Page 16 of Soul So Dark

Mason said as much in the group text, but it was otherwise devoid of detail. And as soon as I read Bowen’s name, all I could think about was that asshole nailing me in the face with his elbow last fall on the soccer field. If Rory hadn’t been standing close enough to grab me, I would’ve knocked his fucking teeth down his throat. It evened out in the end, though. Colson knocked the shit out of him and we won the game, but I would’ve rather been the one to lay him out.

The three of us remain silent as Colson reaches for the bottle of Town Branch sitting open on the side table and gulps down a mouthful without so much as blinking.

“Just him?” Aiden finally asks.

I know what he’s thinking and why he asked, his own mind wandering to dark places.

“Just him,” Colson replies.

“You told them?” I ask, knowing that he and Mason were taken to Canaan’s police department after they found Evie.

Colson nods, his silence all but confirming my assumption that it didn’t make a damn bit of difference. If Bowen is responsible for Evie’s death, there’s no way he’s ever getting arrested as long as his grandfather is the chief and Jay Rhinehardt’s family makes up nearly half of the force.

“So, what are we doing?” I ask with the implication that we will indeed be doing something, legal or not.

“He butchered her,” Colson throws back the whiskey bottle once more, “then he stuffed her in a pipe and left her there. She didn’t even look like herself. Mason knows.” He nods to Mason on the adjacent sofa, arms crossed with the same faraway look he’s had since last fall.

It’s weird, I’m used to Aiden and Colson’s darkness, but seeing something akin to it in Mason’s eyes is surreal.

“Why’d he do it?” Aiden asks through slitted eyes.

That’s the question, isn’t it? Who’s Evie to Bowen? She’s his sister, Hildy’s best friend, and she’s one of the kindest people on the planet. But isn’t that always how it goes?

Everyone loved her…she lit up every room she walked into…beloved by all…

That is, until she disappeared and her barely recognizable, mutilated body was discovered after being secreted away, never meant to be found. Clearly, someone thought otherwise—Bowenthought otherwise.

Colson sets his jaw. “Evie was going to dump him that night. She told me.”

It feels like all the air leaves the room as we let his words sink in and wait for him to elaborate.

“After the race in Hellbranch, he sent me a video,” Colson lets out an exasperated breath, “of him fucking her. They were together…dating…whatever. It was a secret. She told me about it when everything started going to hell.”

After a long silence, I clear my throat. “So,” I reiterate, peering at him from my bowed head, “what are we doing?”

When there’s an injustice, there must be carnage. Human ritual dictates that someone has to pay. That’s the way it’s always been. And it’s sure as shit how it’s been for the past few months. Why should it change now?

“I’m going to fucking destroy him,” Colson bites out, his eyes boring into the black maw of the stone fireplace. “He either turns himself in or I put him in the ground, where he belongs.”

The sour taste in my mouth becomes even more bitter as I recall Dallas’s scrunched up face as she tried to hide behind her thick curtain of hair in the cafeteria and her shaking body as she sobbed into my shirt in the stairwell. Except she wasn’t only crying about the gut-wrenching reality of never seeing Evie again, she was crying because she had to listen to other people talk about it so flippantly, because the worst thing in your life doesn’t matter to anyone else.

“Or I just fucking kill him now,” Colson continues, “bleed him out like a stuck pig. I haven’t decided.”

And I believe he’d do it.

Because, like I said, Colson likes knives…and blood.

???

“Was Luca here last night?” I ask, slamming the dishwasher after depositing my empty plate.

“I don’t think so,” Adrian replies, zipping his backpack on the kitchen island, “why?”

“My laptop’s gone,” I mutter, “and my Switch.”

Adrian clenches his jaw, “Are you fucking kidding me?” he murmurs in exasperation, then looks away with a shake of his head.

Adrian looks like me, but with longer hair. Or, I should say, I look like him, with the same mouth and eyes. Except he looks exponentially more intense, constantly thinking about what needs to be done at any given moment. You’d think he would’ve calmed down a bit when I turned 18 last year, but he hasn’t. His constant nagging and worrying that the other two of us would end up as drop-outs has turned into curated admonishments directed toward me and Luca—but mostly me because Luca isn’t usually around to hear them.