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Oh, he remembered. How could he forget?
“Maybe I scratched these into the wood to fan flames. To scare the shit out of the assholes who fucked with us nonstop.”
“And all of the eyewitness accounts?” Of which there had been many.
Up until May of that year, the beast had only been a rumor. The older kids trying to scare the younger ones. But then more and more kids started hearing bumps in the night. Scratching sounds. Growls. Heavy breathing, and not the good kind. They heard the beast pacing, its claws clacking on the wood floors, and all of it had been centered around Shane Crews. When the claw marks appeared, more and more every morning, one positive thing happened: the older kids stopped fucking with him. In fact, they seemed scared of him. They should’ve been. Shane may have been scrawny, but he was scrappy as fuck. Could hold his own with the best of them, but it was the beast who scared them all away. All except Bronson, that is. He didn’t know at the time why the beast had chosen Shane, but he did after that night.
“Kids’ imaginations running wild.” Had Shane really convinced himself the beast never existed? Or was he simply trying to convince Bronson he was no longer the gullible punk he used to be? That he didn’t believe in those kinds of things? That he was sane now?
“You saw its claws,” Bronson said. “You told me.”
One corner of Shane’s mouth rose and he shook his head. “I lied, Montgomery.”
He hadn’t, but that was neither here nor there. Bronson lowered himself onto the dirty windowsill, Brioni be damned. “Then let me tell you a story.”
Shane clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. “’Bout time.”
Bronson fought a grin because he knew two things were about to happen: he was about to call Shane’s bluff and Shane was about to have his mind blown. The fear of telling him the truth over the years waned and he now wanted Shane to know it. To know he hadn’t been crazy. He hadn’t been gullible. Shane had officially been the bravest kid in the center. Far braver than Bronson and definitely braver than the dozens of older juvies. They had nothing on a kid who faced his demons head-on. Literally.
He captured Shane’s blue gaze and held it steady as he spoke. “Once upon a time, a hellhound crawled his way out of the underworld and found a place of refuge. A place where he could feed off the souls of innocent—and not-so-innocent—children. Because that’s what hellhounds do when up top.”
Shane sucked his teeth, unimpressed. Another of his more adorable habits.
“At night he got restless. All those sleeping kids resting peacefully and no one to feed off of.”
Shane checked his cuticles. Judging by the callouses on his hands, it wasn’t something he did often.
“So he emerged from his hiding place—a hiding place that, as luck would have it, happened to be under the bed of the scrawniest kid there. He did it to stir up some of that volatile energy he’d developed such a fondness for. He was a growing pup, after all. He needed sustenance.”
Shane moved on to a loose thread on the frayed knee of his jeans. He tugged at it, pulling it free.
“He prowled and gnashed his teeth until every kid in the place developed insomnia and a paralyzing fear of the dark.”
He wrapped the thread around his finger and watched the tip turn red.
“Then one night as he was emerging from his hiding place for his nightly feeding, the strangest thing happened.”
He broke the thread and searched for another.
“The boy, the scrawny one? He reached over the side of his bed and touched the hellhound’s paw.”
Shane stilled and Bronson knew he had his undivided attention.
“What kind of human would do such a thing?”
He didn’t move. Didn’t look up. He just listened.
“The hellhound was taken aback, to say the least. But when the boy did it again the next night, when he ran his pale fingertips over one of the hound’s six-inch claws, almost caressing them, he didn’t know what to think.”
Shane’s lids rounded ever so slightly, his mind racing, trying to decipher how Bronson could know such a thing. Though Bronson didn’t understand why, Shane hadn’t told him that part. Bronson doubted he’d ever told anyone. Who would believe him? This was one of those you-had-to-be-there situations.
“About a week later, two of the dumbest juvies in history decided to play a trick on the hot-tempered night guard. The one who used his nightstick on them more than once. They poured the vodka out of his coffee thermos and replaced it with lighter fluid.”
Shane looked at him at last.
“The guard knew instantly who did it.”
He swallowed hard.
