Page 79 of What Rough Beast

“Leaderboard?” Ava repeats, reading.

“Yeah, your little puppies would’ve tipped him over the edge,” Ethan says, gun still on us. “Nobody would’ve caught up, not without cracking a whole different school district, or maybe if we started in on moms.”

Even Hailey flinches at that.

“But he gave up the glory,” Ethan goes on. “Texted me the next day, crying like a bitch, begging me not to post it, told me to delete it. Said he fucked up.”

“I did,” I say, reaching for Ava’s hand. She pulls it away, turns to me. I can’t look at her, can’t raise my eyes. I want the world to end, the ground to open and take me to an early grave, so that this can all be over. I don’t have words; there aren’t any. So, I do the best I can, lift my gaze, force myself to look at her, so that she can destroy me.

Like I destroyed her.

Forty-Eight

Ava

One of his eyes is bloodshot, broken capillaries threading through pearl, a hit he took from Ethan to protect me, damaging him on the inside. The inside of him that I thought I knew, the person I thought he was, open to me, vulnerable, unguarded, fully seen.

But not the way I was.

I drop the phone, my own naked body lighting up on the ground at my feet.

“Ava,” he says a word, one that means nothing.

I turn away from him, to Hailey, whose eyes carry something else, an understanding of what it means to be a girl moving through the world, a walking wound, watching, waiting for the next thing that will tear us open until we don’t have skin anymore. Until we are only scar tissue.

“I’m ready,” I tell her.

Forty-Nine

Micah

My heart is still beating in my chest, not aware that it’s outside of me, walking away, that it’s holding Hailey’s hand and leaving me behind.

“Ava,” I try one last time.

“She’s gone, man,” Ethan says. “It’s you and me.”

And maybe that’s what I deserve, in the end.

I square my shoulders, stare him down along the barrel of the gun. “Let’s fucking go.”

From the woods comes a long, low call, an owl welcoming the night. It’s joined by a high chattering, almost a cackle, tripping over itself, whickering in the dark. I can’t place that sound, but I know what comes next, and so does Ethan, the recognition flickering in his eyes, a whisper of fear. A low growl emanates from the dark at the edge of the trees, joined by another.

Nickel steps into the light, upper lip rolled back, teeth exposed, weapons that he’s never used ready to be broken in. Dime follows, still beaten, belly low to the ground. But there’s a light in his eyes now, like he just discovered what hope is. Just learned, in this moment, that violence is never the answer.

Until it is.

“Son of a bitch,” Ethan says, turning the gun from me to them.

I lunge just in time, muzzle bouncing off my forearm, explosion tearing the night. Ethan yells, and the shot goes wide, blowing off part of the Restoration Acres sign. The dogs don’t hesitate, aren’t scared of loud noises or screaming men. They know these things; like they know Ethan, and the smell of blood. They’re used to it being their blood, their fear.

But not tonight.

Dime lunges forward, stopping short when Ethan swings around, pulling the trigger. But it’s only one shot, and that one’s spent. He throws it instead, Dime dodging just as Nickel hits Ethan from behind. He goes down, Dime’s jaws closing on one shoulder, Nickel grabbing his calf. Both of them pull.

The skin behind Ethan’s knee rips under Nickel’s teeth, tearing away like the skin of a fruit. He screams, tries to roll, swats ineffectually at Nickel, who traps his hand between his teeth.

And then they’re dragging him, kicking and screaming, into the dark.