Chapter 9

A scream rips past my lips and I slap my hand over my mouth to stifle it, but the sound escapes through my fingers and echoes across the mountain.

Atlas shouts, jumping back and almost knocking both of us to the ground.

“No, no, no!” I chant as he holds me so tight my ribs ache. The pain a reminder that I’m not dreaming. “Atlas! Who is…Who isthat?”

“I—I…,” he stammers, his voice fading into the night.

Move. Do something! Help!

Gasping, I push away from Atlas, retching as I turn back to the person on the ground. “Is he dead?”

“Marley!” Atlas says, grabbing my hand.

“We have to help!” I snap, pulling my hand away.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Jesse calls, laughing. “Just kick whatever it is onto the shoulder and let’s go.”

“Yeah, hurry up,” Luce adds, echoing everything Jesse says, as always.

Bile hits the back of my throat. I shuffle closer and step onto the grass, my body turning ice-cold. “Atlas, we need to call for help. My cell’s in the car. I—I think.” I mean, it must be.

He doesn’t reply, but he falls in line with me, stretching his arm out in front of my stomach as if he thinks the guy is going to jumpup.

His flashlight reveals the torso of the person, dressed in a dark, long-sleeve sweater. It’s a stupid observation, but I can’t help but think he’s picked an odd wardrobe choice for summer.

“What’s going on?” Luce shouts. “Stop freaking Marley out, and let’s beat it.”

Atlas shines the flashlight higher, and we reach his face. I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth, stifling another scream.

No, no, no.

“What did we do?” Atlas mutters, gagging. “Oh my god.”

Staring back at us are the wide dead eyes of Arthur Nelson.

I want to look away, but I’m unable to, my body frozen and forcing me to look at what we’ve done. All I can do is stare at Arthur’s lifeless body. His limbs splayed out in the dirt like he’s a rag doll that’s been discarded. His head…not right.

Atlas wraps his arms around my stomach and lifts me, turning us around so I can no longer see Arthur. It’s useless; his face is lasered on the inside of my eyelids. I’ll never forget.

“Is he dead?” I ask as we lean heavily against each other. I’m not sure which one of us is holding the other up. “Is he dead, Atlas? We need to check!”

“Is who dead?” Luce asks. She and Jesse make their way over to us, no longer messing around.

“What’s going on?” Jesse asks. “What are you two talking—” He gasps and spins around, his hands gripping his hair. “Oh my god.”

Luce screams and it’s at least ten times louder than mine. “No!” She doubles over and gags. “No! Oh no! Please no, please, please. Tell me we didn’t…”

Atlas still has a hold of me, but I break free again, stumbling as I try to take my own weight. “We have to do something,” I say, swallowing my horror and walking back to Arthur. “We have to do something!”

“Don’t touch him!” Jesse snaps, running to stand in front of me, blocking my way. He shakes his head. “He’s dead, Marley, look at him. He’s gone. Look at his head. God, look at it.”

I don’t want to do that ever again, but I comply. This time I see a few more details and realize why his head looks strange. It’s now an odd shape, a large dip in the side of it hiding his ear. He must’ve landed hard, his head taking the brunt of the impact on the asphalt.

Yeah, he’s dead. There’s no way he could’ve survived that. His head is caved in. I press my lips together and breathe through my nose, smelling the stuffy, dry night air.

“What’re we going to do?” Luce asks.

“Call for help!” I say. “Atlas!”

“Calm down and think for a second,” Jesse orders. “He’s already gone. We can’t save him, Marley. He’s dead. We need to think about what this means for us.”

“What? We have to try. What are you talking about?”

“What happens after we call for help? This was our fault,” Jesse says, his voice rough, like he thinks this is all my fault. He drags his hands down his cheeks. “What do we tell the cops?”

“That it was an accident. He just walked out into the road in the middle of the night. We didn’t see him. Jesse, come on.”

He throws his arms up. “We didn’t see him because my lights were off.”

“The cops don’t know that. We won’t tell them.”

“Do you really think no one at the creek is going to speak up and tell the cops the truth? Think, Marley.”

I shake my head at his words, not quite able to figure out exactly what he’s saying or what he wants to do. “I don’t know all of the details, but we can’t just leave him here.”

“No, we can’t. Everyone knows what stretch of road we were on. When Arthur is found, they’ll come for us.”

“Jesse,” Luce whispers, stumbling closer to him, her legs moving robotically as if she’s forgotten how to function. “What are you suggesting?”

“What I’m saying is we have to get rid of the body.”

“What the hell, man?” Atlas snaps.

I take a step back, almost falling down the slope. “No! Come on, we can’t do that.”

Luce takes Jesse’s hand, moving in front of him, and I notice that she’s trembling. “Jesse, you’re scared, and I get that. I am too, but we can’t do that to him. We can’t take his body somewhere else.”

“No, we don’t want to. We can and we have to. Think about the consequences, Luce.”

“Like Marley said, it was an accident.”

“Like that’s going to stand up. We were all in that car. We all got in knowing the lights were going out. What do you think’s going to happen when our colleges find out? Think about that for a second, all of you. Do you really want your whole future flushed because of an accident?”

Jesse’s using the soft voice, the one that makes her turn to mush.

“It’s Arthur,” I say, cutting in. “We know him. He’s a person.”

“I’m sorry, Marley. I’m so damn sorry that this happened. But he walked into the middle of the road at night. He could hear the car even if he couldn’t see it.”

“This isn’t Arthur’s fault,” I say.

“It isn’t anyone’s!” Jesse snaps. “We can’t lose our heads, Marley. We need to be smart here.”

“Covering up a murder isn’t smart.”

“Going to jail isn’t smart!”

Atlas steps between us, pushing Jesse’s chest. “Calm down, dude. We need to breathe. We need to take a second to think about what we should do.”

My jaw falls open. “Tell me you don’t agree with him.”

“I don’t want to, babe. Look, we’re all responsible for this.”

“So we cover this up?” Luce asks, her voice high as a kite. It’s nice to know that she hasn’t jumped straight on board with what Jesse is suggesting.

Jesse cuts her a look. “What other choice do we have? We took a dangerous dare, and this is what happened. We fess up and we’redone.”

She opens her mouth, about to say something, and then snaps her teeth shut. “College. I can’t lose my chance at college,” Luce says, her voice small.

Didn’t take her long to change her mind.

I look from Atlas to Luce and then Jesse, unable to recognize any of them. Three strangers on the side of the road, each one deciding way too fast that dumping a body is our best option.

This isn’t who we are. How do we cover this up and then fly off to college as if nothing has happened?

I suck in a gulp of warm oxygen, feeling lightheaded. The night refuses to cool, the air so hot and thick it’s almost solid, threatening to choke me. I rake in another shallow breath, my lungs like a sieve.

“We can’t,” I whisper, tears rolling down my cheeks.

“You don’t have to do anything but sit in the truck,” Jesse tells me. He uses that soft voice again, but it doesn’t have the same effect on me…and I can see the tightness in his jaw and darkness in his eyes. He wants me to go along with this, and he’s irritated that I’m challenging their decision.

“What about George?” I say. “What if this was your grandad?”

“It’s not. George isn’t even close to Arthur. He sees him, what, once every couple years?” Jesse says as if that makes it okay. “Quit worrying about George and focus on us.”

Atlas nods. “He’s right, Marley. I hate this too, and I don’t want to, but we don’t have another choice. We’ll keep an eye on George. He’ll probably be going home soon anyway.”

“To who? His mom died! Arthur is all he has…had.”

Luce hiccups as she tries to hold it together, tears rolling over her unusually pale cheeks. “What are we going to do?”

“Okay. I have gloves in the toolbox in the bed,” Jesse says. “No one touch him without wearing them.”

“Oh god,” I mutter, feeling queasy.

Atlas rubs my back but listens to Jesse, giving him his full attention. I shake his hand away, not wanting anyone near me.

“We take him off trail into the forest and bury him,” Jesse says. “No one will find him deep in the mountain. We’re in this together, so we stick together. Okay. All of us.”

“Agreed. Now…how do we get him there?” Atlas asks.

Jesse’s face twists. “How do you think? We’ll carry him.”

“Do you have anything in the truck we can use to dig?” Atlas asks.

Jesse shakes his head. “We’ll swing by my house and get shovels. Mom was the only one who gardened, so we haven’t used them since she took off.”

“Jesse,” I whisper. “Listen to what you’re saying.”

“I’m saving us.”

No, he’s saving himself. He was the one driving.

How much trouble could the rest of us really get into? But we were all there. And everyone in town gossips.

This is a nightmare.

“So what happens after?” Atlas asks. “Why didn’t we go back to the creek?”

“Rhett never told us to. As soon as I drop you off, I want you all to post something from the day. Location on. Make it sound like you’ve been there a while. Finished homework or watching a show and now posting whatever from wherever,” Jesse says.

I have a few photos from the creek. Silly selfies of Luce and me and a candid one of Atlas looking at the water. None of them I want to share, not anymore. I’m not doing that.

I’ve been railroaded. Atlas and Luce have jumped on board with Jesse’s plan of self-preservation and they’re not listening to me at all.

“So that’s it? Bury him and spend the rest of the night on Insta and TikTok?” I ask.

“I’ll post for you,” Atlas says as if that’s the part I’m strugglingwith.

“My fingers work. We’re talking about burying our neighbor in the woods!”

“So call the cops, Marley. Get your phone and do the right thing. I’m not going to stop you.”

“What?” Jesse spits, but Atlas holds his hand up to silence him, giving me the chance to decide.

“No!” Luce snaps. “I want to do the right thing too, but I don’t want Jesse to go to prison. I don’t want the rest of us to lose college or whatever else will happen. Our families. Come on, Marley, what’s going to happen to your mom and dad? You really think the hospital would keep them on board?”

My mom is an emergency room nurse and dad an X-ray tech. They’ve dedicated their lives to helping people, and I’ve done the opposite.

I turn away, my stomach burning with an anger that I’m surprised hasn’t set the whole town alight. How dare she use my parents as a bargaining chip.

How dare she be right.

Would they lose their jobs? I don’t know if the hospital would fire them, but if there was backlash from patients, they wouldn’t have a choice but to let them go.

All because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.

It’s not like I don’t want to protect Jesse too. He’s one of my best friends. It’s just shocking that they all reached this decision so fast. I haven’t had time to catch up, to think every scenario through.

But I can’t deny that they have a point. If we want a normal future, the one we’ve been working so hard for, we have to bury Arthur and pretend that this didn’t happen.

I wipe my tears on the back of my hand. “Okay. I don’t want my parents to lose everything. I’m with you,” I say, hating how quickly I’ve already thrown Arthur away.

“Get in the car, Marley,” Atlas says.

“Yeah, you don’t need to do this. Just don’t say anything,” Jesse adds, as if he’s doing me a favor. “I’m going to grab the gloves, and I think I have a blanket.”

Jesse jogs back to the car and Luce follows after him.

I’m trying to hold myself together. “I don’t understand how you can be okay with this, Atlas.”

He slowly lifts a brow and takes a step back. “I don’t understand how you can think I’m okay with this.”

“We’re covering up a murder.”

“We didn’t mean to do it. It’s not murder.”

“I don’t care what the correct term is, Atlas,” I snap, pointing to Arthur on the ground. “He’s dead because of us.”

“You think I don’t know that?” His loud voice carries. If the wind was blowing, everyone in town would probably hear him. “I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I’m just trying to make the best of a very bad situation here. Everything Jesse said is right. Our futures are over if this gets out.”

He moves closer, his gaze dragging me in. “We’re not going unpunished. We will have to live with this for the rest of our lives.” His movements are slow and premeditated, like he’s unsure how to approach me, whether I’ll let him get close or lash out.

“I’m scared,” I whisper.

“No one is going to find out.”

“I’m scared about how this changes all of us.”

“Nothing is going to change. I’ll make sure of it,” he says, taking two brave strides until he’s in front of me. I tilt my chin so I look up at him. He adds, “Trust me.”

I’ve always trusted him in the past…but we’ve also never had to survive something like this before.

I hate what we’re about to do, what we’re doing to George, but I know that I’m going to go along with it. That makes me the worst person in the world.

“I have the gloves,” Jesse says. “Put these on. Marley, what’re you doing?”

I shake my head. “I can’t touch him.”

“Go back to the car.”

“I’ll stand back,” I say, not wanting to be on my own.

Luce squeezes my shoulder as she passes, following the boys to Arthur on the ground.

I shuffle to the side of the road.

Atlas and Jesse stand beside Arthur. He seems so much smaller and slimmer from this vantage point.

“Get your hands underneath him,” Jesse says, using his gloved hands to touch Arthur’s back.

“Be careful,” Luce adds. “Don’t hurt him.”

Atlas and Jesse glance her way at the same time, but I get it. Okay, it’s not like they can harm him now, but the very least they can do is treat his body respectfully…before we bury him in the woods.

I press the back of my palm to my damp forehead and count my breaths, my body too hot. Do not pass out.

They heave him up. That was the point of no return, and I turn away. We can no longer change our minds. We’ve moved the body, not something you would do if you were calling for help.

This is it.

We’re covering up a murder.