The Rebel of Raleigh High (Raleigh Rebels #1) - Callie Hart

Prologue

Grave robbery has never been that high on my to-do list, but tonight, with a frigid Washington wind blowing in off Lake Cushman, I find myself up to my waist in dirt with a shovel in my hand. Weird how life likes to fuck with you sometimes. There are plenty of other places I could be tonight, and yet here I am, the muscles in my back aching like a bitch as I lift the haft of the shovel over my head and I pile-drive the steel blade into the unforgiving, frozen earth.

“Dorme, Passerotto. Shhh. Time to go to sleep.”

I ignore the soft whisper in my ear. That voice is long gone now. It doesn’t serve me to remember it, but…forgetting wouldn’t be right. Forgetting would feel like a betrayal.

The cut, scrape, swish of my work fills the night air, and a river of sweat courses down my spine. My body’s no stranger to physical labor, and I’m grateful for the fact as I press forward, hurling clods of icy dirt over my bare shoulder and out of the deepening hole. This task would be way shittier if I weren’t in shape. Scratch that…it’d probably be impossible.

I don’t believe in zombies, vampires, ghosts, or any other kind of apparition, but there’s something about this place that creeps me out. Yeah, it’s a graveyard, Poindexter. You’re surrounded by rotting bodies. I roll my eyes at my own inner monologue, again lobbing loose grave soil out onto the well-manicured grass to my right. It’s only natural that this place would have a sinister edge to it. It’s abandoned, not a soul in sight (very convenient for me), and yet there are signs of the living everywhere—laminated cards bearing the smiling faces of children; floral tributes, tinged with the first signs of fading decay; stuffed animals, fur matted and crusted over with frost. The people who left these trinkets and treasures are safe in their own warm houses now, though. It feels like the end of the world out here, a neglected place, filled with neglected memories. The moon overhead, round and fat in the clear September sky, casts long shadows, making spears out of the headstones.

I wipe at my forehead with the back of my forearm, grit and clay smearing my skin, and I consider how much further down I need to go. They bury people deeper than usual here in Grays Harbor County. I read that on the cemetery website yesterday morning when I was scoping the place. They said it was because of the bears. Seriously fucked up. I try not to think about that as I quicken my pace, eager to accomplish my goal and get the hell out of here.

A loud, metallic clang eventually signals that I’ve come to the end of the road, I’ve found what I’m looking for, and that hard part, the disturbing-as-fuck part of this evening’s adventure has finally arrived. Takes some time to clear off the coffin and figure out how to open the damn thing. This kind of thing is always made to look so easy in the movies, but it’s not. Far from it. I nearly rip the damn nail from my index finger as I try to heave back the lid.

“Figlio di puttana! Fucking piece of shit.” I nearly shove my finger into my mouth to suck on it, but then I remember the fucking grave dirt underneath the nail of the finger in question and I decide against it. Dirt is dirt is dirt, but grave dirt? No, thanks.

Upon close inspection, I conclude there’s no way to finesse the coffin open, so I resort to brute force, heaving on the wood until the coffin makes a splintering sound and the lid frees, groaning as it yawns reluctantly open.

Inside: the body of a man in his late fifties, dressed in a red button-down shirt and a black tie. No suit jacket. His face, a face I know all too well, is as severe and downturned in death as it was in life. Hooked nose; pronounced brow; deep, cavernous lines carved into the flesh of his cheeks, bracketing his thin-lipped, angry-looking mouth. His hands have been stacked on top of his chest. Beneath them: a copy of the Gideon’s Bible. The cheap, generic kind you might find in the drawer of a nightstand in a Motel 6. I scowl at the sight, a familiar, slick, oily knot tightening in my chest. Ahh, rage, my friend. Fancy seeing you here, you sly old