Dark and Shallow Lies(45)

Nobody is coming out to stop this.

Hart and Case grapple and roll. Punching at each other. The sound of boot heels against wood. Blood spraying across white paint.

Then Hart gets his hands around Case’s throat. And he doesn’t let go.

That’s when I know they really will kill each other if someone doesn’t put an end to this.

And I don’t want to watch anyone die. Definitely not Hart. And not Case, either.

Not even after what he did to Elora.

“Hart!” I yell his name again. “Stop it! You’re gonna kill him!”

Hart’s crying now. Sobbing and grunting. Totally out of control. And it scares me. He flips Case over on his back, and he’s slamming his head against the dock over and over, choking him.

“Hart! Please!” My voice sounds hoarse, and I realize that I’m crying, too. I didn’t even know it. “Stop!”

Hart glances in my direction, and then I see him look down at Case, red-faced and gasping for air.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “It won’t bring her back.”

Hart lets go then. He stands up and stumbles backward. He has the same look in his eyes that he had last night. After we kissed. Like he doesn’t know where he is or how he got here.

Case scrambles to get his feet under him. Even in the moonlight, I can see the marks on his throat. But he’s not ready to call it quits. He takes a step toward Hart, and Evie screams again.

“Case,” I shout. “Stop! I know what you did! I found it! I found your medal!”

I reach into my pocket. Denim rubs against the throbbing splinter in my palm, but I ignore the pain and dig the medal out for them to see.

Hart and Case both freeze. They’re breathing hard. Soaked. Dripping sweat and blood.

“What the fuck, Greycie?” Hart sounds sick. Like he’s having trouble talking around whatever is rising up in his throat. He’s looking at me like I just stabbed him in the gut.

“Where’d ya get dat?” Case demands. He takes a step toward me, but Hart grabs him by the shirt and yanks him backward. I wrap my fingers tight around the medal.

And I feel that throbbing pain again.

“It was on the floor in Honey’s shed,” I tell him. “Where you dropped it. The night you killed Elora. When you stole that old black trunk to put her body in.”

Hart’s eyes go wide. And I’ve never watched anyone drown before, but that’s what the look on his face makes me think of. “Jesus Christ, Greycie.”

Behind me, I hear four identical gasps as Evie, Mackey, Sera, and Sander all realize what’s happening here.

“You found out she was planning to run off with someone else,” I say. “She sneaked away that night. To meet him. While everyone was playing flashlight tag. And you found out about it somehow. Only you couldn’t let her go. So you killed her.”

The truth sounds so terrible, flung out into the night air like that.

“Hell no!” Case turns and spits a broken tooth on to the dock. “Fuck dat!” His red hair is matted with blood, and one eye is already swollen shut. “Dat ain’t what happened.”

Hart shoves Case to the ground. He lies there, sprawled out in front of us while Hart towers over him. “Then you tell me what did happen.” Hart gives him a hard kick in the ribs, and we all wince. “Before I kill your sorry ass.” His voice breaks, and he chokes hard on tears and blood. “What happened to Elora that night?”

“I don’t know,” Case insists. He clutches his side and sits up, wiping at his destroyed face with the back of his arm. “I told everybody dat. I been sayin’ it all along.”

“Then why did I find your medal in Honey’s shed?” I ask him. “With Elora’s blood on it.”

“Oh, God.” It’s Mackey behind me. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

Hart’s staring at the medal in my hand. He sways a little on his feet, but he doesn’t go down.

Evie’s breathing changes. She moans and sucks in air with a rattling, hitching wheeze. Covers her ears again.

And I feel bad. Because none of them were prepared for this. They didn’t know it was coming.

“What the hell, Case?” Sera’s sharp voice cuts through the chaos. Her river-sand-and-copper braid swings behind her back.

“It ain’t my fault. Dat’s where Wrynn lost it is all.” Case starts to stand up. But Hart gives him another good kick. He groans and rolls on to his side. “Only she didn’t tell me about it till it was months later. I swear.”

“Wrynn?” Hart’s face is really swelling up. His bottom lip is busted wide open. And it makes the word come out thick and twisted.

Case nods. “Wrynn told me she found my medal dat night. Lying right here. On dis dock.” He manages to sit up, then he wipes at his face again. “Goddammit.” Now Case is the one who’s crying, big tears that make tracks down his cheeks through the smeared blood. “I loved ’er, you buncha assholes!” He glares at Hart. At all of us. “Since we were twelve years old, I fuckin’ loved ’er.” He pins me down with his eyes. “You know dat’s right, chere.”

And maybe I do, but loving someone doesn’t mean you won’t hurt them.

A heavy fog is rolling in off the river, and it wraps us all in thick, wet misery.