Page 41 of What We Bury

“Five Guys Who Hang?” he manages, voice hoarse.

“I’m workshopping it. You got a better name?”

“We don’t really . . . have a name.”

“Every club needs a name, Eli. It’s branding 101. How about ‘The Hangmen’?”

Eli barks out a laugh, the surprise of it making his shoulders jerk. “That’s—no, I hate how much I love that.”

“You’re welcome.” I scan the water and resist the urge to ask the eighty-eight questions burning a hole in my tongue. Instead, I finish the last half of my sandwich, balling the wrapper in my fist, and say, “So, are you going to tell me anything, or do I have to piece together your whole tragic origin story on my own?”

He’s quiet a second, gaze fixed on the horizon. Something in him goes heavy, the lightness from before collapsing inward like a star. “It’s not really a story,” he says slowly. “It’s just a thing that got out of hand.”

“Go on.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “You really want to know?”

“Color me intrigued.”

“Okay. How much do you already know?”

“Almost nothing.” I pull out a bottle of water, take a sip then swallow. “Holden told me enough to know you do this a lot. From what I can work out, you hunt men who got away with . . .what Brock tried to get away with. You catch them and make it look like suicide. He said you’ve been doing it for a while.”

He nods. “A few years.”

“How many is a few?”

“Four. Almost five.”

I do the math in my head. Four years of hunting. Four years of rope and planning and forged suicide notes. How many men? How many bodies?

“How did it start?” I ask. “I mean—you don’t just wake up one day and decide to become a vigilante death squad. Something had to happen. Someone had to . . .”

I trail off. Eli is looking at the water, his jaw tight, the sandwich forgotten in his hands.

“You don’t have to tell me,” I say quickly. “I’m just—I’m trying to understand. I’m part of it now, whether I want to be or not.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. The pelicans dive over and over. The waves continue to roll in. And somewhere behind us, a kid is shrieking with laughter, chasing seagulls across the grass.

“For me, it started with my sister,” he says finally.

I don’t say anything. Just wait.

“She was a freshman in college. Went to a party, had a few drinks, woke up the next morning in a stranger’s bed with no memory of how she got there.” His voice is flat, reciting facts. “She reported it. Did everything right—went to the hospital, did the kit, talked to the police, identified the guy. He was a senior. Popular. His family has money.”

I know how this story ends.

“They didn’t prosecute?”

“Oh, they prosecuted. It went to trial and everything. Lots of news coverage. Her name got leaked somehow and suddenly she was getting death threats. Rape threats. People showing up ather dorm, screaming at her that she was a liar, a slut, that she was ruining a good man’s life.”

His hands are shaking. A tremor in his fingers that he tries to hide by ripping the crust from his sandwich and tossing it to the seagulls.

“He got off. Jury couldn’t reach a verdict. Mistrial. The DA declined to retry, said there wasn’t enough evidence, said it would be too traumatic for her to go through it again.” A muscle jumps in his jaw. “Six months later, she tried to kill herself. Pills. I found her in time, but . . .”

“Eli.”

“She’s alive,” he says, like he needs to clarify. “She’s okay. Better, now. But she’s not the same. She’ll never be the same. And he. . . he kept living his whole fucking life like nothing ever happened, while my sister couldn’t sleep without . . .”