I look over, seeing him eye Aro in the rearview mirror.
“Yours is better.” She smirks.
Headlights are reflected in my side mirror, and I watch the car far behind us.
“Born and raised in Weston?” he asks her.
“Yeah.”
“Which part?”
“The shitty part.”
He breathes out a weak laugh, and he’s either impressed with her retorts or finds it funny that she’s inferring there’s a non-shitty part of Weston.
I tilt my mirror to get rid of the glare of the lights growing closer behind us.
“People talk about the glory days,” Aro muses. “Bustling population. Traffic. The stands packed at football games and streets lit up with businesses and crowded with pedestrians. It seems like Atlantis, though.” Her voice softens. “A myth that we’re not sure was ever real.”
We cross the bridge, but Aro continues before I have a chance to retrieve a coin.
“I’ve never seen this town any other way,” she tells us. “A ghost town and a breeding ground for…opportunists.”
Growing up, I don’t remember anything good about Weston. We never drove here for a restaurant or an athletic event.
“Not going to ask me any questions?” she presses him. “Like how old I was when they drew me in? Or how much money I stole for them?”
I notice the lights in my side mirror are no longer there and glance over.
The car is still there.
Several lengths behind us but there.
My chest rises and falls a little faster.
“Or,” Aro goes on, “how much money I could’ve made if I’d started saying yes to him?”
It takes a moment to register what Aro’s talking about. Green Street? The gang she belongs to that Farrow still belongs to? Why is she talking to Lucas about that?
Tearing my eyes away from the car in my mirror, I look over at him. His tanned jaw is flexed, but he just stares at the road in front of him.
“Drew Reeves,” Aro says, the words filling the car. “You’ve heard of him, right?”
I watch Lucas, since I know it’s not me she’s asking. I’ve heard of Reeves. He was a Shelburne Falls cop, but he quit two years ago.
Aro continues, “I wonder if it was his idea to recruit teenagers to steal and deal and hurt people.”
I narrow my eyes. Aro’s never talked to me about what she went through here. Why is she sharing this now?
“It was smart,” she tells us. “Throwing minors to the wolves instead of himself.”
“Did he hurt you?” I ask her.
She stares into Lucas’s rearview mirror. “He wanted to.”
We pull up to Knock Hill, and I take in Lucas’s white knuckles, clenched around the steering wheel, and his rigid shoulders. What’s going on?
Pieces start to slide into place, conclusions coming more into view. His back tattoo. Everyone at my party immediately recognized it. Farrow just leaving me with him when it wasn’t abundantly clear that I was consenting to anything.
