the backseat while Ben climbed into the trunk area with a theatrical groan about his knees.
“Are you moving? What is all this junk?” Wyatt asked, climbing in beside Ben and smacking the black trash bags full of clothes in my trunk.
I’d forgotten about packing up some of my fabrics and summer dresses with the intention of dropping them off at the Hayward’s after school. I figured if I moved my stuff out of my parents trailer bit by bit, they likely wouldn’t even notice I’d left for at least a week after I was actually gone.
I didn’t answer Wyatt, instead keeping my eyes locked on August who was sliding into the passenger seat beside me.
His fingertips brushed my arm briefly before he shifted away again, his other hand moving absently to wipe fog from the passenger window.
Outside, the sky hung low and bruised over Woodland.
The church parking lot looked like a revival had broken out instead of a search party.
Trucks and sedans sat crooked in the dirt lot beneath the floodlights, their tires caked in mud.
Headlights swept over the cornfields in pale yellow arcs, turning the stalks into rows of bones.
People clustered in little knots beneath the drizzle-damp leaves of the browning Magnolia tree, clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee and speaking in hushed voices that carried anyway.
Anxiety traveled fast in small towns. Faster than gossip, even.
By the time I pulled my car into the edge of the lot, there had to be fifty people there already. The engine ticked softly as it cooled. Nobody moved to get out right away.
Morgan sat in the backseat with her knees pulled to her chest, chewing the sleeve of her hoodie hard enough to ruin it.
Ben stared out the window with his jaw tight, fingers drumming rapidly against his thigh.
One of Morgan’s friends whispered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer.
I noticed my parents immediately.
My father stood near the church steps with my stepmother beside him, talking to Emily’s parents beneath the glow of the porch light.
The white clapboard church rose behind them like something half-rotted and holy, the steeple cutting into the dark sky like a beacon for hypocrisy.
Water dripped steadily from the gutters.
The old sign near the road—PRAY FOR US SINNERS—creaked softly in the wind behind us.
“Shit,” I breathed.
My father’s eyes found the windshield at the exact same moment mine did. I watched recognition settle over his face. Then his gaze slid slowly toward August sitting beside me in the passenger seat.
August followed my stare. “Is that your dad?”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
Pastor Spires emerged from the crowd then, weaving between people with one hand wrapped around a coffee cup. Even from the car I could see the pleasant smile stretched across his face like something stapled there. August let out a dry little laugh under his breath.
“That has to be Jack’s father.”
I blinked at him. “No. It’s Andy’s. That’s Pastor Spires.”
A slow grin spread across August’s face, crooked and mean in a way that made heat crawl up my neck. “Was he a milkman back in the nineties?”
My brows pinched together. “What?”
But August only shook his head, still smirking to himself as he pushed the passenger door open. Cold damp air flooded the car immediately, carrying the smell of wet dirt and overdue corn.
The others piled out after him. Morgan practically launched herself toward the church lot, her eyes scanning the crowd desperately like Shannon might suddenly materialize out of the fog.
August shoved his hands into the pockets of his black jacket and followed after the rest of the misfits, wrapping an arm around his sister’s shoulder. I lingered for half a second longer, then I climbed out too.
Mud sucked softly at the soles of my Mary Janes as I crossed the parking lot toward the adults.
My father watched me approach with the exact same expression he used when waiting for me to confess to something before he even knew what it was yet.
Beside him, my stepmother offered me a strained little smile.
Pastor Spires looked me over from head to toe.
“I’m not sure that’s an appropriate outfit to be walking through the woods in, Lola.
Would hate for you to get one of your pretty dresses muddy.
” His eyes flicked over my legs. “Maybe you could man the coffee station inside? Folks’ll need something warm tonight.
” The sweetness in his tone made my stomach turn.
I smiled tightly back at him, tasting metal at the back of my throat. “I have jeans in my car. I’ll change.” I folded my arms across myself. “I’d really like to help look for my friend.”
My father’s brows lifted slightly. “I wasn’t aware you were friends with the O’Kinzy boys.”
Emily’s father snorted softly beside him. “Well hopefully only the youngest one. That older O’Kinzy boy’s headed straight for prison.” He scratched at his beard. “Anybody know where he is tonight? I’d bet my last dollar he’s got something to do with this.”
Something ugly rolled through me at that. The ease of it. The way adults in this town could condemn somebody like they were discussing weather.
“We aren’t close,” I said carefully. “But we’re all friends in Christ, right Pastor?” I looked directly at Spires when I said it.
Something flickered in his eyes.
“Brothers and sisters,” he corrected softly. The words settled over my skin like an accusation.
Emily’s mother suddenly looked around the parking lot. “Lola, I didn’t see Emily get out of your car.” Her voice tightened immediately with concern. “She said she was riding with you?”
Panic flashed hot through my chest.
I couldn’t tell them Emily had gone home earlier. Emily once told me her mother tracked her menstrual cycle in a planner beside the grocery lists and church potlucks. Said if she was even a day late, her parents started quoting scripture at her over breakfast.
My mouth opened uselessly.
But before I could say anything, Emily appeared from the far edge of the crowd like she’d crawled right out of the woods herself. The hems of her jeans were soaked dark with mud nearly to her knees. Damp blonde hair clung to her cheeks from the misting rain.
“Sorry, Mom,” she said easily, brushing past her parents before they could question her too hard. “I ended up riding with the cheer squad instead.”
Her eyes met mine for one sharp second. A warning. Then she hooked her arm through mine tightly enough to hurt.
“Come on,” she said brightly. “People are already heading in. You can be in my group.”
I managed one last polite wave toward the adults before Emily steered me away from them and toward the edge of the woods where adults were handing out flashlights.
The floodlights from the church only reached so far before the trees swallowed the dark whole. Beyond them, the forest waited silently, wet and black and breathing.