The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(53)

Timber! Leif thought, feeling immensely satisfied with himself.

“Wow,” Rex said, letting out a mix of groaning and laughter. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Leif said in a jokey voice, even though he sort of meant it.

There was a knock at the bedroom door.

Rex winced as he quickly got himself back upright. Leif closed his legs. This had been known to happen during their Nerf-to-the-nuts game, an interruption from an infuriated grownup—usually Rex’s dad—wondering what the hell was going on up there. He didn’t often concern himself with formalities like knocking on doors, though.

“Uh, come in,” Rex said.

It was, indeed, Rex’s dad. Both boys braced themselves for his wrath; it usually came in a quick, powerful burst and then disappeared, like a brief afternoon thunderstorm. No wrath was coming, though, and when Rex looked up he was surprised—shocked, even—to see his father on the verge of tears. His mom had come into the room, too, fully in the act of crying, her makeup splotched and runny.

Rex had pushed it too far. He and Leif had been told repeatedly to stop making a game of hurling foam balls at each other’s jewels, but they’d never listened. His parents’ worries about his future infertility had finally come to a head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. We will never throw the ball at each other’s…balls…again.”

“Yeah, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. McClendon,” Leif said. “Never again.”

“What?” Rex’s dad said. “No, we’re not— That’s not…that’s not why we came up here, boys.” He put an arm around Rex’s mother.

“Oh,” Rex said, looking to Leif, as if he might understand why Rex’s parents were both crying. “Why did…What’s goin—”

“It’s Alicia,” Rex’s mom said in between sobs. “We just heard from the Boykinses. She’s passed, boys. Alicia has passed.”

The words didn’t make sense to either Rex or Leif. She’s passed what?

“Like…a test?” Rex asked.

His mom’s face crumpled further, her entire body sagging into Rex’s dad, who hugged her to keep her from falling to the floor.

“No, Rex,” Rex’s dad said. “She’s passed away. Alicia is…dead.”

Alicia is dead.

Alicia.

Is.

Dead.

Alicia. Dead.

Rex couldn’t comprehend the words, no matter how he arranged them in his mind.

“Oh God, oh no.” Leif thought the voice was Rex’s but realized it was actually his own. He couldn’t stop. “Oh God. Oh no. Oh, God.”

“I know,” Rex’s mom said, crouching down to hug Leif. “I know, sweetie. It’s so awful.”

Rex still couldn’t register what he was hearing. “What happened?” he asked.

“There was a fire,” his dad said, shaking his head, as he sat next to Rex and put an arm around him.

“Oh God,” Leif said, covering his mouth with his hand, realizing he was incapable of doing anything other than using the Lord’s name in vain over and over again. He figured God would give him a pass under these circumstances. It was as if he’d entered some alternate dimension, like he was in someone else’s dream. Alicia couldn’t have died. She was the most full-of-life person he’d ever known. “Oh God.”

As Rex stared blankly around the room, deep in shock, the word SACRIFICE screamed out from the Post-it in his own handwriting.

It practically knocked the wind out of him.

Ben was right.

They’d sacrificed Alicia. And here was their pathetic cover-up.

Rex wanted to weep, but instead he got angry. “What do you mean, a fire?”

“Son,” Rex’s dad said. “There was a fire in a small building on the school property that they use to…you know, to discipline kids. Seems Alicia was in there and somehow…a fire started. They think she may have started it herself and wasn’t able to get out. Apparently she was having a lot of trouble at the school. But we don’t really know much.”

Leif pictured flames rapidly spreading, surrounding Alicia.

Rex scoffed at their barely plausible story. This didn’t sound like the Alicia he knew. Sure, maybe she was capable of burning down a small building in some act of defiance, but she’d never make the mistake of getting caught in the fire herself. “We should find out,” he said. “That’s all you were told?”

Rex’s parents looked at each other, then gave him a sad shrug.

“But that can’t be what happened!” Rex shouted, jumping to his feet. “Something is really wrong with that school!” He made eye contact with Leif, who seemed to have been buying the fire story until this very second.

“I agree,” Rex’s dad said. “They obviously need to update their safety standards. Probably hasn’t changed since it was that old resort.”

“No, not…” Rex wanted to tell his parents about everything listed right in front of them on the bulletin board—Ben, Alicia’s violent abduction, what he and Rex had seen at the spring—but he also knew they wouldn’t be pleased that he and Leif had repeatedly been sneaking out past midnight. Now was no time to invite tighter surveillance on his nighttime activities; he needed to tread with caution. “I mean, they’re doing bad things to those kids. They did something bad to Alicia.”