Dying for Rain (The Rain Trilog - BB Easton Page 0,10

the ceiling behind it. Then, for the first time since we met, he lifts his head and looks me dead in the eye. The pity and remorse I see there hit me right in the fucking gut. He doesn’t look at me like I’m a suspect or a convict or “the accused.” He looks at me like I’m a man who just found out that he only has a few days left to live.

“For what it’s worth,” he whispers, blinking his red-rimmed eyes, “I really am sorry.”

I nod and press my lips together to keep my chin from wobbling like a little bitch.

I’m gonna fucking die here, I think as he escorts me to the showers.

“Dead man walkin’.”

May 6

Rain

I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to the front porch to get some fresh air and escape Jimbo’s snoring. He and Mrs. Renshaw dragged their king-size mattress over from next door and flopped it across my parents’ queen-size bedframe last night, and Carter tossed his mattress on the floor in our junk room. Now the whole house smells like smoke.

It smells like their house.

Because it is their house now.

The morning fog has settled in Old Man Crocker’s field across the street. It looks like a fallen cloud being pierced by orange and pink lasers as the sun rises behind the pine trees.

And that’s when I realize … I’m outside.

I haven’t been able to come outside without having a panic attack in weeks, but here I am. Not panicking.

Probably because there’s nothing left to fear.

I step off the porch and walk down the stairs where Wes and I sat just yesterday afternoon.

My feet carry me past my daddy’s rusted old truck—the one that Wes siphoned all the gas out of the day we met—and they don’t stop.

They take me down to the end of the driveway, where about six envelopes are scattered on the gravel. I pick them up one by one.

Franklin Springs Electric.

Franklin Springs Natural Gas.

Franklin Springs Water and Sewer.

First Bank of Georgia.

They’re all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Williams.

I run my fingertips over their names, but I feel nothing. Just the slick surface of the clear plastic film covering them. Then, I fold the stack of unpaid bills in half and tuck it into my hoodie pocket.

I pick my fallen mailbox up next. The wooden post is broken off at the ground level, so I shove what’s left of it into the soft Georgia clay next to the driveway. It only sticks about two feet above the ground now, but I don’t care.

I don’t care about anything anymore.

“Welcome to Fucklin Springs!” the sign across the street greets me as I pass, not reading my mood.

I haven’t walked down the highway into town by myself in months. Not since the crime rate skyrocketed, the roads got clogged with wrecks and cars that had run out of gas, and the local cops stopped showing up for work. After that, I mostly kept to the trail that snaked through the woods. But I’m not worried about the bad guys getting me now.

In fact, I hope they do.

The birds seem to be singing louder than ever as I walk past the torched and dilapidated farmhouses that used to belong to my neighbors. Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard one in weeks. They’re damn-near deafening now.

I have to walk in the middle of the street because all the wreckage has been shoved to the sides of the highway. Thanks to Quint. When the world was busy going insane on April 23, he grabbed his little brother and his daddy’s bulldozer and figured out a way to get the hell out of town.

A lot of good that did. Quint almost died in a bulldozer explosion, and now Wes is going to be executed for saving his life. I wish we’d never followed them out of town.

The second I think it, I want to take it back. If we hadn’t followed them, if we hadn’t been there, Quint would have died. I picture him and Lamar, all alone with that evil bitch, Q, and her crazy gang of runaways, and I shake my head. She’s gonna eat them alive.

Maybe I can convince Carter to take the truck back to the mall and get them, too.

As the glowing Burger Palace billboard rises over the trees in the distance, King Burger appears to be galloping toward me with his French fry staff held high. In the place where it used to say, Apocasize it! above a photo of