Chapter 4
Four
THEN | SISK
Ibarely come to this side of town. If it weren’t for Mom’s doctors, I probably never would. Tar City isn’t a small place, but it still manages a clean split: the people with money who profit from the mess, and the people who get buried in it.
They put the only high school right between both halves of town, like that somehow makes it fair. It doesn’t. St. Clair High. Because of course the only high school in this broken town is named after the family that owns half of it.
Millie got out—well, not out out, but she at least got to attend Everbridge High in the next town over.
I thought I would follow her, but the year she graduated was the year Mom got worse, and we moved.
Wrong street. Wrong district. Wrong life.
Now Dad works double shifts at the restaurant and Millie stays home to take care of Mom because hiring a nurse costs more than our rent.
I told them I could do it. I told them I didn’t need a diploma to dance, but they wouldn’t hear it. Finish school. Be responsible. Be grateful. As if grateful is a currency that can buy a future.
The train car smells like a public toilet after a stabbing, the sour stench forcing me to breathe through my mouth.
I hold the walnut honey bar Millie made me for late practice a little too tightly, hoping she didn’t hear the lie wrapped around those words.
I don’t lie often, but when I do, it’s usually about practice.
A man near the door spits on the floor, adjusting his jacket pocket just enough for me to catch the glint of a knife handle.
Tar City collects the worst of people. I’m not even talking about the disappearances near The Pit. I’m talking about everything decent getting swallowed too.
Another man shifts beside a woman, brushing against her in a way that clearly isn’t an accident. She goes still—too scared to move, too scared to speak.
I get off one stop early. I’d rather walk than become the next story no one tells out loud. My heart keeps pace with my steps, beating faster the closer I get, because I'm not going home—I'm going to Jax St. Clair's house.
Yesterday happened—he asked us to watch the tape, and I said yes.
But why me? Jax is popular, he doesn’t invite people like me over for fun.
Part of me is already bracing for this to be some kind of sick joke.
I’m ready to walk out the second it feels wrong.
I hate that I care enough to even be thinking about it.
The iron gate stops me cold. The house is huge—bigger than it looked the million times I’ve passed it on the train, pretending I wasn’t staring.
I run through my excuses, just in case. “Oh, I thought you said Friday?” if he forgot. “Sorry, I must have misunderstood,” if this is all a mistake. A quick out, so I don’t look like an idiot.
I take a breath so deep it hurts and push the gate open. For a house like this, I’m surprised an alarm doesn’t scream the second I step onto the porch.
I know enough about the St. Clairs: old money built on a foundation of other people’s suffering.
Generations of profit from workers who coughed black dust into their pillows at night.
Some say the tar pit itself is their legacy, the mining drills going too deep and cracking something that should’ve been left alone.
If I needed someone to blame for everything wrong with my family, with this city, hating them would be easy. Convenient.
The bell hasn’t even finished echoing when the door swings open.
“I was starting to think you bailed,” Jax says, leaning against the heavy wooden frame.
His eyes move over me quickly, but not quick enough for me to miss.
“I’m shocked you opened your own door,” I say. “I was expecting a butler.”
“Tony has the day off.”
I stare.
“Kidding,” he says with a grin. “Though Nana’s probably spinning in her grave over how few servants we keep now.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I don’t say anything at all.
I step inside instead, brushing past him.
The house is enormous—too much space and too much wood.
Dark paneled walls absorb the light, and a chandelier hangs overhead like a crystal guillotine.
It’s not a home; it’s a museum dedicated to people who’ve never worried about anything real.
My footsteps echo on the marble floor, the sound too loud in the polished stillness.
I feel like a ballerina in a jewelry box, surrounded by beauty but trapped.
Jax leads me through an archway into the kitchen, where Ivan is already at the island, working through a sandwich stacked way too high. Without a glance at me, Jax moves to the fridge and pulls it open. “Help yourself. It's stocked.”
I lift my plastic bag. “I’m good, thanks.”
Ivan barely looks up, already wrapping the other half of his sandwich in foil like he’s saving it for later.
Jax pulls out a bag of popcorn, tears it open, and dumps it into a bowl. “Okay,” he says, like we’ve been here longer than we have. “Let’s watch this thing.”
We move into a den with a giant TV, a rug too clean to step on, and shelves lined with things no one actually uses.
Jax pops a handful of popcorn. “So, where do your parents think you are?”
“If you’re asking whether I told anyone, relax,” I say. “No one cares where I am.”
Ivan takes a seat on the couch. “My dad won’t be home till seven.”
“What about your mom?” Jax presses.
“Uh… no mom.”
Jax nudges me. “And you?”
“I didn’t tell anyone either.”
“Good.”
I wonder if he’s embarrassed to have me here.
If this is all some huge mistake and he’s just as freaked out as I am, but better at hiding it.
Maybe his parents could walk in any second, and they’ll make sure I’m reminded I’m just a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks staining their perfect museum.
I cross my arms. “Where are your parents? Should we expect someone to walk in? I don’t need a lecture on trespassing on the St. Clairs’ side of the city.”
“Dad’s at the hospital. Scoreboard: Hospital 100, Family movie night 0,” Jax says too casually.
“Mom’s… well, someone has to spend the money, right?
” He laughs, already kneeling in front of the VCR.
“This thing is ancient. I told my mom we need a new one, but apparently her hair appointments are a full-time job.”
“I’m sure it works fine if you use it correctly. It’s precision, not brute force,” Ivan says, jumping up. “Stop forcing it—you’re going to break it.”
“It’s stuck,” Jax says, blowing into the tape like that’s going to fix anything, then tries to shove it back in.
Ivan presses one button and the machine ejects an already-loaded tape with a soft click.
“It’s basic impenetrability—two objects can’t occupy the same space at once.”
“I guess I skipped that class too.” Jax winks at me. Like I’m supposed to melt over that.
He holds his finger over the play button.
“Before we watch this,” he says, “what do you guys actually know about The Pit?”
“Not much,” I say. “Urban legends and nonsense.”
“How about you, Ivan?” Jax asks.
Ivan shifts. “I know a little. Hard not to when your dad’s a detective.”
“Oh shit,” Jax snaps his fingers. “I knew I recognized you! The station!”
“We go to the same school,” Ivan says, mortified.
“Well yeah, but there’s a lot of kids in that one overcrowded building. I’ve been to the station too many—” Jax pauses, rethinking whatever brag he was about to say. “Saw you with your dad once. He’s… intense.”
“Can we watch this already?” I interrupt.
Jax tosses a piece of popcorn in his mouth, then holds the bowl out toward me like he’s offering. I don’t take any.
He watches me then hits play. Instead of taking one of the armchairs, he drops into the middle of the leather couch, patting the cushion right next to him.
“Get comfortable,” he says, a taunting grin playing on his lips.
“Haven’t you seen a movie before?” Before I can process it, his hand is on my wrist, tugging me down.
I land much closer than intended, our thighs pressed together, the warmth of him seeping through my jeans.
Suddenly, focusing on the TV feels impossible.
A shaky camcorder view fills the screen—blue and pink balloons, streamers drooping under gym lights.
It looks like dance night. There’s no narration, only music fading in and out as the camera moves.
There are girls in shiny dresses and boys in bad tuxes, the flowers on their corsages already wilting.
Ivan leans forward. “Wait… is that—?”
On the screen, through a haze of grainy tracking lines, a figure resolves itself. It’s Mr. Halpern. Our English teacher, the man who lives in eternal khaki and drones on about symbolism. Apparently, he’s also a chaperone.
He’s standing behind the punch table, ladle in hand, putting on a show for some mom in a sequined sweater. He leans in close, says something lost to the camera’s mic, then attempts to pour her a cup of punch with the theatrical flair of a sommelier pouring champagne.
It goes badly. The ladle overshoots the cup, sending a red waterfall cascading down the front of his shirt. He freezes, a statue of pure awkwardness, and the sequined mom stares. From off-camera, someone laughs so hard the whole frame shakes.
Ivan winces. “Whoever filmed this must hate his guts. Some things should never be recorded.”
On screen, Mr. Halpern attempts to salvage his dignity, patting at the spreading stain with a handful of flimsy napkins that immediately disintegrate into a wet, red pulp.
“Oh, this is gold,” Jax says, grinning.
The camera jolts, swinging toward the gym floor where kids are dancing in a loose circle beneath paper stars and a mirrored ball that spins. The awkward shuffling, the glittery dresses, someone’s bowtie hanging on by a thread—it’s all so painfully normal.
“This is nothing,” Ivan says, shrugging. “Just a party—”
Jax reaches over, eyes still glued to the screen, and flicks a piece of popcorn at him. “Shut up.”
Jax leans forward, elbows on his knees, the bowl balanced precariously in one hand. I watch the tense line of his shoulders, the way he’s completely locked in.
Then the camera lurches—too fast—and drops. For a moment, all we see is the scuffed wood floor and a confetti star stuck to the lens, the music muffled through the tape’s grain.
Before we can even think to skip ahead, the camera is scooped back up. The view swings wildly away from the dancers, like whoever’s filming suddenly remembered they had somewhere else to be.
The hallway appears, washed in the weird shine of string lights. Without them, the video quality dissolves into static and shadow.
“Why would they film an empty hall?” I ask.
All three of us lean forward. The footage creeps down the corridor, stopping just short of the girls’ bathroom door.
“I don’t think we should watch this,” I say, my hand already reaching for the remote.
“We’re watching,” Jax says as his fingers close around my wrist. He hits pause. His grip shifts, turning my wrist slightly, his eyes catching on the small mark there.
“What’s this?” Jax asks, his thumb pressing right into the mark.
“Birthmark,” I say, pulling back hard and he lets go.
He nods, like he heard more than I said, and hits play. The camera lurches forward, settling right in the crack of the door.
Through it, we see a girl, not fully in frame. At first it’s just her reflection in the mirror: scared, crying, a pair of white dress gloves pulled up past her wrists. She wipes her face with them, leaving dark, damp streaks on the satin.
Ivan leans forward, squinting at the screen. He starts picking at the skin around his fingers, some spots already split and dried. “Is that…?”
“The Knotted-Hair Girl?” I whisper.
Jax shakes his head. “Don’t know.”
The girl turns on the water, slowly peeling off the gloves to set them aside, the camera dipping with her movement, lowering toward the sink as water rushes and her hands appear under the flow.
She’s scrubbing her fingers hard, frantic, like she’s trying to scrape something off, and then we see it—black, staining her fingers, worked deep into the lines of her skin all the way to her knuckles.
She glances back toward the door, her eyes wide with fear and the screen goes black.
No one breathes. Before anyone can react, Ivan’s up and moving, already halfway to the door. “I have to go,” he says, clipped, like something’s nipping at his heels.
“Ivan—” Jax starts, but he’s already gone.
I look at Jax and my throat closes up. “I should go,” I say, the words pushing themselves out.
Jax looks up, and his eyes lock onto mine. “Stay.”
He’s still on the edge of the couch, but any trace of relaxation is gone.
One hand hangs loose with the remote, the other braced on his knee, but there’s nothing casual about his posture now.
I notice everything at once—the dark, worn ring on his finger, the way his thumb shifts against the remote’s buttons, the tense line of his shoulder under his shirt.
The weight of that single word pins me to the floor. My self-preservation instincts are losing ground fast. It would be so easy to sink back onto that couch.
I tear my gaze away from his. “I can’t.” I snatch my bag from the floor and bolt for the door.