When Devils Sing(57)
Isaiah returned the greeting and took a seat beside him. “I didn’t know you were here.”
Reid snorted. “I really hate these parties.”
“As any sane person would.” Sitting close to Reid now, Isaiah noticed his eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d been crying. He took in his mournful gaze and slouched shoulders. Reid looked nothing like the other Langleys, who projected a level of confidence rivaled by that of his own father. Isaiah cleared his throat. “I’m sure it sucks to be here … after what happened with Dawson.”
Reid blinked. “How did you know we were—”
“My dad told me.” Isaiah’s gaze turned sympathetic. “I’ve been wanting to give my condolences since I heard. I’m sorry, man.”
A dry, bitter laugh rose from Reid’s throat. “You know, you’re the first person to actually say those words to me. Not my father, not my siblings. They’re treating Dawson’s drowning like my fucking hamster died.”
“You deserve better than that,” Isaiah said simply.
“Thanks.” Reid looked to the floor. “Did you know Dawson?”
Isaiah considered how to answer. He didn’t exactly know how to bring up Dawson’s email, if at all.
“No. But he seemed like a good guy, like he had a smart head on his shoulders.”
“He is—he was.” Reid began to pick at his cuticle until his thumb swelled with blood. “The news is making him sound like such a dick. Did you know he never even drank? I don’t know why they’re saying he was drunk. It’s messed up.”
“Yeah,” Isaiah said slowly. “It’s weird. Almost like because he was from Carrion, no one really cares.”
“Exactly.” Reid wiped the blood onto his khaki shorts. “It’s because all these people saw Dawson as a tick. Nothing more.” He looked down at the party then, his gaze turning dark. “It’s what they do. They treated my mother’s death the same way, like it was nothing. Like she was nothing. All because she was from Carrion.”
Isaiah began to see a thread of connection forming between Dawson and Caroline Langley. Two ticks from Carrion who mysteriously drowned in Lake Clearwater. It couldn’t be a mere coincidence, could it? This was where Isaiah needed to consider his next words carefully. Delicately, he asked, “Do you think … Dawson really drowned?”
Reid went visibly still. He then fixed Isaiah with a curious gaze. “What’s the alternative?”
Isaiah feigned ignorance, forcing an easy laugh. “I don’t know, man. It was a stupid question to ask. I’m sorry.”
Reid shook his head. “No, it’s not, actually. I thought I was crazy for thinking the same thing. But you see it, too?”
Distant echoes of laughter and clinking glasses filtered from downstairs, filling the quiet between them. “I do.” Isaiah inhaled a steadying breath, preparing to show Reid the email, when footsteps sounded from the stairs.
Russ Langley appeared, taking in the sight of them. Smiling pleasantly, he said, “It’s time to go home, son.” He waited for Reid, as if expecting him to act on command. “Your car is blocking folks in.”
Reid untangled himself from the banister and rose from the ground. Before he followed Russ, he asked, “Can we talk later?”
“Yeah,” Isaiah said. “You gonna be at the Cicada’s Song tomorrow?”
Reid nodded and then he was gone, leaving Isaiah alone on the stairs as the party slowly died out below. He was getting closer to something, and he realized Reid Langley may truly have the answers he was looking for.
CHAPTER 22NEERA
Neera awoke to the distant stream of running water sliding along slippery rocks. To crickets chirping, tree frogs croaking, an owl hooting overhead. To the wind rustling the trees and to the squirrels that scurried along the tree branches, dropping pine cones onto the ground.
Instinctively, Neera reached for her guitar. Her eyes opened as she searched the ground with her fingers. The Yamaha was nowhere to be found.
Neera slowly rose from the ground, bracing her fretting hand against the trunk of the nearest tree for balance. Her world began to spin. An awful, visceral fear simmered within her as she swayed. The thick, black hairs on her arms rose. Neera felt eyes on her. Whether it was her primal instinct telling her that, she didn’t know.
But she needed to get out of the woods.
That’s when she smelled it. The humid night air was laden with the sharp scent of copper, and it wasn’t her own. The blood on her hands had dried and crusted along her palms. Despite her dizzying vision, Neera stumbled quickly in the way she thought she came.
A bird cawed somewhere in the distance. Just barely, Neera could see it flying above the canopy. Crow? Its silhouette was so faint, save for the iridescence of its wings. Neera followed the corvid the best she could. Stumbling over rocks and tangled roots of trees that splayed across the ground.
Her heart raced.
Then she heard it. Neera froze as an animal bleated loudly. It sounded like a deer was nearby—a dying one. It cried and grunted, a call for help in the dead of night. Neera pushed forward in the direction of the sound. A moment later, she found herself crossing out of the woods and stood on the side of an empty backroad.
Lying in the middle of the road was a massive buck, with antlers nearly the width of a truck. A trail of blood and entrails was behind him. The animal was faced away from her, crawling with limp back legs along the asphalt. He inched away from the bordering woods and farther into the road, thrashing his head wildly, screaming into the night.