Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 75
Rory taps on the driver’s side window with the barrel of his assault rifle as he passes, making sure that Bowen sees him. We’re not idiots; Bowen’s always carrying, so we make sure one of us is, too, and he knows it.
Alex leaps onto the hood of the car like a goddamn chimpanzee and starts pounding the glass, “Get your ass out here, Garrison!” he shouts through his glowing Purge mask and points at the windshield with a curl of his finger.
Mason slams his door as I come up alongside him and both of us pull our gaiters up over our noses, turning our faces into fluorescent white skulls. He hands me one of the metal baseball bats from the backseat and we head toward the commotion on the other side of the clearing. It’s like an army of the dead coming out to play.
Seconds later, the passenger door of the Lancer flies open and a girl with long dark hair stumbles out into the dust. She’s barefoot and wearing jean shorts over a crooked red striped bikini, eyes wild with terror as she tries to flee the car. She tries to make a run for it, but doesn’t get three steps before she slams into Aiden and he grabs her by the arm, hauling her around to the back bumper.
After realizing there’s nowhere to go, the driver’s door opens and Bowen steps out onto the dirt. He looks much less excited than his latest conquest. As the rest of us circle them, Aiden shoves the girl toward me and she pitches forward, falling into my chest. Before she can push away, I swing my arm around her shoulder and spin her around, pulling her to my body.
“Who’s your new girl, Bo?” I leer over her shoulder, “She’s just as cute as a button.”
I whip my bat across her chest, catching the end with my other hand. She’s pinned against me now, shaking and whimpering like a scared puppy. Bowen is unconcerned with her panic. He seems more annoyed that we’ve ruined his evening, and he’s not going to expend the effort to tell us anything about her when he himself doesn’t even care.
Slowly, I brush my shrouded nose against her temple, “What’s your name, hon?”
She doesn’t answer at first, so I give the bat a quick jerk, startling her into speaking. “A-Asher,” she stammers, trembling beneath my arm.
“A pretty name for a pretty girl,” I drawl. “You know what my boy, Bo, here does with pretty girls?” She glances at me quickly before looking away, not wanting to make eye contact. “No? I thought you heard. Small town and all…”
Alex appears on the roof of the Lancer, the body flexing and popping as he steps onto the trunk and hops down onto the ground. “If she had, she never would’ve come here,” he growls.
I pull the bat, and Asher, tighter to my chest, “He takes them out to the woods and finds a nice, quiet place. Because he doesn’t like anyone else looking at his pretty girls.”
Mason suddenly appears at her other shoulder, giving her a start, “Or hearing them scream.”
She looks to Bowen in desperation, but he’s all but forgotten about her.
Aiden, who’s been pacing leisurely in front of Bowen with his bat on his shoulder, turns to Bowen, making his rabbit ears bounce, “You ever seen his gun?” then he swivels back to Asher and I, “Don’t worry, he won’t shoot you with it…yet.”
I lean back down to her ear, “And when they can’t run away, he strips them down...”
Mason reaches beneath my bat and gives the string between her tits a snap, eliciting a tiny scream from her, “But maybe she’d like that,” he chuckles.
Aiden leaves Bowen and ambles across the dirt toward us, “You know where his favorite place is to keep his gun?” he asks as he slides the metal bat off his shoulder and drags the tip across the dirt.
He stops in front of Asher and sweeps the bat up to her ankle. Taking his time, he gently runs the cold metal up the inside of her leg. She fidgets like she’s trying to shake it off, but freezes when he reaches the apex of her thighs. Then he tilts his creepy rabbit face and just looks at her. A few seconds later, I see his shoulder begin to move as he slides the bat back and forth through the crotch of her shorts.
“You better pray you’re unconscious for that part,” Aiden gives her a tap between the legs, “but his is bigger,” he nods to Rory, “maybe you’d like to go with him instead.”
A chuckle ripples through the circle as Rory taps his rifle against his shoulder and gives her a nod.
Mason crouches down next to Aiden’s sneakers, his skull face gazing up at her, “Bo likes to get you all nice and bloody first—lube you up for when he takes his turn.”
Aiden jerks his head down to Mason, his voice hitching with excitement, “What about his knife?” he whips his rabbit ears back up to Asher, “Has he showed you his knife yet?”
“That’s how he tells his girls apart,” I whisper to her, “pretty girls get pretty tattoos.”
As soon as I say it, I see the subtle flare of Bowen’s nostrils and the vein in his neck pop for a split second. I never told the guys about the coroner’s report, I never told them what was meticulously carved across Evie’s stomach. I was too distraught to notice it at the time, but even as her body liquified like a macabre chrysalis, they could see it, clear as day.
I never told them about her butchered hair, or any of the other gruesome details the police warned us to keep under wraps in case it was ever brought to trial. The guys don’t know about any of it, except for Aiden connecting the dots after his sham interrogation. They’re just that creative. Or maybe just that angry.
Because anger brings out the worst in people, it brings out the darkness festering deep inside.
“You know why he marks you up?” Mason runs his fingers up and down the outside of Asher’s leg, “Because by the time he’s finished with you, no one will recognize your face.”
“Get the fuck off me!” she screams, kicking at him, which only makes him laugh.
Mason grabs her ankle roughly and jerks her leg down, holding it still, “I’m just trying to help you, babe, prepare you for why he brought you here,” he reaches up with his other hand and pops the button of her shorts in one motion, “make sure you know how to please him,” he hisses from behind his gaiter.
Aiden absently swings his bat in a circle at his hip, “He’ll cut off your hair, some fingers, maybe he’ll even dig your heart out of your chest,” he says it like he’s reciting a grocery list.
“Because he’s such a heartbreaker,” Alex snickers, drawing more than a few laughs.
“Yeah,” Josh gasps through his hockey mask, “but he’s so cute, though…”
“Bo,” Asher whimpers, eyes pleading with him to intervene.
But Bowen makes no effort to step in. He doesn’t move a muscle, or even acknowledge her presence, only gazes past her—at me—with disinterested, dead eyes.
“Aww…” Alex swaggers around from behind Bowen, “she thinks he’s going to help her.”
“Bo!”
“Bo!”
“BO!” Their squeaky taunts descend into fits of laughter.
With a swift jerk of his arm, Alex reels back and smashes Bowen in the nose with his elbow. Surprised shouts and groans fill the air, punctuated with curses from Bowen as he throws his head to the side and staggers backward. But he recovers quickly, about to come at Alex when Aiden extends his bat between them.
“You’d be wise to stand there and take it like a man,” Aiden growls through his fuzzy rabbit mouth as blood pours from Bowen’s nose.
Before Bowen can react further, Alex’s arm darts out and he swipes his hand across Bowen’s face. Then he turns and crosses the circle, reaching out and dragging his bloody hand across Asher’s cheek. She recoils in disgust, squirming against my chest.
“I hate to tell you this, hon,” I sigh over her shoulder, “but Bo doesn’t give a shit what we do to you. You’re only as useful as that wet ass pussy you brought up here.” I lift my eyes to Bowen, “If we decide to run a train on you right here in front of him, he’ll just go back down to Canaan and find another just like you…” I lean into her ear, “maybe someone who didn’t go to school with the last girl he brought out here…” Asher’s chest caves beneath my bat and her lungs deflate in horror. “Yeah,” I say with enough venom to kill an elephant, “you know who I’m talking about. So, why don’t you beat him back home and tell your friends what’ll happen the next time they want to get dicked down by a murderer.”
Alex circles Bowen’s Lancer, stabbing his knife through each tire as he passes. With a swing of his bat, Aiden shatters one taillight, and then the other.
“But how rude would I be if I let you go home without anything to remember him by?” I glance at Mason and give a sharp nod to Asher. Mason rises and steps behind her to take my place, jerking her against his chest with the bat. “Hold her legs,” I bark at Josh.
He does as I say as she starts screaming hysterically. I step around him and dig into my back pocket, producing a black Sharpie seconds later. At first, she doesn’t know what I’m doing, only that I’m grabbing her waist to hold her still. I bite the top of the marker and pop it off. Then, in sharp, jagged letters, I scrawl one word across her stomach, covering as much skin as I can and tracing over each letter three times to make sure the ink soaks in deep.
SLUT
The jeers from the rest of the guys get louder as I drag the last line down my T and I step back, admiring my work. Asher looks slightly relieved, but no less terrified.
“And just to make sure there’s no confusion…” I step closer and grab Asher over the top of her head, pressing her head into Mason’s shoulder.
She continues screaming, tears streaming down her face, while I hold her head steady and scrawl two more words across her forehead. And I make sure my handwriting is the neatest it’s ever been, just so everyone will know.
BO’S SLUT
After I’m done, I shove her face away and take a step back as I recap my marker, “Better get to walking, sweetheart,” I glance back at Bowen and his bloody face glowering at me, “before he catches up to you.”
Mason swings his arm back and sweeps it forward again as the bat falls from Asher’s chest. His palm lands with a smack on her ass, propelling her forward. She takes off with a shriek across the clearing with an eruption of hoots and howls at her back. In seconds, she’s gone, disappearing into the night.
The shouts turn to laughter as we start meandering back toward Mason’s truck, our work done for the night. I swing my bat onto my shoulder and backtrack, holding Bowen’s eyes.
“Did you get it out of your system?” he calls to me with a hint of a smirk.
“It’s never going to stop,” I shake my head, “not until you’re in prison or in the ground.” Then I turn on my heel and follow the rest of the masked demons back into the headlights.
●●●
Mason’s assumption turns out to be strikingly accurate. They don’t arrest all of us. Less than 48 hours after slashing Bowen’s tires and scaring the shit out of his little fuck toy, on the day before finals, I catch movement in the hallway outside Mrs. Slone’s English class. She glances up from her high-top chair behind the podium and freezes when two officers in black uniforms waltz through the door.
Wells Rhinehardt nods to her as he crosses the room, “Excuse the interruption, ma’am.”
He turns down the aisle on my right while the other one—the same one from Evie’s house—takes my left. Murmurs ripple through the room when they come to a halt at my desk.
“On your feet,” Wells orders.
“Are you lost?” I mutter with disregard, “This isn’t your jurisdiction.”
Wells flashes a brief, but annoyed smile before grabbing my t-shirt and hauling me to my feet. On reflex, I shove him in the chest, which only gets me spun around and slammed down chest first onto the desk.
“Hey!” I hear Mrs. Slone bark as the room erupts in gasps and everyone within five feet of me jumps out of their chairs to get out of the way.
“Colson Lutz,” he booms from overhead as he wrenches my arms behind my back, “you are under arrest for the crime of menacing by stalking and trespassing…” I squeeze my eyes shut and clench my jaw in frustration.
“That’s excessive force!” a girl shouts from somewhere on my right.
“This shit’s police brutality,” another guy calls from behind me.
But Wells and his underling don’t seem to be swayed, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law,” the other officer grips the back of my neck, pressing my cheek into the desk so I can’t move, “you have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned,” I feel the handcuffs around my wrists and hear the zip as they’re locked in place.
In my limited field of vision, I see Sydney Van Doren still sitting at her desk two aisles over, knuckles white, her silvery blue eyes gaping at me in shock. She lives next door to me…kind of. She lives in the mansion behind the dense grove of trees next to my house, but our driveways dump out onto the road right next to each other.
“Sydney,” I lock eyes with her, my face still smashed against the desk, “tell Scott I’m in Canaan.”
She keeps looking back and forth between me and Wells, but nods frantically and starts rummaging through her bag for her phone.
Once I’m cuffed, Wells grabs the back of my shirt and hoists me upright, continuing to read me my rights as he marches me to the front of the room past a crowd of cell phones. Mrs. Slone is at her desk, on the school phone, angrily watching the scene unfold.
“Have you solved his sister’s murder yet?” Kylie Rodriguez shouts as we pass her desk in the front row, eliciting a wave of indignant cheers.
I can’t help but smile as the class descends into chaos, erupting in jeers and claps as they parade me across the front of the room.
“Don’t tell those pigs anything, Col!” a deep voice yells at my back as I step out into the hallway.
I’m shocked that Tate didn’t come arrest me himself. Maybe that would’ve been too obvious, as would be sending Jay and Wells’s father. Instead, Tate’s waiting patiently for me in an interrogation room after I’m booked into custody back in Canaan. He tries to ask me about the night at the railroad bridge and get me to give up everyone else. That’s the point when I should’ve followed Aiden’s advice and asked for a lawyer, but I have a few things of my own to say to him.
We both know the real reason I’m here, and it’s not because of some flat tires and ruined date.
“He has an alibi, Colson,” Tate sighs with exasperation, “Bowen was with his sister and friends that night. Let it go!”
“Yeah, I’m sure none of them would cover for his ass,” I roll my eyes, “as if you don’t know what a goddamn liar he is.”
Blood is thicker than water, and you protect your own when it really matters. I can’t fault the Garrisons for that—it’s exactly what I’m doing. Evie and I may not share blood, but she’s still my sister, and she’s the one who’s been butchered and stuffed in a pipe, while Bowen’s family is running the investigation.
Tate leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, “Look, I’ll give it to you, Bowen’s a little shit. But I can’t go around arresting people based on shit-talking. We have a thing called evidence to consider. Until then, handle it yourselves.” He throws his arms in the air, “Duke it out behind the Sunoco if it’ll help, I don’t care, I’ll look the other way.”
“You’ve been doing a lot of looking the other way, lately,” I mutter.
Tate plants his elbow on the table and points a finger at me, “Watch it, now,” he warns, “what I should do is charge you with assault for what happened at Evie’s funeral.”
I glare back at him with indignance, “Then why don’t you?”
He doesn’t miss a beat, “Because your family’s been through enough. This town’s been through enough.”
“Because you know what he did,” I growl, “and he’ll do it again.”
Tate gives an irritated huff and glowers at me like I’m a dried-up wad of gum that just won’t come off the bottom of his boot.
“I hear you’re heading to college,” he changes the subject, “full scholarship, right?”
I don’t know what the fuck he’s getting at.
“From what I hear, criminal convictions don’t jive with that kind of opportunity.” He points a finger at me and peers over the rims of his glasses, “Do not let your emotions wreck your future. Because that’s where this is headed.”
Is he seriously trying to give me some inspirational pep talk?
“Like Evie?” I deadpan, “Maybe if she hadn’t thought Bowen was such a dreamboat, she could’ve made it out of this fucking hellhole, too.”
“I spoke to Hildy,” Tate counters, “she said this stuff about Bowen and Evie dating is news to her. Why would Evie tell you something like that and not her best friend?”
“Are you new here?” Now he’s just being asinine. “Do you seriously have to ask why Evie was worried about pissing off Hildy? After what Hildy did to Sydney?”
Tate is losing patience, as if he had any to begin with, “I’m talking about a murder here, Colson, a real case, with a real crime scene. Not a feud between two high school girls over the same guy.”
“At least he got the justice he deserved…” I scoff, ignoring the vein popping out of Tate’s forehead, “oh yeah, and what the hell is this trespassing bullshit?”
Tate’s expression relaxes and he shifts in his seat, “I’m glad you asked. You and your friend—Mason, is it?” I don’t answer him. “You went searching on private property. So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he sniffs, “how did you know where to look for Evie’s body?” Then he tilts his head, studying me from over the rims of his glasses.
I stare back at him in silence, realization slowly washing over me. I know what he’s doing.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” I shout across the table, my blood boiling.
But before I can say more, I hear Scott in the hallway, his voice like a roll of thunder engulfing the entire building.
“Listen to me, Colson,” Tate lowers his voice, shooting me a threatening look, “leave town, go to college, and make something of yourself. Because I promise you, if you keep this up, it’ll be nothing but grief and heartache from here on out for you and your family.”
