The last thing Elexis saw before he slipped into darkness was his nana watching TV in the window and the vicious blur of the sky as he fell and fell and fell.
31
The Great Stage Of Fools
From the cemetery, it was a short trek to the lakeshore. Logan stumbled along the highway shoulder, stopping at a small slab of concrete stuck in the earth. A picnic table was bolted to the concrete, rusted and discolored as though it had never been used. Ashley paused somewhere behind her; Logan sensed her there, cautious and afraid as if she thought speaking were dangerous. Wind whipped Logan’s hair across her face, sticking it to the rainwater on her cheeks.
Logan exhaled. “Can we sit for a second?”
Ashley nodded. They climbed onto the picnic table at the water’s edge and let silence pour over them. It was all wrong. The world was unsteady under Logan’s feet, like one too many stones had been pulled from the foundation. The grave was supposed to contain answers, but she’d dug it up and only had more questions.
She pressed her face into her palms. “It doesn’t feel real.”
“The letter?” Ashley asked. “Or…？”
“God, any of it.” Logan reached for the rain-spotted paper in her pocket. The handwriting was Brandon’s, but she couldn’t untangle the meaning. An apology, but it didn’t say what Brandon was sorry for. Logan traced the letters—they were jagged and misshapen, like he’d scrawled them in a panic. The letters were shaped like they hurt. “Whatever’s doing all this, I think you were right. Brandon’s connected to it. So am I.”
Ashley looked down. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Logan waved a dismissive hand.
Dusk settled into the valley as the storm clouds burned away. The horizon was a crown of black hills blanketed in shadow and, beyond that, the sky was bloodred and bright as fire. Specks of white starlight crept through the sunset, promising that night was only minutes away. Dark water lapped at the gravelly shore, rhythmic and calm as a heartbeat. Other than the crickets and the water and the tender, cautious sound of Ashley’s breathing, there was quiet. The night smelled like juniper and gentle anticipation.
Logan closed her eyes.
“I bet people used to think this was paradise.”
“Yeah.” Ashley stared at the hills across the water and her eyes were full of sunset. “I did. Maybe I still do. I don’t know. I look at it and there’s nowhere else I wanna be.”
“Not me,” Logan said.
“I wish you saw it before all this,” Ashley said. “It wasn’t like this before. I used to actually like how it felt like we were the only people in the world. There’s no one around for hours. You could do anything you wanted here and it would never matter to anyone else.”
Logan’s laugh was a bitter stab. She hadn’t expected to laugh. The sound felt hollow in her chest. “That’s terrifying. It explains how you’ve got three dead kids and no one outside Snakebite cares.”
Ashley’s expression darkened and Logan realized what she’d said a moment too late.
“You think he’s dead?”
Logan started to speak, but she didn’t have the right words.
Ashley looked out at the water. Her eyes were the color of freshwater in the hazy half-light. The breeze buffeted her hair over her shoulders. “I don’t wanna give up, but I don’t think he’s coming back.”
“Hey,” Logan said. She cleared her throat, reshaping herself into someone with a softness she’d never had. “I didn’t mean it. He could still be out there.”
“You don’t think he is, though.”