“Ruth,” he called, amazed. “What’s happening?”
I blew past him, then felt him chasing me as I charged down the street. I took the turnoff to the woods, cutting through neighbors’ lawns, running hard enough to keep myself from thinking. Trees appeared in the distance and I plunged into them.
After another minute of exertion, I fell against the trunk of a pine, gasping. Soon Everett was beside me, his face flushed. He braced a hand on the tree near my shoulder. “What the hell’s going on?”
I shook my head. My muscles burned. Sweat plastered my hair to my forehead. When I’d gulped enough air, I managed to say, “Panic attack.” I’d never told anyone—I didn’t even know for sure. I’d read a book with a character who had them, and it had been like a lightbulb going off. I’d diagnosed myself.
“What’d your parents do?” Everett asked, and I didn’t stop to wonder how he knew.
I pushed the letters against his chest. “I’m not going to college.”
He smoothed the papers and scanned them. “Funny, because it looks like you are.”
“They said no.”
Everett wiped his face with the hem of his T-shirt, exposing his muscled stomach. I jerked my gaze away. “Who cares what they said? You’re almost eighteen. Go anyway.”
I flushed. “With what money? I don’t even have a checking account. I need them to sign for a loan.” I shouldn’t have to explain to Everett. He should know as well as anyone that money was destiny.
He laughed—it startled me enough that I glanced up. “What?”
“These people. If they can’t trap you one way, they just find another.” He looked back at the letters. “A thousand to confirm your spot, huh?”
I leaned against the tree, letting the bark bite into my back. It was getting easier to breathe. “Might as well be a million. I have the same chance of coming up with it.”
“There’s a community college out in Saint Lafitte, you know. That’s only an hour away. It’s not LSU, but it’s something. Won’t cost you a thousand to register, neither. Maybe you could work a little after graduation, save up, then apply.” Everett’s eyes traveled from my clenched hands up to my face. He wore that tender look again, the one that had alarmed me the first time I saw it. “I’ve sat next to you in class for years. You of all people should be going to college.”
“Are you going?” Under my dress, sweat was drying on my skin, cooling it. I rubbed my arms, trying to ignore the fact that even the hint that he’d paid attention to me made me feel strangely light. “To community college?”
He scrubbed his neck. “Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve got some things to work out first.”
I studied his face. The question slipped out. “Do you really get in bar fights like people say?”
Everett’s eyes narrowed. For years I’d tried not to look too closely at his face. For a thousand reasons, it had seemed too dangerous. Now that we were becoming friends, I kept discovering things that took me by surprise. Like how his eyes were impossibly dark, yet sparkled with flecks of brown, like little stars. The dark bruise around his eye did nothing to diminish the effect.
“Never mind the black eye,” he said quickly. “I found something.”
He fished in his pocket and pulled out something that glinted—Renard’sMommanecklace. It was streaked with dirt and something darker—blood.
A chill washed through me. “Where’d you get that?” Talk of Renard’s disappearance was fading, but if anyone saw this necklace in Everett’s possession, distinctly Renard’s and covered in blood, we’d be in grave trouble.
“I found it in the clearing.” Everett watched for my reaction.
He meant the clearing where we’d killed Renard. “Why did you go back?” Returning to the scene of the crime seemed the most suspicious thing he could’ve done. In books, it was what killers did when they wanted to soak in the glory of their crimes.
He shrugged. “I was hunting, and the clearing’s close to a burrow. There’s reliable game there.”
“You were hunting when you found me, too.” I’d seen the dead animal he dropped. “Why do you hunt so much?”
He looked past me. “I have to eat.”
“Doesn’t your father buy groceries?” Mr. Duncan, who ran the garage on the other side of town, was someone I crossed the street to avoid. Even from far away, you could feel the dark miasma of anger that ringed him. Churchgoers whispered he’d sold his soul to the Devil and was now his emissary, a rumor strengthened by the fact that he and Everett had never once stepped foot inside the church. Some whispered they’d burst into flames if they tried. But Mr. Duncan’s garage seemed busy despite the rumors—there were always cars there—which meant there had to be at least enough money to eat.
Everett’s words were clipped. “Like I said.”
He clearly wanted to change the subject, so I gestured to the necklace. “We have to get rid of it, right?”
He nodded. “I thought you might want to do the honors. All things considered.”
