Page 18 of Death Rydes Shotgun

“I could ask you the same thing. Where the hell have you been, Blaire? You completely vanished after graduation. You ghosted me, Tre, Bryan... everyone. You changed your number and deleted every account you had.” I keep my tone carefully measured as fifteen years of unasked questions surge to the surface.

Blaire’s eyes drop to the sawdust-covered ground between us. Her throat works as she wraps a hand tightly around her waist.

“I couldn’t stay, Harm.” Her voice barely carries over the carnival music. “After... after what happened to Noah... after that night on the highway... I couldn’t breathe in this town anymore. Every time I walked past his empty desk in homeroom, every time I drove down Blackwood Highway, the guilt was eating me alive. I felt like I was going to lose my mind.”

A cold, heavy stillness settles in my chest.

I don’t move.

“So, you just left?” I ask softly.

“I bought a one-way bus ticket to Oregon the day after graduation.” Tears glisten in the corners of her eyes. “I stayed with my cousin on the coast. I had to put three thousand miles between myself and this place just to sleep at night. And I haven’t returned.”

“Until tonight,” I point out.

“My mom.” Blaire sighs, wiping a stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “She’s running the food vendor operations for the carnival this year, and she had a hip replacement last month. She couldn’t handle the heavy lifting alone. I only came back to help her set up and run the stands for the weekend. The second the gates close on Sunday, I’m gone again.”

A voice bellows through the crowd behind the cotton candy booth. “Blaire, I need those boxes of paper trays back here now.”

Blaire flinches, glancing over her shoulder toward the back of the trailer. She looks back at me, offering a weak, sad smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I have to go.” She steps backward. “It... it was really good to see you, Harm. Stay safe tonight. Please.”

Before I can answer, she turns and disappears behind the brightly lit food trailer, leaving me standing alone in the crowd once again.

I’m frozen for a long moment, processing the sting of her words. Guilt. Remorse. The heavy weight that drove her out of Blackwood while I carried on.

Noah’s death didn’t just change me. It clearly rewrote Blaire’s entire life.

Turning away, I cut deeper into the heart of the fairgrounds, letting the noise and flashing lights wash over me. I navigate past the wooden stalls of the ring-toss games, heading toward the quieter, dimmer path that loops behind the old wooden-covered seating near the back of the property.

I just need a moment of quiet away from the crowd.

“Well, well. Look who finally decided to come home.”

The voice makes my stomach twist into a hard, sour knot. It’s smooth, older, and laced with an arrogant familiar undertone that instantly turns my skin cold.

I slowly spin around, stepping into the soft amber glow of the string bulbs suspended between two support beams above.

Five feet away and blocking the narrow passage to the main walkway stands Marcus Knight.

My former senior-year history teacher.

He’s aged, and not well.

The hair at his temples is completely silver now, his once strong jawline has softened, thickened with weight, but he still wears the same smug, self-important smirk he wore when he used to stand at the front of the classroom.

He’s dressed in a leather jacket, a plastic beer cup dangling loosely from his fingers.

He was my dirty little secret. The hidden affair that started in summer school before my senior year. The forbidden thrill that ended up painted across Noah’s phone screen on Halloween night fifteen years ago.

I haven’t looked him in the eye since the day I walked across the stage to receive my diploma. And he’s a memory that could’ve stayed buried with Noah.

“Mr. Knight,” I greet him, keeping it as professional as it should’ve been when I was in high school. “Excuse me. I was just passing through.”

I try to step past him, but he shifts his weight, stepping directly into my path.

The heavy smell of cheap draft beer rolls off him, mixing sourly with the sweet air of the carnival.