“Oh, I’m a feminist for sure,” Vic says, but he’s not really looking at me anymore, his attention homed in on Mitch. If I were Mitch, and I saw Victor Channing look at me like that, I’d run. Fast. And I wouldn’t look back. “A third wave feminist: women are just plain better.” He grins and pats me on the head which is extremely patronizing. I can’t decide if I should be mad at him or not. “Let’s get out of here; we have shit to do.”
“Don’t we always?” I quip as I fall into step between Cal and Aaron. “A special present for Mitch, huh?” I ask, directing the question at Callum; he grins at me, sucking on the straw that’s stabbed into his usual Pepsi can.
“You’ll love this one,” he tells me with that growling voice of his. The laughter that follows gives me the chills, and I notice both Billie and Kali whipping their heads in our direction to stare. If they aren’t afraid of Callum, they should be. “We all agree that what happened with the video wasn’t acceptable. Bernadette, you have a right to know us all, as we truly are.” My eyes widen slightly, but I’m not displeased by the statement. Well, thank god, somebody in this group has brains in their skull.
“Don’t look too excited by that,” Aaron quips, frowning hard. Callum leans in toward me, a shadowed prince in a hood of darkness.
“You might not like the skeletons in our closet, but I sure do hope you stay,” he whispers, kissing me on the cheek.
Doesn’t occur to me until about two hours later that he was being literal.
“Oh, my fuck,” I gag, covering my mouth with my hands. I’m standing over a hole in the woods, six feet deep, two feet wide. There’s a body inside, wrapped up in plastic and taped up to resemble a cocoon.
Doesn’t do much to disguise the smell though.
Callum and Aaron, in gloves and rain jackets and hairnets, are at the bottom of the hole, covered in dirt and hefting the corpse of Danny Ensbrook up to Hael and Vic. Oscar stands off to the side, watching carefully and taking notes. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing, so I just stand there and try to process.
Skeletons in the closet indeed.
We’ve stolen two more cars today—a 2013 Nissan Armada and some 90s Suburban—and covered the interior of the Armada with tarps. Vic and Hael carry Danny’s rotting body over to the dirt patch where they’re parked and then chuck him unceremoniously onto the ground, like so much garbage on its way to the dump. The smell though … that’s what’s really getting to me. My head spins, and I try to reconcile those years of fantasizing about Havoc with reality.
They’re … awful. In so many ways. So, so, so, so many.
I wet my lips, but the smell gets to me, and I almost vomit again.
“Remind me of the plan,” I choke out as I watch Hael and Callum start to fill the hole in with dirt. The oddest thing about this patch of woods is how many fresh mounds of dirt there are. My skin ripples with goose bumps. “Nobody is going to find Danny out here.” We’re two hours from Springfield, and about four hours from the house where the Halloween party took place. “Why are we moving him?”
“Because Mitch pissed me off,” Vic explains, using a gloved finger to press the button on the automatic hatch of the SUV. It opens on its own with a cheerful chirp. “We’re delivering a message. This isn’t just a game of high school chess anymore; it’s real. He can either fall back and get in line, or he can play on our terms.”
Hael starts to unwrap the body. I tell myself I’m not going to look as he peels the plastic and tape away from the corpse, but I can’t stop myself. Danny died because he lifted his gun to my head; Callum killed him to save me. This isn’t something I get to stick my head in the sand over.
It’s only been a few weeks since Danny died, but holy shit if he doesn’t look like a zombie. His eyes are sunken in; there are bugs; he’s bloated as shit. I gag and turn away, choking back the bile. I don’t want to leave any sign that I was here.
“There are bodies everywhere,” I say instead, looking around and wondering what the actual