When Devils Sing(41)

Reid sighed. He hadn’t stood up for Dawson while Jonah was around, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do better now. “When’s your shift end?”

Dawson blinked, then looked at the cheap watch on his wrist. The band was made of worn, sun-bleached leather, and the face was cracked down the center. “Another two hours. Why?”

“You’re seriously skilled on the green.” Reid gestured to the sprawling golf course at their backs. “If you have time, why don’t you teach me some pointers? Imagine my brother’s face if I get good enough to best him on Kingdom Waters.”

A smirk crept across Dawson’s face. “I would pay to see that.”

“Well, I can’t make it happen on my own.” Reid waved the money in his hand. “Think of this as payment for teaching me not to suck. I mean, you saw me. I can barely hit the ball.”

“That’s true. You’re terrible.” Dawson snorted, his shoulders relaxing a little. “Fine, I’ll do it. But I don’t want your money unless you beat Jonah’s score. Fair?”

Dawson eyed Reid’s outstretched hand, then took it in his own, signaling the start of their unlikely friendship.

The summer came and went, and with it, Dawson Sumter and Reid Langley became close friends. After a childhood bullied by both his peers and siblings, Reid had never known friendship in the way he and Dawson shared it. It had been difficult to make friends in Clearwater before his mother died, but it was nearly impossible after.

Reid went from being the runt of the Langley siblings, meek and unassuming, to the social pariah of Clearwater after Caroline’s death. It didn’t help he went mute for two years, unable to speak to anyone at all after she passed. Not even his family—especially not his family.

In the year they knew each other, Dawson had allowed Reid to be more than the title that preceded him. In many ways, Dawson reminded Reid of his own mother, with their shared kindness and fresh perspectives on the world around them. For the first time in a long time, Reid was able to envision himself as more than just the weird Langley son who still grieved the loss of his long-dead mother. Around Dawson, he could simply be.

But that was in the past now.

Because, according to the news, Dawson had drowned.

If Reid allowed himself to see beyond his grief, for even just a moment, there was a part of him that knew something wasn’t quite right. He had the nauseating sense that history was somehow repeating itself.

This is just like Mom.

Having floated back toward the shore, he lingered beneath a cypress tree growing out of the dark water. Spanish moss hung from the branches, brushing Reid’s shoulders. A cicada fell from the overhanging tree, landing on the edge of the paddleboard. The heavy, winged insect squirmed on its back, struggling to right itself. He studied the cicada, suddenly feeling sick at the memory of eating one the day before.

He had been taught from an early age to respect the skittering creatures, to treat them with reverence. To do anything less was practically sacrilegious. But those teachings never settled right with him.

Reid gripped the end of his paddle. In a fast, sure motion, he squashed the whining cicada, silencing it with a steady, killing blow.





CHAPTER 16SAM





The sound of screaming jolted Sam awake. In the haze of sleep, she forgot where she was. Her heart pounded in her chest as the distant yelling conjured images of her daddy on the other side of her bedroom door, threatening to destroy everything in his path to get in. She fumbled for the meager switchblade she kept beneath her pillow, then flicked it open.

Reality set in as Bailey’s and Clayton’s voices pierced the thin walls from across the trailer. They were fighting again, as they often did. The pair had a penchant for alcohol-fueled arguments in the same way her parents always had, and it set her nerves ablaze.

When Sam was kicked out of her house a few weeks back, she’d never intended to move in with her ex and her ex’s boyfriend. It had been a decision made from desperation—after her fight with her daddy. The broken bedroom door. The bruises. The fractured wrist.

Her new place was so small, you couldn’t so much as sneeze without it being heard across the single-wide trailer. Sam didn’t much care, as she was grateful to have a place to stay at all. But when Bailey and Clayton fought, Sam felt like she was back home. Her muscles tensed. Her heartbeat soared. Her body braced for something bad. She didn’t know how to force her mind to tell her body that she was going to be okay.

That Wiley wasn’t going to charge through the door at any moment.

That she was safe.

But was she really safe? What would stop Clayton from doing the same thing to Bailey and Sam that her daddy had done to her, all her life?

The fighting continued.

I can’t do this, Sam thought. Not tonight.

Not after what she’d done to Dawson—what she’d done to save her brother.

A life for a life.

Sam untangled herself from her sheets, and something rough and unfamiliar grazed against her bare legs and feet.

She jumped out of bed and turned on the light.

Peeling back the sheets, she found several feet of dried snakeskin tangled in her bed. It took everything in her not to scream. Her skin prickled with goose bumps as she realized the snakeskin’s origins.

A taunting message from Jack.