Hart manages to get to his feet, too, still holding his side, and he grabs Case by the neck with one hand, slamming him back against a wooden post so hard I feel my own teeth rattle inside my skull. But then Case shoves him backward and they both lose their balance and go down again, rolling toward the edge of the dock.
Toward the roped-off rotten place and the long drop to the dark water below.
“Hart!” I call out his name in a panic.
That’s when Evie pulls away from me. “Stop it!” she hisses. And at first, I think she’s talking to Hart and Case. But then she crouches down low with her hands over her ears. “Leave me alone!” Her voice is desperate. “You’re lying!” Eyes clamped shut. “Stop it!” she wails over and over. “Stop it! You’re a liar!”
And I know then she’s talking to somebody else. Someone I can’t hear.
More feet behind us. I look over my shoulder as Mackey, Sera, and Sander appear out of the shadows. They must have come from Mackey’s place, toward the upriver end of town.
“Shit!” Sera’s eyes flicker from Case and Hart to me and finally to Evie, crumpled up in a heap on the ground. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” She motions to Sander, and he goes to Evie and pulls her up to her feet, so he can wrap his arms around her.
Mackey looks back toward the houses lining the boardwalk. But there’s no point. This time of night, everyone is safe inside dozing in their recliners. Windows closed. Curtains drawn. Big window-unit air conditioners humming and rattling. TVs blaring.
Nobody is coming out to stop this.
Hart and Case grapple and roll. Punching at each other. The sound of boot heels against wood. Blood spraying across white paint.
Then Hart gets his hands around Case’s throat. And he doesn’t let go.
That’s when I know they really will kill each other if someone doesn’t put an end to this.
And I don’t want to watch anyone die. Definitely not Hart. And not Case, either.
Not even after what he did to Elora.
“Hart!” I yell his name again. “Stop it! You’re gonna kill him!”
Hart’s crying now. Sobbing and grunting. Totally out of control. And it scares me. He flips Case over on his back, and he’s slamming his head against the dock over and over, choking him.
“Hart! Please!” My voice sounds hoarse, and I realize that I’m crying, too. I didn’t even know it. “Stop!”
Hart glances in my direction, and then I see him look down at Case, red-faced and gasping for air.
“Don’t,” I tell him. “It won’t bring her back.”
Hart lets go then. He stands up and stumbles backward. He has the same look in his eyes that he had last night. After we kissed. Like he doesn’t know where he is or how he got here.
Case scrambles to get his feet under him. Even in the moonlight, I can see the marks on his throat. But he’s not ready to call it quits. He takes a step toward Hart, and Evie screams again.
“Case,” I shout. “Stop! I know what you did! I found it! I found your medal!”
I reach into my pocket. Denim rubs against the throbbing splinter in my palm, but I ignore the pain and dig the medal out for them to see.
Hart and Case both freeze. They’re breathing hard. Soaked. Dripping sweat and blood.
“What the fuck, Greycie?” Hart sounds sick. Like he’s having trouble talking around whatever is rising up in his throat. He’s looking at me like I just stabbed him in the gut.
“Where’d ya get dat?” Case demands. He takes a step toward me, but Hart grabs him by the shirt and yanks him backward. I wrap my fingers tight around the medal.
And I feel that throbbing pain again.
“It was on the floor in Honey’s shed,” I tell him. “Where you dropped it. The night you killed Elora. When you stole that old black trunk to put her body in.”
Hart’s eyes go wide. And I’ve never watched anyone drown before, but that’s what the look on his face makes me think of. “Jesus Christ, Greycie.”
Behind me, I hear four identical gasps as Evie, Mackey, Sera, and Sander all realize what’s happening here.
“You found out she was planning to run off with someone else,” I say. “She sneaked away that night. To meet him. While everyone was playing flashlight tag. And you found out about it somehow. Only you couldn’t let her go. So you killed her.”
The truth sounds so terrible, flung out into the night air like that.
“Hell no!” Case turns and spits a broken tooth on to the dock. “Fuck dat!” His red hair is matted with blood, and one eye is already swollen shut. “Dat ain’t what happened.”