Page 107 of Cryptic Curse

“Right.And you said the dirt was hard.”He scratches the side of his head.“So this happened a while ago.”

“Exactly.”

“You want to do some more digging?”he asks.

I draw a breath.“Yeah,” I say.“I do.”

My body is sore from the digging yesterday.Still, I worked like a horse on the ranch today.Nothing like good physical labor to keep your mind where it needs to be.And I wouldn’t mind a little more right now.

We head back to Falcon’s truck and grab the supplies we need.

“You sure we should be doing this in the daylight?”I ask.“E and I were here after dark.”

He gestures broadly.“Look around you, man.No one’s here.No one knows we’re here.”

I simply nod.

We walk back into the barn and take a look around.

“If you were a dead body, where would you be?”Falcon asks.

He means to be funny, but I don’t laugh.

This is all a little too macabre.We can laugh about it when the mysteries are solved and back in the ground where they belong.

“Let’s just try here, right next to where we buried Vega.”I stick my shovel in.

We dig for about an hour and come up empty-handed.

I pull off more floorboards and continue to dig.

I sigh.“I’m sweaty as a pig,” I say.“And I’m not seeing?—”

The sun is moving toward the west, and it’s sliding through the slats on the roof.

And something glints.

I kneel down, pull a small object out of the dirt.

And I gulp.

It starts in my chest—tight and hot, like someone lit a match under my ribs and now I can’t breathe right.My hands go cold first, even though I’m sweating.My fingers twitch inside the leather gloves, like they’re trying to shake something off that’s already inside me.

My mind goes loud.Too loud.Thoughts crashing into each other like a hundred people shouting in a tunnel.I can’t catch a single one.Can’t focus.Can’t think.

I’mthere.Back in that moment I’ve spent so long trying to bury.But it doesn’t add up.

My heart stutters.Not like fear.Like recognition.Like,oh—this again.

I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.Anger?Panic?All I know is I want out.Out of this barn, out of this body, out of this memory that’s wrapping itself around my neck like a noose.

But I can’t run.

So I stay still, hoping my brother can’t see how hard I’m trying not to fall apart.

“Hey, man,” Falcon says.“You okay?”

I breathe.In, out, in, out.