Page 75 of Within These County Lines

But me? I’m running from everyone.

32

We flee the party like we just committed a crime.

The wind roars through the truck’s open windows, whipping against our skin, carrying the scents of freshly cut grass and distant bonfire smoke. It takes everything in me to shout loud enough over the rush of air for Whitley to hear the recap from Robbie’s room. Xander sits in the back and occasionally pokes his head between the seats to add any details I leave out.

Whitley wants to keep the investigation rolling tonight. But with it being the Fourth of July, the chances of finding Robbie’s parents at home, or sober, are slim. And if we do get into trouble, the cops will be too busy policing fireworks to care about three kids playing detective.

I can’t keep going tonight anyway. Seeing Murray again made me sick, the kind of sickness that lingers, twisting in my stomach as if I just stepped off the Gravitron at the county fair. The blurry vision. Unsteady feet. The weight in my gut. None of it is useful for what we need to do next.

I drop Whitley off at her house with a fist bump.

When she’s gone, Xander wastes no time climbing into the passenger seat to fill the empty space beside me. I inhale slowly, pressing my forehead to the steering wheel, taking in the stillness after all the noise.

Without Whitley asking questions, we fall into silence. It settles thick and heavy between us. I put on Kacey Musgraves’s live album from New York to ease the tension. Her soft coos float from the speakers. I drop my phone into the center console and grip the steering wheel, but before I can shift into drive, Xander flicks the music off.

“Hey,” I say. “Why did you do that?”

He doesn’t answer, just reaches into the back seat and pulls a plastic bag full of candy root-beer barrels onto his lap.

I raise my eyebrows. “When did you get that?”

“I put them in your truck before I came over your house earlier.” He pulls a barrel from the bag and pops it into his mouth.

My face twists. “How did you get into my truck?”

He shrugs. “It was open.”

“Oh.”

He nods with the candy bulging through his cheek. “Yeah. You shouldn’t be so trusting in a town where multiple kids have gone missing.”

I sigh and reach to turn on the music, but he smacks my hand down.

“No,” he says. “We don’t need that. I like all the other sounds.”

“What other sounds?”

“Listen.”

He leans back. His arm rests on the center console, inching closer to mine every few moments.

At first, all I hear is the quiet shift of my own breath. But then, once I relax, the world outside sharpens. A shrill, rhythmic wail of cicadas vibrates in the air. Fireworks crackle in the distance, their echoes stretching over the hills. Red shadows flicker across Xander’s face. Then blue. Then gold. His Hawaiian shirt is half unbuttoned, revealing his sweaty, tan chest.

“I don’t like how you get when you see or talk about him,” he says.

“Who?”

He cocks his head slightly, letting the glow of the fireworks catch in his amber eyes as he finally looks at me.

“Murray?” I ask.

He nods, rolling the root-beer barrel between his teeth before biting down. “He makes you, like . . . jumpy.”

I don’t respond, rather, tap my fingers against the steering wheel and watch gold sparks rain down over the fields.

“Why are you scared of him, Stetson?”