Alejo paused and wiped sweat from his brow. “It’s just the three of us now. Just family. Everything’s gonna be okay.”
“You know I was never good at that.”
“At what?”
“Being okay.”
Alejo laughed, short and tense.
Gracia stood at Logan’s back and put a hand on her shoulder, silver-gray brow furrowed as she watched Brandon unpack. She watched him like the crowd at the vigil watched them. Like she wanted to disassemble him just to study his parts.
Alejo spotted them through the blinds and rolled his eyes. “What was it you said back home? If you’re gonna just stand there, can you at least help?”
“We’re just catching up, Chacho,” Gracia said loud enough for Alejo to hear. She gave Logan a single squeeze on the shoulder and, quieter, said, “Go help your dads. And if you ever need to talk, remember I’m in room two.”
Logan swallowed and nodded. Gracia left the motel room and Logan was alone with nothing but the sputtering air conditioner and the quiet. Just like every other motel on the road, she would get used to these walls. She would get used to the silence, to the absurd heat, to the loneliness. But there was something different about Snakebite. She’d spent years tuning out Brandon and Alejo’s “mysteries,” but something about this one tugged at her. It begged her to dig deeper.
It didn’t matter. Even if there was something different in this town—something wrong—it was only a few months. She’d spent years enduring places like this.
This wasn’t a home. It was just another place, and she would survive it.
4
Into the Wild Abyss
Ashley Barton had lost people before.
When Tristan first disappeared, all of Snakebite thought they were detectives. Everyone could’ve sworn they’d just seen him; Mrs. Alberts from homeroom saw him down at the lake, Debbie who ran the Laundromat said Tristan came and picked up his mom’s linens just that afternoon, Jared from the gas station drove past Tristan playing catch with his little brother. All forty-three students at Owyhee County High joined the search parties. Finding Tristan seemed inevitable to Ashley at first—there were only so many places a kid from Snakebite could go. Up until a month ago, the search parties had been going strong. But once Sheriff Paris declared the case cold, the parties began to dwindle. Now, a week after the vigil with no new leads, Ashley doubted this could go on much longer. Soon, she’d be the only one left looking. She tried to stamp down the desperation in her chest.
Ashley made it to the parking lot outside the Lake Owyhee campground at half past five in the morning, armed with a travel mug of hibiscus tea and her best walking shoes. The sun was minutes from breaking the horizon, warming the dark sky with a hazy pink glow. Sheriff Paris stood in the center of the parking lot with a map of the Lake Owyhee wilderness splayed over the hood of his police cruiser.
“Morning,” Ashley said, stifling a yawn. “It might be just me today.”
Paris shook his head. “John was just brushing his teeth when I left the house. He’ll be here with the rest of your pack any minute.”
Ashley took a long drink of tea. Gray mist sat low on the water, obscuring the woods across the lake. They’d searched the area around town three times over, but the other side of the lake was untouched. A strange, cloying dread churned in her chest when she looked at the trees across the shore. She was sure something was there. It watched her, dark and hungry and waiting. Some mornings, she heard a low hum that seemed to echo through Snakebite. Bug and Fran swore they didn’t hear it, but even now, if Ashley closed her eyes it was there.
She focused on Paris.
“The vigil kinda felt like a funeral.” Ashley twisted the end of her ponytail between her fingers. “I was worried people would stop showing up to these.”