“Pump three and a Red Bull.”
The guy behind the register keeps throwing side-eye my way like he thinks I’m on something. Must be the manic grin I can’t wipe off my face.
His curiosity gets the better of him.
“What’s so funny?” he asks warily.
“Oh, nothing.” I chuckle. “Just my uncle. Turns out he’s not broke after all.”
The cashier doesn’t laugh.
I do.
I don’t know where I’m going at first. I’m just driving away from Ashwood Crossing, away from the horrendous years of my life I was forced to spend with my dad and uncle in that festering hole of an apartment.
But my body knows. My hands turn the wheel without conscious thought, guiding me through streets I haven’t seen in years, toward a place I thought I’d left behind.
The woods.
The creek.
The maple tree.
I park as close as I can, then carry what’s left of Lenny through the darkness. Trip after trip, my arms aching, my legs shaking, the rain soaking through to my bones.
I don’t have a shovel, so I use my hands, digging through the rain-softened earth until my fingers are raw. When I’m done, I sit with my back against our maple tree and watch the sun come up.
I don’t cry because I don’t feel sad.
I don’t feel anything at all.
I just sit there, covered in mud and rain and disgusting organic things I don’t want to think about, and I wait for something to make sense.
Nothing does.
Eventually, I get up and drive to the closest gas station. I wait in the parking lot until the car wash opens, then I run Dad’s junker through it three times and pay for them to steam clean the trunk. The attendant looks at me like I’ve lost my mind…or maybe he’s just worried the car will dissolve under the pressure washer.
When I’ve made sure there isn’t a trace of Lenny left on the car, I go buy myself a coffee and something to eat at a diner called the Pie Palace. It was the first restaurant I spotted that didn’t look like they served free e-coli with every meal.
The waitress manning the counter asks if I’m a local, a student, or just passing through. She laughs when I tell her all three. And then she says they’re looking for more wait staff, if I need something to keep me busy until the start of the semester.
I order a slice of apple crumble, and she has an application form with her when she brings it to me.
The pie tastes like heaven, and that should make me feel guilty as fuck.
But I don’t feel guilty.
I feel…victorious.
Like I’ve been fighting a war my entire life, losing battle after battle after battle, until now.
The war’s finally over.
Chapter 40
Bastian
I’ve heard a lot of confessions in my life. None of them prepared me for Haven, grimy and unkempt with blood splattered on her bare calves, telling us she’d murdered a man and feltvictorious.
