Point, Zachary. And that’s what you get for disturbing my solitude.
“You know,” Darby said, “if you weren’t maybe about to be killed, we’d walk away right now.”
Zachary raised his eyebrows. “Fightin’ words.”
A few feet away stood a large family with several children. The dad glared at Zachary over his shoulder. They hadn’t realized that the crowd had stopped talking to watch the band file down the street. But then an odd thing happened. The dad saw Makani and did a double take. He nudged his wife and whispered into her ear.
Zachary gave him the finger.
The dad turned away quickly. But then he glanced at them again, and Zachary had the craziest feeling that a murmur was traveling through the crowd.
Makani stepped closer. She was so focused on Zachary that it seemed like her eyes were avoiding someone else. That dad? “Listen,” she said quietly, “we have reason to believe that you’re David’s next victim.”
“Not likely,” Zachary said. “Me and David go way back.”
She looked surprised. Until she registered the smidge of doubt that he was unable to mask, and then her friends were pressing up against him, too, hissing about some lunatic theory that David was murdering everyone who’d been a bully.
Zachary stomped out his cigarette to push them away. “Well, if that’s true, it won’t be much longer until David kills himself. Problem’s gonna sort itself out.”
Makani grimaced—and he remembered. It explained why all these people were staring at them. It explained why the murmur was becoming a small furor.
“Oh, shit.” Zachary finally lowered his voice. “You were the one attacked last night.”
Her eyes widened with annoyance.
“So . . . wait. If your theory is correct, that makes you an asshole, too.” He paused for a fiendish grin. “What’d you do, Young?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Makani rolled up her left sleeve. A bandage was wrapped around her arm, as high up as he could see. “All you need to know is that I earned this.”
Her friends tried to protest, but she interrupted them. “We’re worried for your safety. This Terry guy doesn’t sound great, but can you trust him? When this is over, can you go home and stay with him?”
“No,” Zachary said to the first question. He stared at her forearm, which she’d already covered back up. “But, yeah. I can stay with him.”
“Good,” she said.
Zachary didn’t like the catch of fear in his chest. He side-eyed Ollie. Their classmates were always comparing them, lumping them together. “What about you? You’ve done some shit.”
“Yeah,” Ollie said. “But the only person I’ve ever hurt is myself.”
“And your brother.”
Ollie flinched. Not so stone-faced, after all. Makani glanced at him as if she were trying to figure something out.
Two points, Zachary.
“In the movies, it’s always the kids who have sex and do drugs that are killed, right?” Zachary forced another grin. “I guess that means we’re both gonna die.”
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” It was the first coherent thought that Caleb could complete.
The hooded figure was blocking the exit. In one hand, he held a plume. In the other, a knife. “Where should I be?” David asked. His dull monotone matched his colorless appearance. The emptiness of humanity shook Caleb to the bones.
He took a trembling step backward. “In the fields. Or in somebody’s barn.”
David took a measured step forward. “I’m not.”
“H-how did you get in here?”
“Why would I answer that?” David let go of the plume. “What if you escaped?”
The band started to play, but something about the music was strange and off-putting. They stopped bickering. Zachary frowned. “What is that? Why do I know that song?”
Darby looked stunned. “It’s the graduation song. ‘Pomp and Circumstance.’”
“Jesus,” Makani said, as Ollie said, “Christ.”
“I guess they didn’t have a go-to funeral dirge in their repertoire,” Darby said.
Zachary listened to the swell of rising pageantry. With each refrain, the march grew more disturbing. “You know, this is the only time this song will ever be played for them.”
“This is so messed up,” Darby said.
“This is gonna get old,” Ollie said.
“This might be worse than if they hadn’t played at all,” Makani said.
The crowd progressed forward. It felt like everyone was staring at them, waiting to see if Makani would join in. She seemed resigned by her despair. Like she didn’t have a choice anymore. Even though there was still an hour before dusk, the townspeople lit their candles. Zachary wasn’t sure why they didn’t wait until they reached the memorial. In the afternoon light, their flames looked weak and silly.
Makani, Ollie, and Darby removed candles from their pockets.
“Coming?” Darby asked.
Zachary pulled out his lighter and candle. “What the hell.” He uncrumpled the candle’s flimsy paper ring. He lit his wick first before touching it to Makani’s.
It blackened. And then it sparked into flame.
Caleb tore out of the back room and into the store, knocking over glass jars, towers of canned goods, and racks of cheap clothing printed with the words LION PRIDE.
David dodged the mounting chaos with alarming ease. Caleb shot past the produce, battering down a carefully constructed pyramid of butternut squash, but David still reached him just before the entrance. David stabbed him in the back. Ripped the knife downward.
Caleb screamed, but no one could hear him over the sound of the band. He flattened against the cold floor. The drum line was poised in front of the doors—the last in line and the last to march away. Caleb pounded on the glass, stamping it with bloody fist prints.
David dragged him out of view.
“What are you gonna do?” Caleb was crying. Haley’s throat. Matt’s brain. Rodrigo’s ears. “What are you gonna do to me?”
David straddled Caleb’s body and stared down at him.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t scowl. He just finished his work while the people of Osborne marched to the school in their parade.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Makani and Ollie walked back to Main Street. If the mood weren’t so subdued, it might have even been called a stroll. The sun was setting, the candles had melted, and the memorial was over. Zachary had been escorted to his car, and Darby had been dropped off with Alex. They were meeting back up with Chris. Their brief time alone was dwindling to an end, and they were trying to make it last.
Makani didn’t feel like Ollie was judging her, or even looking at her askance, but there was something new—faint but solid—wedged between them. They didn’t hold hands. Their hands were tucked back into their pockets, unsure again.
As they turned onto Main Street, only a few short blocks away from Greeley’s, where Ollie’s and Chris’s cars were both parked, she spoke out of last-ditch desperation. “Thanks for listening earlier. In the hospital. And for not judging me.” She paused. “You aren’t judging me, are you?”