The Last Harvest(7)

She springs up to grab a couple of tissues. As she’s dabbing the tea from my folder, her movement slows and her eyes narrow on the drawing of the upside-down U with two dots above and below.

“Where did you see this?”

“It’s nothing. Just something I’ve seen around,” I say as I take the folders from her and cram them into my backpack.

“Around where?” she asks, scratching the side of her head with her pencil.

“Tyler Neely.” I look up to gauge her response, but she’s hard to read. “He has it on his wrist. And then I saw it on the back of Ali Miller’s neck this morning.” Just saying it out loud ticks me off all over again.

I notice Miss Granger’s slender fingers gripping the pencil, her knuckles straining white.

“Why?” I ask. “Does it mean something?”

She reaches her hand to her neck, twisting the cross between her fingers.

The bell rings, startling us both.

She opens her mouth like she’s going to say something more, but then changes her mind. “You can go.”

I gather up my bag.

“And, Clay?” She gives a tight smile. “You can call me anytime.”

I nod and head for the exit, making a beeline for my truck.

As I sink into the driver’s seat, I see Ali and the rest of the pack gathering around Tyler’s dickmobile.

Tyler’s on his phone, trying to look like some kind of hotshot. He grabs Ali by a belt loop, pulling her toward him. As his hand moves lower, dangerously close to her ass, a searing heat creeps up the sides of my neck. I want to rip his arm off his body.

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what she sees in him, but it’s like she’s under some kind of spell.

He whispers something in her ear. Ali turns to look over her shoulder. I swear, she’s staring right at me. But that’s crazy. She hasn’t so much as glanced at me since the night I kissed her and she went running out of my house. I look behind me, but there’s no one there. Ali Miller is smiling at me … all seductive like.

In a panic, I try to put my key in the ignition, but my hands are shaking so bad I can’t seem to find the keyhole. When I look up again, Ali’s standing right next to my truck. My heart’s pounding in my ears, and my throat’s bone dry. Hesitantly, I roll down my window.

“Ali?” I hardly recognize my own voice. It’s like I’m a kid all over again.

She drapes her arms inside the truck and leans in close. I feel her breath on my cheek, smell the faint hint of flowers in her hair. Her fingertips graze the top of my thigh, dangerously close to my zipper. Adrenaline rushes through every part of me.

“Meet me at midnight,” she whispers, “at the breeding barn.”

As she turns to walk back to Tyler’s car, I force the key into the ignition and pull out of the lot, ignoring the angry car horns.

I almost crash into some poor girl in a powder-blue Buick, but I have to get out of here. I turn up the stereo as loud as it will go, but it still doesn’t drown out the screaming in my head. The Ali I knew would never go to the Neely ranch after what happened there. She would never ask me to go there.

I’m glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure no one’s following when I catch my reflection. My eyes—they look just like Dad’s on the night he died. His last words cling to the back of my throat like thick bile.

“I plead the blood.”





5

AS I turn on to Route 17, I spot a bunch of punk kids ducking into the woods behind Merritt’s gas station. There’s an old campsite out there where nothing good ever happens. Through the pines, I catch a glimpse of what looks like chestnut hair. Pale skin. A black boot.

Jess.

Without even thinking, I whip the truck around and pull into the lot, kicking up a mess of red earth and gravel.

The kids take off running. By the time I break through the trees, they’ve scattered.

“Jess,” I call as I chase them through the woods, but I don’t see her anywhere.

I catch up to a scrawny kid with a dirty-blond mullet, tackling him to the ground.

“Where’s Jess?” I flip him over to see his face and I feel like I’m going to throw up.

Lee Wiggins. He used to be in my class. It’s like he’s wearing a Halloween mask year round—face like a gnawed-up cheese pizza.

They say the chemicals melted off half the skin on his body. Left nothing behind of his dumbass brothers. A family full of meth heads, bootleggers before that. They blew themselves up in a trailer behind Ted Bannon’s junkyard on the same night my dad died.

“Jess!” I scan the woods, her name echoing through the pines.

“He’s coming.” Lee smiles up at me, clutching my shirt. He reeks of cigarettes, burnt hair, and iodine.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I try to pry his hands free. “And what are you doing with my sister?”

The woods are dense; it’d be so easy to get lost back here. Disappear.

“He who slays the golden calf will be chosen,” Lee whispers, spit bubbles specking his scarred lips.

My heart stutters. “Wait … what … what do you know about the calf?” I grab his shoulders and shake him. “Was it you? Did you put it there?”

“It could be me. The seed. The Devil told me so … from the flames.” He grins, his grotesque skin stretching tight across his bones like thick rubber bands.