Ten

I spun around and gestured to the house we’d just left. “It’s you. That’s your house, isn’t it? You’re that Joseph.”

His attention flicked over to the house, then back to me. It was quick, and I doubted Luke or Mike caught it, but I recognized it immediately—the fear and anger behind his expression, the quick flash of sorrow in response to a memory the rest of us didn’t share. I recognized it because I’d mastered that same combination of emotions years ago.

The Joseph in the margin of that book, the one who got locked in the closet for six hours because he’d broken a dinner plate, was the same one standing in front of me now. He didn’t need to admit it. The flat look in his eyes gave him away. And it was that look that worried me the most.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” I asked again, desperate to prove I was right.

When he didn’t answer, I inched forward, intent on screaming my question at him. But he held up his hand and pressed a finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. In the absence of any sound, of any real people except for him and us, his gesture seemed odd.

“Why do we need to be quiet?” Mike asked, his head shaking in what seemed to be amusement. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s nobody here.”

“Oh, they’re here. Trust me, they’re here,” Joseph said as his eyes met mine. He looked serious, so serious. And scared.

That makes two of us.

“What do you mean, ‘they’?” I asked.

He ignored my question and fixed his gaze back on the empty road. “Listen. You’ve probably got an hour, two tops, to get out of here. After that, well … ”

“After that what?” Mike’s tone was sharp, his normal carefree attitude slipping away, replaced by genuine anger. Luke nudged me back and rose to his full six-foot-two height, using all of his bulk to instill some well-deserved fear in Joseph.

I’d seen huge kids back away from Luke on the field, physically retreat from the defensive line. But Joseph didn’t flinch; he met Luke’s eyes without the slightest hesitation.

I leaned into Luke, standing on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. “He lives there, Luke. That name in the book, on the death certificate. That’s him.”

“I know,” Luke whispered, then raised his voice. “Listen, we don’t want any trouble. We’re just looking for some gas so we can get back on the road.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Joseph said, turning to walk away. I guess he presumed we’d follow. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Luke reached out to grab him, his hand encircling Joseph’s arm. “Where the hell are you going?”

Joseph stopped but didn’t try and pull away. A shudder worked its way through his body. Maybe frustration. Maybe anger. When he finally turned around, his face was neutral, peaceful.

“My brother asked you a question,” Mike started in. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not stay in this place any longer than necessary. So, if you could point us in the right direction, that’d be fantastic.”

Joseph smiled. “Brother, you say?”

“Uh huh. I’m Luke, this is Mike, and this is Dee,” Luke said, pointing at each of us in turn.

“Dee,” Joseph said as if testing my name. “Are you their sister?”

There was a twinge of hope in his voice, one that made me cringe. “Nope,” I said, running my hand across Luke’s waist before tucking it into the back pocket of his jeans. I wanted Joseph to know exactly who I was to Luke, who he’d have to go through to get to me. “I’m definitely not his sister.”

Joseph looked at me, then at the hand I had tucked in Luke’s jeans. “I’ll help you. I can’t get you gas, but I’ll help you.”

“Great,” Luke said. “Start talking.”

Joseph shook his head. “Not here. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but not here. Not out in the open.”

“Fine. There,” Mike said, tipping his chin toward the house we’d camped out in. “It’s warm. I bet there’s even some dinner left over from last night you could eat.”

“No. No way. That’s the first place he’ll look.”

I understood his hesitation. The house I’d grown up in was less than a ten-minute drive from the Hoopers’, but you couldn’t pay me to go back there. Not to the house. Not to the street. Not to the neighborhood.

I may have gotten the kid’s mentality, but I was the only one. Luke had hit his threshold, his hand flexing in a useless attempt to rein in his anger. “Fine, then you stay here and do whatever it is this town does. We’re leaving.”

“You won’t make it out of here,” Joseph warned. “My guess is he’s already found your car.”

Done. That was the only way to describe Luke. Completely and totally done with Joseph. With this town. With this entire situation. “What the hell are you talking about?” Luke yelled, his entire body shaking in time with his anger. “I don’t have time for this. Or you!”

I reached for Luke’s arm, tugging on it until he made eye contact with me. The fire in his eyes quickly drained away, regret filtering in. He was scaring me, and he knew it. If the one person I counted on to be steady and strong was losing control, then things couldn’t be good.

Luke looked back at Joseph and nodded his apology. “We’re not going anywhere. Not until we have some answers, anyway.”

“Fine, we’ll play this your way,” Joseph said. “Those sirens you heard, I set them off. That house you stayed in, that’s mine. That grave you got your foot stuck in yesterday, that’s my mother’s. The man who put her there is named Elijah Hawkins. He’s my father. And as for your car, well, that’s not going anywhere.”

“Your father?” I asked. My hands were shaking, my voice a strangled whisper.

Luke instantly reacted, wrapping his hand around my shoulder and pulling me into his side. I don’t know what he whispered into my ear; I wasn’t paying attention, but I knew from his tone that it was meant to be reassuring. It wasn’t.

I closed my eyes tight, the hammering of my heart suddenly drowning out everything around me. We were at his mercy, this Joseph kid who’d come out of nowhere. This boy whose blank look haunted me like each bruise my father had left behind. He may have been my age, and we both may have suffered a broken arm or two courtesy of our fathers, but this kid was nothing, nothing, like me.

“What are you not telling us?” I mumbled.

“It’s not easy to explain,” Joseph said, and I squeezed Luke’s hand, a billion horrible thoughts racing through my mind. Inbred townspeople. Radioactive mutations. Axe-wielding nut jobs. The possibilities were endless and insanely idiotic.

“Try,” Mike said. “Because I want to know exactly what you meant when you said our car’s ‘not going anywhere.’”

“The car is the least of your problems,” Joseph replied. “But if you can trust me for five minutes, I’ll show you.”