Page 102 of Horror and Chill

I smile. “You just have to know where to look.”

Satisfied, he keeps walking, and the three of us stay silent until his footsteps fade. Corwin lowers the binoculars, huffing under his breath.

“Conk-la-reeee?”

I smirk. “Worked, didn’t it?”

“How the fuck do you know about a red-winged…what was it?” Evander’s forehead scrunches.

“We did a bird unit last year in the spring. Just remembered a few things.”

“Weird,” Corwin mutters.

“Saved your ass,” I snap at him.

He ignores me, focusing back in the direction of the house, and I put the binoculars back to my eyes, doing the same.

The porch light is still on even in the daytime. A truck sits crooked in the drive. The place looks a little smaller than I remember. My belly drops to my asshole. I almost want to tell them to drive away.

Corwin breaks the silence first. “I had a red, shiny dirt bike once. I thought I’d stolen freedom itself when I lifted it from the neighbor’s yard.” He chuckles low, shaking his head. “Dad made me march it right back, apologize, and even had me polish the damn thing like I was the neighbor’s servant.”

“You deserved it,” Garron says without looking up from the wheel.

Corwin shrugs. “Still worth it for the ride I got before he caught me.”

Garron finally turns, resting his arm over the seat. “You remember the day Uncle Joe taught me to take apart that old engine? I spread every piece across the garage floor. Thought I’d broken it for good.”

I know what this is.

They’re filling the silence with stories so I don’t sink into the wrong memories. So I don’t think about the porch light across the street or the way my father’s voice used to crack like a whip through the walls. They don’t want my head running backward to all the dark shit that happened there.

“You almost did,” Corwin mutters.

“But I put it back together,” Garron continues, like he’s ignoring the jab. “It started. First try. Dad clapped me on the back so hard I nearly ate the wrench.”

A smile tugs at my mouth before I can stop it. They sound… normal.

Evander’s voice slips into the quiet, soft enough it almost blends with the night outside. “Mom hums whenever she boils water. Always the same song. Doesn't matter if it was for tea or pasta. That tune means something good is coming.”

Corwin snorts. “Yeah, and you still hum it when you’re nervous.”

“I don’t,” Evander says, though his mouth curves.

“You do,” Garron and Corwin answer together, like twins, even though there are three of them.

The sound rattles in my chest, something I don’t expect. I grew up in kitchens that stank of rot and sermons. These men talk about bikes and engines and songs like they belonged tosomething safe. Homes that smelled like dinner. Hands that taught them how to fix, not just how to strike.

“How did you end up stabby psychos then?” I ask. “Sounds like you had normal, fun, loving parents.”

Corwin shrugs like it is no revelation at all. “Not sure. Maybe we were made wrong. We had normal childhoods. We did not start out this way. We killed the man who beat our sister, and it fit like a key. We kept using the key.”

I swallow. “Oh.”

Garron’s voice is even. “We do not kill just to kill. There is meaning.”

I ask the thing I have been stuffing down for a while. “What about Jay?”

Corwin doesn’t blink. “He was going to touch you.” The sentence lands so flat it is almost a fact. “We couldn’t allow that.”