The Devouring Gray(57)

This meet was local, a rarity, and there were scouts attending again. They tried to talk to Justin beforehand, and he smiled and nodded at them until they left. They weren’t running a course through the woods today. The school had deemed it too dangerous.

The night before, his mother had handed him a scholarship application that was already filled out.

“It’s an opportunity,” she’d said. “Do you know how many people would kill to get out of this town?”

It was still sitting on his night table.

If he performed well today, it could make the difference between him getting a scholarship or not. A scholarship he still wasn’t sure he wanted.

“Runners, line up!”

The rest of the athletes shifted aside automatically as Justin approached the starting line, letting him through, buzzing in his wake. He was a Hawthorne, after all, and that meant running well, and keeping his head down, and pretending everything was absolutely fine.

He sighed and shifted his focus onto the track. Which was when a pink blur darted out from the crowd of spectators and sank her perfectly manicured fingernails into his arm.

“Justin!” said May, pulling him away from the mass of people.

“What?” Justin gaped at her. Behind them, the other runners buzzed with confusion.

“Justin,” she said again. The hand on his arm was shaking. He reached forward with his own fingers, grasped her wrist, tried to steady her. “It’s Isaac.”

She tugged him away from the track, onto the grass, toward the waiting embrace of the trees.

Behind her, Justin saw the flash of a starting gun being raised in the air. He could stay here, and maybe earn his ticket out of town. Or go help Isaac.

It wasn’t a choice at all.

He turned away from the track as the sound of the starting gun fired into the air, away from the runners that burst past them, away from Coach Lowell’s startled, accusatory gaze.

This was his town. His birthright. His best friend. And he was not leaving—he was not going anywhere. “What happened?”

“He lost control at work. Someone’s already called Mom. You have to calm him down before she gets there.”



A cluster of taut, anxious faces was gathered outside the Diner. Justin heard their panicked murmurs rising above the growl of the engine as May pulled the silver pickup truck into the parking lot, skidding across two spots in her haste to park. Justin had the door open before she’d even shifted the truck out of drive.

He forced himself to even out his pace as he walked up to the crowd, to turn his expression into something neutral and mildly concerned. Half of fixing this was making it seem like an inconvenience. If he acted annoyed instead of panicked, people would follow his example.

Justin tried to catch a glimpse inside the Diner, but the interior of the restaurant was dark, its plate-glass windows spiderwebbed with cracks.

“I was expecting the sheriff.” Blood trickled from a laceration on Ma Burnham’s cheek, and her round face was ashen. But none of that scared him as much as the anger in her voice, or the distaste in her eyes.

She was looking at him the way Harper did. Like he’d failed her, and there was nothing he could do to fix it.

“My mother will be here soon.” A sprinkle of rain dotted Justin’s shoulders, his neck, but he hardly noticed. He had to make this right. “Tell me what happened.” He swallowed. “Please.”

“As if your family cares about us.” The voice belonged to one of the people who’d collected around Ma Burnham. The crowd parted, and Justin swore, internally, as the boy who’d baited Isaac the night before stepped forward.

Justin still couldn’t remember his name, but there was something familiar about the gap in his teeth, the way his hair fell across his bushy eyebrows.

“Of course I care about you,” he said. “I’m here because I want to keep you safe.”

“My brother died on your family’s watch,” said the kid. Justin’s heart sank as he realized where he recognized those features from: Hap Whitley’s pictures in the Four Paths Gazette. “And I know you’re not here because you’re worried about us. You’re worried about him.”

He jerked a thumb at the shattered windows, and around him, the crowd murmured with agreement. Justin had always loved the way he could command a group’s attention. But for the first time in his life, he didn’t want it.

Because Hap Whitley’s brother was right. The reason he’d missed a track meet to come here wasn’t because he was scared for the town. It was because he was scared for Isaac.

Justin stepped back from the crowd, his heart thudding in his chest.

And realized that May had stepped forward to stand beside him.

“Of course we’re concerned for Isaac,” she said, addressing not just the kid, but the entire crowd. “He’s our friend. But we don’t take our family name lightly. You’re Brian, right? Brian Whitley?”

The kid nodded.

“I’m sorry about your brother.” May’s voice was a shade too polished and formal, like she’d been practicing for a presentation, and her hands were braced on either side of her corduroy skirt. But she sounded more confident as she spoke, and the crowd, Justin realized, was listening to every word. “I promise you, we grieve for every person we lose. But if you don’t let Ma Burnham explain what’s going on in there, more people could get hurt. Do you want that?”