Chapter 20

I only take three steps outside the classroom before I notice the whispers.

The next thing I notice is Atlas jogging toward me.

He shakes his head. “It didn’t take longer than one period for the news to get out,” he says, keeping his voice low.

“I’m going to meet up with Jesse, I bet he’s freaking out,” Luce mutters. More like she’s freaking out and hoping he’ll be able to calm her down.

I watch her leave until she disappears into the crowded hallway.

“Have you seen Jesse?” I ask when she’s out of earshot.

He shrugs. “Not since first thing this morning.”

“Does he know?”

“There’s no way he doesn’t. It’s all over school. No one even cares about the chickens on the quad.”

“What?”

“A few guys from the team and I grabbed five from Theo’s neighbor’s, since it nearly made Fuller’s head explode last time. It doesn’t matter now.”

“You pulled another prank?”

His eye twitches. “Come on, Marley, we need to be normal. How does it look if we suddenly stop? Besides, you went camping with Rhett freaking Wilder.”

My jaw drops. “Are you kidding me? I didn’t do that by choice. We thought he might be the one messaging me!”

He rakes his hands through his hair and huffs. “I know. But you’re all over the place, acting on every suspicion, no matter how tiny it is.”

“Why are you putting all of this on me? I’m not the only one who was suspicious of George and now Rhett. I’m the one trying to figure it out and save us all.”

“All right. I’m sorry, okay.” He looks up and down the hallway. “Let’s not argue.”

I can tell there’s more he wants to say but he’s holding back. Well, same.

“What’s the gossip about the…discovery?”

“There’s a lot. We know officially that a body has been found. Doesn’t stop people from making up a whole load of crap. Everyone knows George has been looking for Arthur. With the fire, there’s talk of a serial killer…and guess who the main suspect is? Or rather the main suspects are.”

I roll my eyes. “The Wilders.”

He nods.

We need all eyes to be on anyone but us. Doesn’t mean I don’t hate it. “We did this, Atlas.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to them, unfortunately.”

“Nothing should happen to them. Not about Arthur, anyway.” I take a deep breath. One lie has escalated. One victim has becometwo.

“Not here, Marley. You can’t do this.” He takes my hand and pulls me along. I barely take anything in. All I can think about is George lying in that hospital with no clue that he has no family left. When he wakes up, he’ll learn that his grandad is dead.

Atlas pushes me into an empty classroom and closes the door behind us.

“I’m fine. We need to get to class.”

“We have a minute,” he says, looking through the square of glass in the door. “Everyone is too busy gossiping to worry about being late. I need to know that you’re going to be okay.”

“Are you going to be okay?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have a choice. Push it to the back of your mind.”

“That works?”

Because so far, I’ve had a zero percent success rate with that.

“It makes it bearable.” He shoves his hands into his thick hair again. He’s anxious. “We don’t have a choice,” he repeats, and I’m not sure it’s me he’s telling this time.

I bet I could get Atlas on my side if I decided to go to the cops. I’m not sure about Luce.

“It’s going to be so much worse if the cops figure out what happened. You know that, right?”

“Marley, I can’t hear that right now. We need to get everyone together again.”

“Why? So Jesse can give us the usual speech about how our lives will be over? I go back and forth a lot. If we speak up, it’ll affect every part of our lives going forward, our families’ lives too. But how do we live with this?”

“I think you should fake an illness again.”

“What? You told me to act normal.”

“Yeah, and you can’t. If you’re going to fall apart, you need to do it at home.”

I take a step back, his words physically painful. “Atlas…”

“Hey, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jackass. Hey, stop moving away from me.” He steps closer and grabs my wrist. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m protecting you. I get it, babe, I know you’re struggling too. Do you need to go home?”

“There’s nothing like covering up a murder to show all the different sides of the people you thought you knew.”

Dropping my hand, he lifts a brow, his jaw set. “That’s not fair. You’re acting like this only affects you.”

Am I? Maybe…. I don’t know. They just seem to be dealing with this a little too well, as if we hit a bird and dumped it.

“And you guys are acting like it doesn’t affect you at all.”

“Wow.” He takes a step back, shaking his head. “That’s awesome. I tell you what, come find me when you’ve taken your head out of your ass.”

I’m about to tell him to stay and talk, since he’s the one who dragged me in here, but he spins around and leaves, throwing the door open so hard that it bangs on the table behind it.

We’re only a fraction into the forever that we’re going to have to keep this secret for, and it’s already destroying us.

Atlas doesn’t want to be anywhere near me right now. We seem to end every conversation with an argument, and now I’m doubting if he would stand with me if I wanted to speak up.

Can I destroy my parents and friends to clear my conscience?

I leave the classroom to a totally empty hallway. Damn it.

I jog to the locker room and slip inside the door without anyone seeing. My locker is by Luce’s. She’s already getting changed into her gym clothes.

“Hey,” I say, gritting my teeth as my hand slips on the locker handle.

“Are you okay?”

“Just had a fight with Atlas, but I’m fine.”

She looks over her shoulder and back to me. “Crazy about the body, isn’t it? In our town.”

I turn slowly to face her head-on. That’s when I notice everyone else. We’re in a packed room, and almost every other conversation I hear is the same.

It must be Arthur. Did he jump? George obviously wants to inherit the house now. Maybe he fell.

“Yeah,” I say, my voice croaking. “It’s awful.”

She pulls her T-shirt over her head. “Everyone thinks it’s Arthur.”

“Of course it’s Arthur.”

Luce and I both turn toward the source of the statement. Ruthie.

She narrows her eyes at me, now having the attention of all the girls. “Come on, as if any of you are still questioning it. Arthur goes missing, and a week later a body turns up. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

That last part is for me. Her hostility and bullying tactics make me want to flirt with Rhett. I’d never actually do it, because I hate him more than her, but I can picture her face and it’s glorious.

I smile through the nausea. “If only we could all be as clever asyou.”

She rolls her eyes and walks off with her friends.

“I won’t miss her,” Luce says.

“Same.”

After school I sit in the kitchen with my mom, watching her as she makes homemade pizzas.

I steal a strip of bell pepper and munch on it while she rolls out dough and checks her phone beside her.

“Waiting for something?”

“Huh? Oh, Dad’s meeting Sam for a drink after his shift. He said he’d let me know if there are any developments. A body found.” She shakes her head.

“Everyone is saying it’s Arthur.”

“Unfortunately, I think they’re right. He’s been missing for, what? A week now?”

Eight days, to be precise.

“Yeah,” I say, the pepper getting lodged in my throat. I cough and she looks up. “I’m fine. Have you heard how George is?”

I’ve been dying to ask but too scared, despite that being a general thing you’d ask.

“I popped in to check on him before I left. No change. But his doctor is confident. George is young and healthy. Sam and Melinda are coming to dinner. We’ll hopefully know more then.”

“Do you think it’ll take that long to identify the body? I mean, everyone in town knows who Arthur is.”

“Oh, they will know already, but there’s a proper procedure. Typically, the family is notified first…but I guess that isn’t possible in this case. Julie in admin has been trying to locate someone.”

“You think he might have other family?”

“Arthur never said, but it’s possible. Julie’s going to keep trying. We’re all hoping George wakes up soon.”

Not everyone is. Jesse wants him dead, and he was missing from school for the rest of the day. That makes me massively nervous.

“You don’t need to worry about this stuff, though, honey.”

“So you don’t think there’s a serial killer on the loose?”

She laughs. “Goodness, is that really what people are saying? No, I don’t. We don’t know the cause of the fire yet. There was an accelerant, but Arthur had cans of gas lying around. With the heat we’ve had, you can see how accidents happen.”

“And what about him turning up in the river?” I ask.

“I’ll admit, it’s difficult to believe that he fell, because he probably knows the mountain better than anyone, but he could’ve been distracted.”

I nod, unable to ignore the horrible thoughts in my head.

We might just get away with this.