Driving, Luke recounted to Garrett and the Turner twins his bizarre meeting with Joel Whitley at the park that evening. Garrett, with a thin smile, said only, “He’s on the list for tomorrow. Kill the lights.”
They parked outside a sagging two-story house on the northern edge of town. The house, like the neighborhood around it, let off a sour scent of decay. Luke had never actually seen the Staler house before. He wished he weren’t seeing it now.
“Didn’t KT run off?” Luke said.
The twins chuckled in the back seat of Luke’s truck. “He tried,” said Stevey.
“He couldn’t even do that right,” said Ricky.
A strange stasis descended in the cab. The fetid breeze, the creak of old vinyl siding. Luke’s mind turned briefly back to Joel. He almost couldn’t believe the man still hadn’t figured it out.
Love wasn’t the word for what Dylan and Luke had shared as boys. Not love, but a few years of confidence, of mutual discovery. Or, in Luke’s case, years filled with an uncanny sense of reacquaintance. It was enough to make a person believe in past lives. Those pleasures he and Dylan had found when clinging sweaty to each other beneath their pillow forts, behind the shed of practice equipment in Luke’s yard—those things which had been revelations to Dylan—had never felt to Luke all that profound. Even as a young boy they’d felt like old memories, half-forgotten, that had needed only a sudden touch to swell with life again.
But it had never been love. Dylan had never allowed it to be love.
And what about these old friends of Dylan’s sitting now in Luke’s truck? What had Dylan been to them?
“Hey,” Luke said, eyeing KT’s dark house. “Why did y’all need a ride to Sparks’s Auto Body last night?”
The Turner twins went very still. Garrett turned to Luke. “You want what Dylan had, yeah?”
Yes. Yes, oh yes God, Luke wanted to be needed.
“I guess,” Luke said.
“Then drink your beer.”
After a last moment’s hesitation, Luke brought his bottle to his lips, and with one swift motion Garrett tilted the bottle upward. Luke struggled not to choke as the beer drained down his throat.
“Good,” Garrett said. “Let’s go.”
Insects thrummed in the balmy night. Luke, still fighting a retch, followed the three boys across the house’s overgrown yard. Garrett rapped on the front door.
A woman answered, wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Half her face still bore the lines of a corduroy cushion. Luke had heard stories about KT’s mother. He was surprised to see that most of them were true.
“Excuse us, Mrs. Staler,” Garrett said, still smiling, the picture of courtesy. He held Luke’s empty beer bottle behind his back. “Is Kyler Thomas home?”
Mrs. Staler seemed too exhausted to stand. She propped herself against the door frame and said, “Ain’t nobody come in this house.”
“What is it, Garrett?”
KT appeared on a dim staircase behind his mother, dressed in basketball shorts and a baggy shirt that read MAKING MONEY MOVES. He carried himself down the steps the way Luke had seen boys drag themselves from the field with broken wrists, shoulders popped loose like cherry pits.
“KT!” Garrett said brightly. “We missed you, brother. Want to throw a few?”
Stevey Turner held up a football he’d brought with him. Luke did his best to smile at this bony boy who bore only a passing resemblance to the KT who’d been at school four days before.
“Just a few passes,” said Stevey.
Garrett caught the ball. “For old time’s sake.”
“I ain’t playing no more,” KT said.
“Get these boys out of my face.” Mrs. Staler groaned, blocking the door with her arms.
There was no fence to stop them. They found KT standing on a wide porch around back the house, surrounded by bright plastic toys, faded folding chairs, a grill so rusted thorny creeper had twisted itself up through a hole in the lid. A single bare bulb screwed into the porch’s overhang did its best to light a yard that had gone badly to seed.
Garrett and Luke and the twins stood in the yard and gestured for KT to join them. “Come here, son,” Garrett said. “We was worried shitless for you.”
Ricky Turner tossed Luke the ball. Luke caught it at the last moment, hesitated, took a few steps back and tossed it into Stevey’s waiting hands. The narrow scar over Stevey’s brow gleamed where it caught the moonlight.
“I didn’t tell them nothing,” KT said.
Luke felt the grass around his ankles tremble, heard a faint shh rise up from the dirt. Was this what the start of an earthquake felt like? He opened his mouth to say something but saw that none of the other boys seemed to notice. Luke told himself he was imagining things.
Even when it happened again.
Garrett said cheerfully to KT, “We had an agreement, man.”
“It ain’t my fault I’m back.”
Stevey jogged to the side of the yard and caught the ball from his brother.
Garrett bent to run his hand through the grass. “Yet here you are.”
“The charges in Dallas is getting dropped,” KT said. “Soon as that’s done I’ll have my car back and I’ll go. You ain’t never seeing me—”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Garrett said.
Ricky threw a zip pass to Stevey.
“What was the deal, KT? Say it.”
“I know what it was.”
“Say it.”
“Fuck you, Garrett.”
Stevey heaved the ball hard into the back of KT’s head. It struck him with a loud thud. KT staggered forward, almost losing his balance, and Garrett pulled the empty beer bottle from behind his back and shattered it over KT’s skull.
KT fell to his knees. The twins worked fast. Stevey hustled to the side of the house to keep lookout. Ricky flipped KT onto his back, stretched out his wrists, pinned him to the dirt.
Garrett turned to Luke. “Grab his feet.”
Luke took a step away. “The fuck are you doing?”
“I said grab his feet.”
KT groaned.
“Think fast, Evers,” Garrett said. “You’re either a brother or an enemy to us. Everybody is. You hear me? You grab his fucking feet and you’re a brother for life.”
“Isn’t KT your brother?” Luke said, thinking of all the times he had seen KT running with these boys.
“This fucker? KT’s the reason Dylan’s dead, Evers. We’ve had to go through a lot of trouble for this little cunt.”
KT’s head lolled from one side to the other, eyes fluttering.
“You’re made for glory, Evers,” said Garrett. “Dylan may have got there first but I’m giving you the chance now. I’m giving you the chance to have the best year of your fucking life. Twenty-four hours from now you are going to be so goddamn grateful you did what I say. Grab his fucking feet.”
Luke grabbed KT’s feet.
Garrett brought all two hundred and forty pounds of his weight onto KT’s sternum. He slapped KT twice, hard, until the boy came to with a gasp and thrashed his legs.
“Listen to me, Kyler Thomas. Listen very fucking carefully. I have this from on high. We promised you freedom. We promised not to come looking for you. But in exchange you promised to never come back to this town. You broke that promise, just like Jason broke it. But for you we’ll be merciful. You leave tomorrow. Don’t matter how you do it, don’t matter where you go. But, Kyler—Kyler Thomas, goddammit you never listen to me.”
KT gasped. “That thing out there will kill you, you know.”
The ground shook again. A breeze rose and carried the distant roar of a cheering crowd with it. Was gone.
Garrett punched KT so hard Luke felt the force of it in the boy’s ankles. “If I ever see you again I will fucking kill you,” Garrett said, and for a moment it sounded like he was holding back a sob.
They left KT in the grass. On their way back to the truck, Garrett wrapped his big arm around Luke, pulled him tight, suddenly all smiles. “I’ll let the others know,” he said, lips brushing Luke’s ear. “Tomorrow, after the game—you’re in.”