Page 12 of Into the Dark, We Go

"Where you gonna go?" her brother turned to her, leaning his left arm on the back of my seat. "Who’s gonna have your back? We stick together; that’s what we do."

His sister didn’t respond, turning away from him and staring out the window. I felt uncomfortable, so I chose to focus on the road, pretending nothing had happened.

I didn’t have brothers or sisters, but I had a mother I wanted to escape. Remembering that the distance between us would soon be reduced to an uncomfortable minimum made me feel dizzy.

"Did Amanda go missing at night, too?" I asked.

Mitch looked over at his sister as if checking whether she was okay with him sharing, then said, "Yeah. She was coming back from her support group. Someone said she stayed late, chatting. Seemed excited. Jittery."

They’d already told me there were no witnesses. Lucas also vanished at night from a crowded stadium, with no one seeing anything, so I knew it was possible.

"What kind of support group was it?" I asked.

"A domestic violence one," June said flatly.

"I’m sorry to ask, but if she was going to that group, could the person who caused her to be there be connected?"

"No," Mitchell’s short answer seemed unusual for him.

"He’s in jail," said June, looking me directly in the eye through the rearview mirror.

"I see." I didn’t know what else to say.

My phone lit up with a photo of Lucas and me, a message from my mother appearing beneath it. Mitchell’s eyes followed mine.

"Tell me about him, about Lucas," he said, nodding towards my phone.

I hesitated. I’d shared plenty with Sarah, and she’d leaked it all, letting it distort and spread from one person to the next.

My mother hated it when I talked about Lucas. The rest of my friends turned their backs on me after what happened between Sarah and me. So I kept it all bottled up, carrying it inside me like a precious vial of poison that I had no choice but to swallow again and again.

However, something in Mitchell’s expression put me at ease. He’d also lost a loved one, and I felt a thin thread of connection with him and with June. Something I hadn’t felt in a while.

But I still didn’t know what to tell him. What we had with Lucas had unraveled slowly, morphing from a promising start into a nightmare that remained suspended the moment he vanished.

"What do you want to know?" I turned to Mitch, taking my eyes off the road for a second.

"Well, for instance, how long were you together?"

"Almost two years."

"What’s your take on what happened to him? Did he mention anything weird before he disappeared? Maybe his behavior changed?"

"I’m not sure." It had been so long, sometimes I doubted if I had ever really known him at all.

June chimed in from the back, "They say you murdered him." She grinned, seemingly pleased with the reaction—my uncomfortable silence and her brother’s disapproving glance, and then added, "But we kinda ruled that out. So, the mystery remains."

"Well, maybe this psychic lady will shed some light on the story."

"Ever been to one?" Mitch asked.

"A psychic? No, never," I mused, and then added with a forced laugh, "If she starts talking to the dead, I’m so outta there!"

"Don’t believe in the supernatural?" he said with a chuckle.

"I guess not."

"Me neither. Although," Mitchell scratched his head thoughtfully, "I have seen some weird shit."