In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(87)

“You okay? Archie, you okay?”

Archie swore and got to his knees. He looked stunned but also not seriously hurt.

Orienting himself, Darren realized he and Archie had been thrown from the bed when it went over the top of the incline. They’d landed on the back side of the hill, about halfway up from the clearing. Below them, the Bronco, with its bar of bright lights, looked like an alien spaceship that had crashed. It had spun in a circle and was now facing up the hill, though pitched off-kilter at almost a forty-five-degree angle. Darren raised his hand to block the glare of the lights and started down the hill.

He heard Hastey shouting, his voice echoing up to them. “I’m bleeding, man. I’m bleeding, Eric. Shit. Goddamn it. I’m bleeding.”

Darren stumbled to the bottom of the hill. Hastey was pacing in circles, his hand pressed to his forehead, blood oozing between his fingers and down the sleeve of his jacket. At first, Darren didn’t see Eric. Then Hastey moved, and he saw Eric standing over what looked like a log on the ground but what he quickly realized to be Kimi.

“Oh God.” He dropped to a knee. She lay on her side, eyes shut, not moving. “What did you do? What the hell did you do, Eric?”

Eric didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He stood staring down at Kimi. Behind them, Hastey continued to moan, “I’m bleeding, man. I’m bleeding.”

“Shut up,” Darren yelled at him. “Shut up!”

Archie finally made it down the hill, and when he saw Kimi on the ground he too started to wail. “Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.” Then he turned, bent over, and threw up.

“What did you do, Eric? What did you do?” Darren repeated.

Archie continued to vomit and to swear. “Damn it. Goddamn it.”

“I’m bleeding, Eric. I’m bleeding.”

“Shut up,” Darren said. “Everyone shut up!”

Archie straightened, stifling another wretch. Hastey stopped wailing. Darren knelt beside Kimi. She looked bent and broken.

“I didn’t see her,” Eric finally said. “I never saw her.”

“You ran her down,” Darren said. “You landed on top of her.”

“Is she dead?” Archie said, crying now. “Is she dead?”

“She was on the ground. Why was she on the ground?” Eric said. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course it was your fault,” Darren said. “Whose fault is it if it isn’t your fault?”

Eric lunged at him, but Darren sprung from his crouch and drove his shoulder hard into Eric’s rib cage, his legs driving Eric backward and slamming him onto his back. Darren balled his fist, poised to unleash a vicious punch. He wanted to. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to beat the shit out of him, but Hastey and Archie grabbed his arm before he could take Eric’s head off, pulling him off and dragging him away.

“You killed her, man,” Darren said, tears streaming down his face. “You killed her.”

Eric, breathing hard, got to his feet, white bursts escaping his mouth and nostrils. He had his hands entwined in his hair, as if he were trying to pull it out.

“What are we going to do, Eric?” Hastey said, sounding scared, his face a mask of blood from the cut on his forehead. “What are we going to do?”

“We need to get out of here,” Eric said.

“What?” Darren said.

“We need to get out of here. Now. Right now.” Eric paced. Though it was dark, he looked pale and his eyes were black pinpoints.

“We can’t just leave her here, Eric,” Darren said.

“What are we going to do then, huh, Darren? What are we going to do?”

“We should find a phone and call someone.”

“She’s dead, Darren. Who are we going to call? The police? What are we going to tell them? That we ran her over?”

“I didn’t run her over. You did.”

“You were in the car. We were all in the car. We all ran her over.”

“No,” Darren said. “No way, Eric.”

“I’m supposed to go in the Army,” Archie stammered. “I’m supposed to go in the Army when I graduate.”

“Listen to me,” Eric said. “They’ll go after all of us because we were all in the car. They’ll test our blood, and they’ll know we were drinking and smoking. We’ll all go to jail, and not just for the night or a week. Shit, this is murder. You get the chair for murder. They kill you.”

“I can’t go to jail,” Hastey said. “I can’t go to jail.”

“We need to leave,” Eric said again. “Now.”

“We can’t just leave her, Eric,” Darren said.

“Nobody knows we’re out here. Nobody. We have the game tomorrow. Everyone is going to think we were at home, in bed, getting ready. Our parents don’t know we snuck out, so they’ll say we were home in bed.”

“We can’t leave her,” Darren said again.

“I don’t want to, Darren. Goddamn it, I don’t want to. But we have to. Don’t you understand? We have to.”

Darren couldn’t stop crying.

“I’ll drive you home,” Eric said. “I’ll drive you home and then I’ll use the pay phone at the gas station and call it in anonymous, okay?”