he went MIA. Probably why he dropped out of Brown, too.”
“He dropped out?” Susan echoed, coming out into the hall, followed by Roland. The sheriff was notably silent, and Colt knew better than to think his calm facade was an accurate representation of what was going on underneath.
“I only found out recently,” said Colt.
“And you didn’t tell us?” Stan demanded.
“By the time I found out, he’d already been away from campus for weeks,” said Colt. “He was obviously trying to keep it from you, and until I had a reason not to, I wasn’t going to blow his secret.” When he saw they were about to argue, he added, “You were right when you said I couldn’t trust you, and I don’t. Lesson learned. But I do trust Ronnie, and I wasn’t going to betray that trust unless I had to. Not even for you.”
They didn’t respond, and although Colt knew his answer was unsatisfactory, they seemed to have moved on for the moment.
“Roland says you found Ronnie because you followed the scent of his blood,” Stan said, looking Colt over with suspicion that had never been in his eyes before. Considering who they were talking about, he could understand. “How did you do that?”
“It’s a long story, but it’s not what it sounds like,” said Colt. “When I smelled Ronnie’s blood in the forest, I knew he’d been there, and I had a hunch as to where to find him. It turned out to be right.”
Susan and Stan exchanged a look. Colt was expecting more of the interrogation, but instead, Susan turned her husband.
“How could we not know?” she asked, her voice cracking. “We’re his parents. How could we not know he was going through something like this?”
“We still don’t know what he’s going through,” Roland finally chimed in. “I’ve got a partially eaten ghoul’s corpse, an unawakened ghoul who’s practically comatose, and still no fucking explanation for how any of it happened.”
“That’s not true,” said Colt. “There is an explanation, just not one that makes any sense.”
They all turned to him, Roland’s expression even stonier than usual. “You have our attention,” he said coldly.
“He killed a Plague Doctor,” Colt said, lowering his voice. “Now we’ve got another dead ghoul on our hands, and there’s no way he died from the wound we found on him.”
“What are you saying?” Susan asked, frowning. “You think Ronnie killed him?”
“I know he did. He said as much, and I know he had a reason,” Colt added before she could deck him. “All I’m saying is, there’s no way he did that with his bare hands. That ghoul was easily twice his size.”
“Then how the hell do you think he killed him?” Roland demanded. “You said it yourself, there’s no way he inherited Vaughn’s power.”
Colt thought back to Ronnie’s cryptic words. At the time, they hadn’t made any sense, but they were beginning to. “I was wrong. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.”
They fell silent as Colt contemplated whether to share the other thoughts on his mind. “There’s something else,” he finally said. “The wound that ghoul had on him was made after he died.”
Roland’s silence told Colt he wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
“How could you possibly know that?” Susan demanded. She was in full-on defense mode, and Colt couldn’t blame her. The idea that Ronnie was capable of feeding off his own kind when he couldn’t even stomach the processed versions of human meat the ghouls ate seemed utterly absurd.
“Ronnie would never do that,” said Stan. “Self-defense is one thing, but he wouldn’t have… eaten him. He doesn’t even like pork, for goodness’ sake.”
“He’s not himself,” said Colt. “Whatever’s going on with him, it’s been going on for a while, and he’s been dealing with it alone. You can blame me for that. I sure as hell do, but right now, all that matters is figuring out how we can help him.”
None of them responded for a while. Eventually, Stan was the first to speak, and whether it was just exhaustion or not, his anger seemed to have turned to defeat. “There’s more than enough blame to go around. We’re his parents. We should’ve seen the warning signs.”
“He’s not on drugs,” Roland said flatly. “There isn’t exactly a set of reliable warning signs your kid is turning into a Plague Doctor.”
Susan cringed. “We don’t know that,” she said sharply. It seemed she had some anger left over for her brother, too. “They turn their prey to ash.