Time seems to careen forward as he drags me to the truck, the sun wheeling hotly overhead. My mind screams,No, no, no.My body pulls fiercely away, without success.
But behind me I hear the screen door of the house slap open and the steady thud of footsteps on the front stairs. “Fuck off, Raif!” Archer shouts.
Raif stops, swings his gaze over my shoulder. And in the next blink I launch my leg forward, kicking him hard in the shin with aloud crack. He cries out, wincing, then buckles over just before he releases my arm.
I nearly drop to the ground but manage to stagger back, thumping against the mailbox.
“Get the fuck out of here, Talon!” Archer yells, striding down the driveway toward us, the anger hot across his face.
I draw in a breath, my heart biting against my ribs, and when I look up, both Talon and Raif are back inside the truck, doors slammed shut, and the truck is screeching away, rear tires kicking up dust. One of the younger boys in the back tosses out his can of orange soda, and it hits the ground at my feet, splashing sticky soda onto my bare shins, before the truck speeds up the road and vanishes around a bend.
In the dirt lies my notebook—pages fanned open, covered in gravel.
I touch my arm where Raif’s fingers dug into my flesh, the skin tender but unbroken. Archer stops at the end of the driveway and glares up the road, where gray exhaust clouds the air.
Nearly everyone in townlovesArcher—whether they want to admit it or not—but some of them also fear him. He’s been in enough fights, usually over a lost love or a stolen love or an unrequited love: often a jealous boyfriend picking a fight with Archer after his girlfriend was seen lurking around the Goode house. “You only have to win a few fights before the reputation sticks,” he told me once.
“Idiots,” he says now, exhaling through his nostrils, then swings his focus back to me. “You okay?”
I nod.
Archer bends down and picks up my notebook from the driveway, brushing away the dirt to reveal the sketch of the unknown boy.He stares down at it, and for a moment I think he might recognize the face. But then he asks, “Who’s this?”
I step forward and grab the notebook from his hands. “No one.”
He shoots me a suspicious look. “You only sketch real people, so he must besomeone. New kid at school? Paperboy? What is it?”
I don’t answer him, tucking the book back under my arm, my cheeks still hot from the fight with Raif. Shins sticky, my heart only beginning to slow.
But Archer smirks. “Lark Goode… my little sister, keeping secrets.” His face brightens, amused, and he starts to move toward me, like he’s going to rip the notebook from my arms.
“I’m not yourlittlesister,” I counter.
He lifts an eyebrow, like he finds this funny. “I guess we’ll never know for sure. But it’s obvious I was born first: I’m stronger, taller, and more handsome.”
I swing the notebook behind my back. Out of reach.
But our attention is pulled away by the sound of another car approaching up the road. This time the school bus comes into view, sputtering and lumbering toward us.
Archer turns back to me, suddenly looking serious. “Maybe today is not the day to go to school.”
I brush my hair behind my ears, letting out a breath. I won’t let Raif and Talon scare me. And with only two more days of school, I’m so close to being done with this town forever.
“Lark…,” Archer says, lifting both eyebrows. “I know I give you shit about going to school. But this is different. Those stolen tulips are in the hands of strangers now—we don’t know what this means, what will happen.”
The bus rattles to a stop along the shoulder of the road, doors folding open, and I look at my brother. “Exactly, we don’t know…. Maybe the worst of it is already over.”
Archer shakes his head but doesn’t seem to know what else to say.
“I’ll be fine,” I assure him, forcing a smile. But my brother doesn’t look relieved. Not even a little. He watches as I step up into the bus—my heart banging against my eardrums—and I find a seat near the front of the bus so I can exit faster when we reach the school. I gaze out the window at my brother, standing at the end of the driveway, hands in the pockets of his jeans, our shithole house sinking into the wet soil behind him.
And I’m certain that by the end of the school day, I’ll know just how bad of an idea this is.
FOUR
The tulips split us apart, make us a myth—people to be feared and loved and hated. We are a paradox, a puzzle, we are the old wives’ tale that locals like our neighbor down the road, Mrs. Thierry, talk about during bingo and brunch club.The Goodes can’t go out after dark,someone will say.No, theyonlygo out after dark,another will interject.They bury their kin beneath the house; they let them float away on the creek; they never die.
This is the problem with rumors. It’s rare to find a kernel of truth within the tangled yarn of tall tales. Too many muddy, mucky lies.
