Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Oliver and I throw the tarp-rolled body to the side, then go grab the two extra shovels Nova brought.
“Should he be watching this?” Nova asks me quietly, as I stake my shovel into the ground.
“I think it’s a little too late for that.” I hack up and spit a loogie behind me, and I rub at my runny nose with my wrist.
Nova grimaces. “What happened to you?”
“I tripped.” I toss dirt behind my shoulder. “Just keep going.”
“Fucking A,” he grumbles under his breath, digging with more intensity. Nova is strong for fifteen, and we’re making good work of the ditch.
Sweat pours down my temples, and I glance over at Trevor. I can’t believe this happened. We were at the mark’s lake house. Hell, we are still here. Only maybe a couple miles away from their vacation home—likely still on their property.
An enormous Fourth of July party is going on. Friends of friends of friends—all invited. I was back at the house. A half hour ago. Kids were running around everywhere with sparklers as fireworks started to shoot off.
I couldn’t find Trev.
I kept searching.
My responsibility. To protect him. I checked everywhere, trying not to draw attention. Trying not to be suspicious.
I walked farther from the house. Down the sloped hill. Closer to the lake, but away from the gathering crowd of people who ooed and awed over the bursts of color in the sky.
A shingled shed sat several feet away from the bank of the lake. It stored pool chemicals. Weed killer. Yard tools. Tarps.
I walked in to find Trevor sitting close to the door. He barely rotated to look at me. He was staring at this frat boy fuckhead named Hollister. He was a friend of a friend of a friend of the mark’s daughter. Lydia, a sophomore at Brown.
Hollister had pruning shears stuck in the side of his neck. His eyes were wide open. Unmoving. Still as can be—his whole body.
“Trevor,” I said his name in a single breath.
He held his knees, not taking his eyes off Hollister as blood pooled beneath his dead body. “He was hurting her.”
Lydia was out cold on the floorboards. She had on a red ruffled sundress, and her underwear was at her ankles. I checked her pulse. Hollister must’ve roofied her. There were blue Solo cups on a shelf, like they snuck in here together. His pants weren’t down or even unzipped. My mind was spinning.
So I called Nova.
He came in seconds. We rolled the body in a tarp. He poured bleach on the shears, washed the slats of the floorboards with other chemicals around the shed. He called Oliver, and the two of them snuck the body into the woods. It was dark. No one saw.
Nova brought shovels from the shed to go scout a gravesite.
I scooped Lydia up and brought her back to the main house. “I found her outside, passed out like this,” I told her mom, who clutched at the Tiffany’s necklace at her throat.
“Oh no. How much did she drink?” Her eyes darted cautiously to her friends. She laughed a little, embarrassed, then said, “Would you be so sweet to put her in her room for me? Thanks, hun.” She sipped her martini. “College these days,” she prattled to her friends. “I swear, even at dry campuses, the kids find ways to drink themselves silly.”
Wrath seared through me, and acid slipped down my throat with each swallow. Because she didn’t know me. Didn’t know my name. Didn’t know my age. She only saw that I was a teenage boy at a party with hundreds of all ages in attendance.
She had every reason to doubt me. Yet, she never questioned a thing. Naïve. Vain. It should’ve made me happy—to gain trust so effortlessly—but I would’ve rather she cared enough to ask if her daughter was breathing. At the minimum.
I would’ve rather not had to walk into my kid brother staring at a dead body.
I would’ve rather not had Trevor walk into an act of violence, only to feel like he had to be violent to end it.
I would’ve rather not have been apart this long from her.
From Phoebe.
I would’ve rather been playing horseshoes with her and pretending she was a girl I hated at school.
I would’ve rather stolen glimpses of her as her big brown eyes looked up into the firework-lit sky.
Instead, my kneecap is shrieking. Splinters dig into my palms from the old wooden handle of the shovel. Mud continues to splatter my pants and button-down.
“Can we take his eyes?” Trevor suddenly asks from the tree trunk.
Oliver stops shoveling, sharing a disturbed glance with Nova. “Sure, that’s a reasonable request.” He pants hard. “You want to pluck them out, Nov, or shall I?”
Nova shakes his head so hard and stakes the earth more aggressively this time. “I can’t fucking believe this.”