When Devils Sing(59)

“I can give you a ride,” he said slowly. “Back to the motel. It’s the Colonial, right?”

Neera narrowed her eyes. “How’d you know that?”

“Lucky guess. It’s not like there’s much on that highway.”

Neera’s attention was brought back to the buck then. She realized he was no longer bleating. No longer crawling. He sat several feet away from them, huffing quietly. There was so much blood. Entrails laid about before him. His eyes were heavy, struggling to stay open. He mewed in pain.

“All right.” Neera swallowed. Her mouth tasted like bile and acid. “I’d like a ride home if it isn’t too much trouble.”

The boy let out a breath, checking his wristwatch. “No trouble at all.”

Neera couldn’t take her eyes off the deer as she asked, “Is your car stuck in the ditch?”

“It’s fine,” Reid said. “But stand clear as I get it out.”

Neera knelt by the deer as the boy climbed into his Land Rover and maneuvered out of the ditch. The buck was dying slowly. It was the worst kind of death. Neera wished she could give him mercy, end his suffering.

Looking at the mutilated animal reminded her of Ajay. Of her worst intrusive memory—Ajay’s dead body. His brown skin turned ashen. His bruised eyelids. His skull partially missing from the gunshot wound that had killed him. She clutched her forehead, willing the image away.

Reid’s voice brought her back. “Hey, hey. Are you okay? Hey.”

Neera blinked rapidly as warm tears fell down her cheeks. She’d done it again. Lost herself in the memory of him. It took her a moment to realize the Clearwater boy was kneeling beside her, his face concerned. “Sorry,” Neera said, her voice shaky. “I just really want to help him.”

“Look,” Reid said, looking between her and the buck. “There’s nothing we can do for him. Let me just take you home, all right?”

Neera eyed the boy for a long moment, before finally saying, “All right.”

They approached his Land Rover, which sat idly on the road’s shoulder. Dirt coated the tires and splayed across the side of the otherwise clean exterior.

“You can put your guitar in the back seat,” Reid said, opening the rear passenger door for her.

Neera peered inside the dimly lit vehicle. There were no signs of suspicious items or anyone hiding out in the back. Though Neera knew she seemed like the dangerous one, she had to be cautious herself. Eyeing the front seat, she decided there was enough room for her to sit the guitar between her legs as they rode. “The front’s fine.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, as the boy clutched the steering wheel, his eyebrows furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” Neera asked.

Reid sighed. “I need to do something. Just … give me a minute.” He climbed out of the car, walking around to its hatchback. Neera watched him in the passenger mirror, prepared to jump out of the door at a moment’s notice. But Reid didn’t return to the driver’s seat. Instead, he grabbed something from the trunk, then walked back over to the deer.

The boy hovered over the animal for a moment, then pulled out a handgun and shot the buck in the head, right between the eyes. It was quick and it was loud. Neera clutched her ears as they rang from the shock of the shot. The deer had gone completely limp, his body unmoving.

Returning to the car, Reid returned the gun to its place, then shut the hatchback. He slid back into the driver’s seat, his gaze pained and distant. “Sorry,” he said under his breath. “I didn’t want him to suffer anymore.”

They rode in silence as the Land Rover slowly pulled onto the road and headed away from the bend and the dead buck. As they drove off, Neera watched the deer in the side mirror.

When they were nearly out of sight of him, she saw the animal’s body being dragged off the road and into the cover of the woods and the night. It happened so quickly that Neera blinked, and the buck was gone, as if the animal had never been there at all.





CHAPTER 23SAM





That night, gunshots rang outside Sam’s bedroom window, courtesy of Clayton and his buddies playing target practice behind the trailer. Instead of drowning out the noise with headphones, she decided on a walk around the property.

Ten minutes away, on a worn dirt path, Sam went to another one of her favorite spots, a massive pecan tree covered with a single tire swing dangling from the branches. It was quiet and isolated, just how she preferred things to be. Sam’s anxieties about Dawson and her brother and her predicament in Carrion threatened to consume her, so she took to the sky. She relaxed into the swing, churning her feet as a warm summer breeze reached her skin.

Sam swung until her legs burned and her head was dizzy. When she planted her feet on the ground, she found she was not alone. Jack sat at the base of the pecan tree, a shit-eating grin spread across his face.

“A bit old for swings, ain’t ya?”

“We all have our simple pleasures, Jack,” Sam said, coming to a stop with her heels in the dirt.

“We damn sure do.”

Sam flexed her bare feet in the grass. “Why’re you here? I did what you asked.”

“I’ve come to make you an offer,” Jack said coyly. “A mutually beneficial bargain, if you will.”