LeGrand joins her, filling his bag.
“Are you guys packing to leave?” Brandon asks, hopeful. Doubtless if they quit, he’ll feel better about it, too. But Mack can’t offer him that.
She shakes her head. “Not coming back to camp.”
Ava stands, eyes wide, hands trembling as though she’s in withdrawal from something. She clenches them into fists. “Either it’s a game or it’s not, it’s real or it’s not, either way, yeah. Yeah. Shouldn’t be where they expect us to be, ever.”
“Who is they?” Brandon asks.
“That’s the question.” Ava takes her bag and shoves things haphazardly inside. “If it’s a game, I want Jaden out before us. And if it’s not, well, we stick together. All of us,” she emphasizes, looking at Mack. Is she mad that Mack didn’t join them, or does she want to keep Mack where she can see her? Does she suspect that Mack did something, something bad, something to Rosiee?
It’s the wrong suspicion, but it feels deserved. Everyone should suspect her, all the time. But it hurts, because she wants Ava to believe her.
No.
She wants to be free of them all. To release Ava to the night, to walk away, to sever the ties and be nothing and no one and just…hide. Hide and never stop hiding. Like the bird in the shelter, up in the dusty rafters, isolated and hidden and safe. She wants that life.
“I know a spot,” Brandon says, obviously feeling better with a plan and friends.
“Hey,” Ava shouts. “Ava Two. You can come with us, if you want.”
“She doesn’t,” Jaden answers.
Ava gives Ava Two a few seconds, then shrugs. Her face is grim. “Okay. Lead on, Brandon. Let’s go hide.” She grabs Mack’s arm. “I need your help in the dark,” she says, and Mack doesn’t think it’s true, but she walks into the bleak empty blackness of earliest morning with Ava holding her in place because she can’t hide when Ava’s anchoring her here.
* * *
—
Brandon leads them to the Lovers’ Hideaway. It takes some time to find in the dark—everything in the park takes some time to find—but they make it. Farther down the path, a skinned demon hangs in eternal watch over his realm.
“What if Jaden followed us?” Brandon asks, on high alert. This was his idea, his hiding spot, and he feels responsible for everyone now. Though the game is no longer fun, it’s exciting in a different sort of way. All his friends moved out and moved on after high school, and he hasn’t really been close with anyone since Grammy died. Out here, in the dark, full of adrenaline and questions, he feels close to Ava, LeGrand, and even Mack.
Though she kind of scares him now, too.
“If I see that motherfucker, I’ll destroy him,” Ava says. Her voice is tight and strained. Brandon wonders if her leg is hurting her. He has so many questions. Not only is she the only lesbian he’s ever met—if she is, he doesn’t want to assume, but she has to be, right?—but she’s also a veteran. He hopes they’ll get close enough that he can ask what happened to her leg, and if she knows any amputees. He’s always been curious about amputees, if that ghost limb syndrome thing is real. Ghost limb? Haunted limb? Something like that. Ava will know.
He wants to talk to Mack, too. To ask her about what happened to her family. But no, he doesn’t want to. He wants her to decide to tell him. He wants to prove to all of them that he’s worth their friendship. Maybe after this, whatever this ends up being, they’ll keep hanging out. Maybe they’ll all move to Idaho, and they can work at the gas station together, and after their shifts they can sit on the curb watching the sun rise, laughing about all the inside jokes they’ll have.
First things first, though; he has to take care of all of them so they’ll know what a good friend he is.
It’s not fun anymore, but it’s important now, and he likes that.
* * *
—
LeGrand wonders if he died. If this is outer darkness, the hell he knew he’d go to if he sinned. Or if God made an exception for him and is punishing him right now instead of waiting.
Mack meets his eyes in the dark, enough moonlight for them to see by. She gives him the slightest nod. She understands. They are being punished, and for the first time since he was excommunicated and banished, a thought rises to the top, burning bright and holy like a bush on the mountainside:
I don’t deserve this.
And, for the first time in as long as he can remember, long before he was shoved out into this cold, baffling world, LeGrand isn’t scared anymore.