Logan leaned against the iron fence, knees curled to her chest.
“Are you okay?” Ashley asked.
“No,” Logan snapped. “I don’t want your help.”
“Gus called and said you were in trouble.”
“Gus is full of shit.”
Ashley frowned and motioned to the grave. “You were trying to dig this up? You can’t just…”
Logan ducked her forehead against her legs and folded her arms over her knees. For a moment, Ashley thought she was crying. But she was quiet. Dirt caked her fingernails and smeared her wrists. The rain freckled the dust around them, catching in Logan’s straight black hair.
“You probably hate me—”
“Correct.”
Ashley steeled herself. “—but I wanna help.”
“Then get my dad out of jail,” Logan said. She looked up. “That’s what you can do to help.”
“What do you think you’re gonna find?” Ashley asked. “It’s a grave.”
“Gus says they had a kid that died. They never told me about that.” Logan wiped her cheeks, leaving a streak of gray dirt behind.
Ashley swallowed and crouched beside Logan. “So you’re gonna dig up their body? What would that prove?”
Logan’s expression softened. She was afraid. Raindrops dotted her cheeks and speckled her scalp. Somewhere far behind them, thunder groaned.
“What if it’s exactly what it should be?” Ashley asked. “What if you’re just digging up a kid’s bones? There are better ways to figure this out. You could just ask Brandon.”
Logan shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Then you could visit Alejo and ask him,” Ashley said, swallowing the guilt welling in her chest.
“You don’t get to talk about him.”
Ashley nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“If you wanna help, you have to help me do this,” Logan whispered. She wiped her nose with the hem of her sleeve. “I … feel like I’m losing it. I don’t know what’s real. I don’t know if I’m remembering things right. I don’t know if I’m supposed to trust my dads or if they’ve been lying to me the whole time.”
Ashley touched Logan’s hand.
“What if there was never a second kid?” Logan said.
“What?”
“What if it’s…” Logan clutched the front of her jacket. “I told you about my dreams. When I’m being buried, it feels so real. It’s like at the cabin. There are all these things in Snakebite that I remember, but I shouldn’t. I’ve never been here before.”
“You think you’re connected to whatever’s buried here?” Ashley asked.
“I don’t know.”
Ashley stared into the mound of dirt.
“In my dreams, Brandon’s the one burying me.”
Ashley grimaced. Logan was right; it didn’t make sense that the Ortiz-Woodleys had a child they never mentioned. It didn’t make sense that this grave was down here with Snakebite’s unnamed ancestors and not up on the hill with the rest of the town. The more they unraveled Snakebite, the less sense it made. Fear grew in Ashley, warning her that if they unraveled too far, there would be no more Snakebite left.
Ashley swallowed. “Okay.”
She made her way back to the Ford and opened the tool chest in the trunk. She pulled out two worn shovels and returned to the grave. Logan took one of the shovels and pressed it against the mound of dirt.