Page 121 of The Bright Lands

“Go find her!”

A cry of alarm went up outside. Boone followed Parter out the door a moment later, the gun in his hand trembling.

Browder did not. No sooner had the deputy reached the open doorway than he stopped as abruptly as if he’d struck a wall. He stood very still as boys started running and shouting.

When he looked back, Browder’s eyes were not his own. They were flat and glassy black and they were regarding Joel with the smug reptile’s intelligence that had fixed on him the moment he’d arrived back in Pettis County, that had watched him in the park ten years ago, that had watched countless boys in this place endure all manner of tender treatment.

Browder’s mouth opened in a smile and Joel saw that past his teeth lay a deep, infinite black.

A whisper slithered out from that darkness.

imissedyou

BETHANY

Blood flooding back into her veins like liquid fire, Bethany limped away from Luke’s truck, his rifle clutched to her side. Parked outside the circle of trailers was a loose cluster of other trucks, some of them unlocked, none with keys anywhere obvious. Bethany heard boys shouting. The entire camp was on alert: there were more angry men here than Bethany could hope to hold off on her own.

There was nothing behind her but empty country. They would hunt her down in seconds if she ran that way.

Only one option.

She bolted to the nearest trailer, a rusted silver Airstream, and threw herself into the dirt. Took a quick breath, scrambled beneath it.

Clay smeared her cheeks. Someone rushed past the trailer behind her a moment after she pulled her feet out of sight. Boys shouted from the trucks, from inside the circle.

The boys behind her moved on. Bethany adjusted her grip on the slick rifle.

A hand wrapped around her ankle.

Bethany kicked at the hand and felt another grip her free foot. She screamed. She struggled, she flailed but there was no resisting it: soft-eyed Tomas Hernandez dragged her wailing from beneath the trailer.

Bethany’s head struck the base of the Airstream on the way out, her outstretched wrist was sliced by a rock. The loaded hunting rifle dropped, soundlessly, from her hand and settled into the dark.

JOEL

“You were the boy on the side, weren’t you?” Joel said as the commotion raged around them.

Browder stepped back into the trailer and let the door close slowly behind him. He blinked and for a moment the deputy was himself again: furtive, bloodshot eyes, the teeth in his mouth a dull red in the light.

“Dylan was the real deal.” Browder swiveled the knife in the air. He took a step forward and a moment later Joel felt blood running down his cheek, a flare of pain. “Football hadn’t touched him.”

Joel started babbling. It was a primal reflex: delay, delay, don’t die.

“But it touched you? How did it touch you, Browder?”

“Jason had his foot. Ranger had his arm. Troy had his neck. I had my head. Bosheth likes us broken boys the best. He likes the way wetasteinside.” Tears streamed down the deputy’s cheeks. He touched his forehead tenderly and said, “But not Dylan. The game never touched Dylan, no. It’s why he was leaving. College was going to take him away from me.”

Joel thought of the force that had tried to possess him last night at the park, the darkness that had overwhelmed his mind and nearly driven him to murder. He said, “You have to fight it, Browder. That thing inside you. You can’t let that thing take you—”

“This was all your fucking fault!”

Joel felt a pain in his shoulder so excruciating he thought a sparking wire must have fallen loose from the rickety ceiling and come to rest there. He looked down and discovered that it was, in fact, Browder’s knife, buried halfway to the hilt in the joint.

Joel fell backward. The knife slid back out again, grazing cold across the bone, and Joel landed hard on his ass. He stared at his ruined shoulder, gleaming black and bright in the red light, and fought the urge to vomit again.

“Do you hear me, Mr. Whitley? I said it was your fucking fault.”

Joel felt the knife press against his neck, just like Dylan must have felt. Joel closed his eyes. Was he even surprised to learn he was going to die this way? After all, he’d spent all week learning that he and his brother were far more alike than he’d ever thought.