Chapter 1•
I’m elbow-deep in the center console looking for my lip gloss when Kayla lays on the horn like she owns my driveway, my street, and honestly maybe the whole stupid town.
The sound blasts through the open passenger door, bounces off the brick front of my house, and shoots straight into my skull.
“Kayla,” Hillary snaps from the front seat. “Can you not?”
Kayla does it again.
Longer this time.
Because of course she does.
“She can not not,” Melissa says beside me, one knee tucked under her in the back seat, glasses sliding down her nose while she digs through a family-size bag of sour gummies she has already opened even though we are literally still in my driveway. “It’s a medical condition. Horn addiction. Very sad. Very underfunded.”
I find three old receipts, a broken hair tie, one penny sticky with something I refuse to identify, and not my lip gloss.
“Shelby!” Kayla twists around in the driver’s seat, blond hair swinging over one shoulder, perfect loose curls like she did not spend forty-seven minutes getting them that way and then lie in the group chat about it taking ten. “I swear to God, if your mom comes out here and starts asking me about hotel check-in one more time, I’m leaving you.”
“You are not leaving me.”
“I will.”
“You need me. I have the portable charger.”
Kayla’s mouth shuts.
Victory.
Tiny, but I’ll take it.
Hillary lifts the charger from her lap without looking up from her phone. “Actually, I have the portable charger. Shelby has the backup portable charger because she is anxious.”
“Prepared,” I correct.
“Clinically anxious,” Melissa says.
I throw the penny at her.
It bounces off her thigh and disappears into the crack between the seat and the door, where it can live with whatever crumbs and dead hopes Kayla keeps back here.
Melissa gasps like I’ve stabbed her. “That was currency.”
“That was biohazard.”
Kayla honks again.
My mom’s porch light flips on.
All four of us freeze.
It’s stupid, because we are eighteen. All of us. Legal adults, technically. Seniors. Almost graduated. People who can vote and sign forms and buy lottery tickets and make our own terrible choices.
But my mom’s porch light still has power. Like biblical power.
“Go, go, go,” I hiss, slamming the console shut.
Kayla grins. “Now she’s motivated.”
I yank the passenger door closed, then immediately realize I am in the back seat and did not close anything useful.
“Shelby,” Hillary says, slow and flat.
“I know.”
I lean over Melissa, grab the handle, and pull my door shut with enough force to rattle the window.
Kayla throws the car in reverse.
My mom appears in the doorway in her soft pants and sleep shirt, one hand lifted like she might wave or stop us or maybe do both, because moms are multitaskers in the emotional terrorism department.
I wave through the back window.
My mom waves back.
Then Kayla backs out fast enough that my overnight bag tips over in the trunk with a heavy thump.
“Jesus,” Hillary bites out, one hand flying to the dash.
“Seat belts save lives,” Kayla sings.
“So does not driving like a demon.”
“A demon with a clean record.”
“For now,” Melissa says around a mouthful of gummy.
I sink into the seat and finally breathe.
There it is.
The leaving feeling.
The one that starts low in my stomach and climbs up under my ribs, fizzy and bright. Like the whole weekend is a soda someone shook too hard and we are the girls dumb enough to pop the tab.
Friday night. No parents. No little siblings. No school hallway smells. No teachers reminding us we have three weeks until finals like that is a threat instead of a mercy killing.
Just us.
Me, Kayla, Hillary, Melissa.
A Saturday night concert three hours away. A hotel room that technically only has two beds but whatever, we’ve shared worse. A cooler full of drinks in the trunk. Snacks for days. Clothes we spent the entire week planning. Graduation waiting at the edge of everything, trying to turn every normal moment into the last one.
Last spring concert.
Last senior skip day.
Last lunch table fight.
Last time the four of us will pile into Kayla’s car and act like the world starts when she presses gas.
I hate thinking that.
So I don’t.
Mostly.
Kayla turns onto Briar Street, tires hissing over pavement that’s already gone shiny with rain. “Playlist.”
“Already on it.” Melissa wipes sour sugar on her jeans, then reaches between the seats to plug in her phone.
Hillary blocks her with one hand. “Absolutely not.”
Melissa stares at her. “Excuse me?”
“You played sad girl murder music for forty minutes last time.”
“It was atmospheric.”
“It was concerning.”
“It had vibes.”
“It had a bridge where a woman whispered about bones.”
Melissa’s mouth twitches. “That was the best part.”
Kayla looks at me in the rearview mirror, blue eyes bright under mascara thick enough to survive a hurricane, which is good because the sky is fully considering one. “Shelby. Decide. You’re neutral.”
I am not neutral.
I am never neutral.
I just look like I am because somebody has to keep us from eating each other before we even hit the county line.
“No murder music until after midnight,” I say. “No sad acoustic covers until someone cries. No country unless Hillary gets carsick and needs emotional support.”
Hillary turns slightly. “I don’t get carsick.”
“You get morally carsick.”
“That is not a thing.”
Kayla snaps her fingers once. “It is absolutely a thing, and you have it.”
Melissa points a gummy at Hillary like a tiny weapon. “Symptoms include checking Google Maps every twelve seconds and saying the words ‘we should have left earlier’ even when we left early.”
Hillary’s phone is already open on Maps.
She locks it face down against her thigh.
Too late.
We all see it.
Kayla cackles, loud and pretty and mean in that way that only sometimes hurts.
Hillary rolls her eyes, but her mouth lifts. “I hate all of you.”
“You love us,” I say.
“Against my will.”
“That’s the brand,” Melissa says.
The playlist starts, something with a heavy beat and a girl singing like she has never once apologized for taking up space. Kayla turns it up until the bass vibrates under my sneakers.
My phone buzzes in my lap.
Mom.
Text me when you get to the hotel.
Then another.
And don’t let Kayla speed.
I glance up at the rearview mirror like my mom might somehow be watching through it.
Kayla catches my eyes. “What?”
“My mom says don’t speed.”
Kayla presses her hand to her chest. “Wounded.”
Hillary snorts. “Accurate.”
“I am a safe driver.”
“You once took a roundabout like it insulted your family.”
“It came out of nowhere.”
“Roundabouts are stationary, Kayla.”
Melissa leans close to me, smelling like peach body spray and sour sugar. “If we die before the concert, I want everyone to know I called it.”
“You say that every time we get in the car.”
“Because every time we get in the car, I am correct.”
Kayla flips on her blinker so aggressively it clicks like an argument. “Y’all are so dramatic.”
The word dramatic lands weird in my chest.
Not bad.
Just there.
Maybe because I almost asked if we should wait until morning to leave. Maybe because the rain started right after dinner and my mom gave the sky that look moms give things they cannot control but still feel personally responsible for. Maybe because I triple-checked my bag and still feel like I forgot something.
Toothbrush. Charger. Hoodie. Ticket. ID. Emergency cash. Pepper spray on my keychain even though Mom made me show her three times that I know how to use it.
I have everything.
I think.
Kayla’s phone lights up in the cup holder.
Jordan Hale.
His name flashes across the screen for one second before she flips the phone over so fast her bracelets clack against the console.
One second.
Not even.
Still, Melissa stops chewing.
I see it because I am looking at Melissa when I should be looking out the window. Her mouth goes still. Her eyes drop to the phone, then to Kayla, then away.
Small.
Fast.
Nothing, probably.
Except my brain grabs it and keeps it.
My brain does that. Collects tiny things nobody asked it to collect.
Hillary sees Kayla flip the phone too, but Hillary’s face does something different. Not curious. Annoyed. Like Jordan texting during girls’ weekend is one more item Kayla forgot to control.
“No boyfriends,” Hillary says.
Kayla’s shoulders tighten. “Did I answer?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, don’t.”
The car gets quieter under the music.
Melissa digs for another gummy.
Too loud.
Plastic crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.
I clear my throat. “Okay, important question.”
Kayla meets my eyes in the mirror again, already grateful because she knows exactly what I’m doing and will never say thank you for it.
“If we meet the band,” I say, “who embarrasses us first?”
Melissa’s hand shoots up. “Me.”
Hillary says, “Kayla.”
Kayla says, “Hillary, because she’ll ask where the emergency exits are.”
“That is useful information.”
“At a meet and greet?”
“Especially at a meet and greet.”
Melissa licks sugar off her thumb. “I’d ask if they ever get tired of pretending they don’t know they’re hot.”
“You would not,” I say.
“I might.”
“You’d panic and say ‘love your pants’ to the drummer.”
Melissa points at me. “First of all, I stand by that compliment. Second, those pants were incredible.”
Kayla laughs again, and this time the tight thing in the car loosens.
Good.
Fixed.
Temporary, maybe.
But fixed.
We hit the main strip through Briar Glen, if you can call it a strip. Two fast-food places, the pharmacy, Dollar General, three churches, one tire shop, and the gas station everyone still calls Lee’s even though Lee sold it to his cousin six years ago and moved to Florida after his divorce.
The sky hangs low and bruised purple over the power lines.
Rain freckles the windshield. Not hard yet. Just enough to make the road shine under headlights.
Kayla flicks the wipers on. They squeak once, leaving a smear across the glass.
“We need gas,” Hillary says.
“I know.”
“And ice.”
“I know.”
“And we should pee now because the next real bathroom is probably over an hour.”
Kayla pulls into Lee’s without answering, which is Kayla for yes, Mother.
The gas station glows white and green against the wet evening, bugs tapping themselves stupid against the lights over the pumps. The pavement smells like rain, gasoline, and old fryer grease from the chicken place inside.
Home smell.
Not pretty.
Real.
Kayla parks at pump three.
“Everybody out,” Hillary orders. “Bathroom, snacks, ice. Ten minutes.”
Melissa salutes her with two fingers. “Yes, cruise director.”
“I’m serious.”
“That’s why it’s funny.”
I climb out and stretch, my boots hitting a shallow puddle that splashes the hem of my jeans. Great. Perfect. Nothing says concert-ready like damp ankles and gas station water.
Kayla comes around the hood already holding her phone up, recording.
“Girls’ weekend,” she sings, turning the camera on herself, then us. “Say hi.”
Hillary ducks out of frame. “Do not post me at a gas pump.”
Melissa leans in with both hands under her chin. “Hi from our crime documentary.”
I shove her shoulder. “Do not manifest that.”
Kayla laughs and swings the phone toward me.
I hold up a peace sign because apparently I have never met a camera before in my life.
“Shelby is giving hostage,” Kayla says.
“Shelby is getting snacks.”
“Shelby is avoiding fame.”
“Shelby is hungry.”
I walk away before she can zoom in on my face, because Kayla zooms in on faces like she has a personal vendetta against pores.
Inside, the gas station is too bright and too cold. The air-conditioning hits the rain damp on my skin and makes me shiver. The floor is tracked with muddy footprints. Somewhere behind the counter, grease pops in the chicken warmer. A country song plays low from a radio with bad speakers, all twang and heartbreak under the buzz of fluorescent lights.
Melissa goes straight for candy.
Obviously.
Hillary goes straight for the bathroom.
Also obviously.
I grab a basket because I know us. We say we want one thing and end up with enough snacks to survive a minor apocalypse.
Which.
No.
Bad thought.
I put four water bottles in the basket. Then two more because Hillary will say we need them. Then sour cream chips because Kayla likes those. Salt and vinegar because Melissa says they burn her mouth in a good way, which is concerning but consistent. Chocolate-covered pretzels for me. Snack cakes. Gum. Beef jerky. The fancy popcorn that costs too much but Hillary buys anyway when she thinks nobody sees.
My phone buzzes.
Mom again.
Have fun. Be smart. Love you.
I type back, Love you too.
Then I add, We’re being smart.
I stare at it.
Delete smart.
Type safe.
We’re being safe.
That feels better.
Not true exactly, because Kayla is our driver, but better.
“That is an aggressive amount of water.”
I look up.
Cole Mercer stands at the end of the aisle, one shoulder leaning into a shelf of motor oil like he has been there the whole time and I somehow missed him.
Cole is in our grade, but not our circle. Not anybody’s circle, really. He exists around the edges of things. Back row of assemblies. Hood up in the courtyard. Passing periods with one earbud in. Polite to teachers in that yes ma’am way adults eat up because they think quiet means good.
His dark hair is damp from the rain, ends curling near his forehead. He wears a black hoodie, jeans, work boots with dried mud around the soles.
I glance at the basket. “Hydration is important.”
His mouth tugs up. Not a full smile. “That right?”
“So I’ve heard.”
Melissa appears beside me, dumping three more candy bags into the basket. “Shelby thinks water cancels out gas station food. Don’t ruin this for her.”
Cole’s eyes move to Melissa.
Not creepy.
Not obviously.
Just steady.
Melissa pushes her glasses up her nose and looks away first.
“Y’all going somewhere?” Cole asks.
“No,” Melissa says. “We dressed like this to buy jerky.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
Cole’s almost-smile stays. “Fair.”
The bell over the door jingles, and Dylan Voss comes in with rain on his shoulders.
Dylan is bigger than Cole. Not football big. More like he grew fast and never learned how to make himself smaller. Gray shirt, faded cap, hands shoved in his pockets. He stops near the entrance and scans the store before his eyes land on Cole.
Then on us.
He nods once.
Cole nods back.
Something about it feels practiced.
Or I’m being weird.
Probably weird.
Kayla comes in behind Dylan, phone in one hand, car keys looped around one finger. “Why is there a meeting in the chip aisle?”
Cole straightens. “Hey, Kayla.”
“Hey.” Kayla’s smile turns on. Fast. Automatic. The smile she gives people who might be useful or watching. “Cole, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And Dylan.” She points with her keys.
Dylan’s mouth shifts. “Yep.”
“Look at me remembering names. Growth.”
Melissa mutters, “Inspirational.”
Kayla ignores her and peers into my basket. “You got my chips?”
I lift the sour cream bag.
“This is why I keep you.”
“For snacks and chargers. I know my role.”
Hillary comes out of the bathroom with a paper towel in one hand and immediate suspicion on her face. Hillary can assess a situation in under two seconds and decide which part of it she hates most. Right now, it is boys in our snack radius.
“We need ice,” she says.
“We’re getting ice,” Kayla says.
“And gas.”
“The car is literally at the pump.”
“Unpumped.”
Kayla closes her eyes. “You are so lucky I love you.”
Hillary’s mouth flattens.
Tiny thing.
There and gone.
Love you used to be easier between us. Like breathing. Tossed out all the time, half joke, half fact. Lately it comes with edges. Maybe because everything lately comes with edges. Graduation. College. Kayla not getting cheer captain. Hillary pretending she is fine about staying in-state even though she checks college pages like some people check horoscopes.
Cole looks between them. “Where you headed?”
“Concert,” Kayla says.
Hillary gives her a look.
Kayla gives one back.
What, her face says. It’s not classified.
“Which one?” Dylan asks.
Melissa names the band with her whole chest, like she personally discovered them and is allowing the rest of us to attend.
Dylan nods like he knows them.
He definitely does not know them.
“That’s a haul,” Cole says.
“Three hours,” Hillary says.
“More like four in this rain,” Dylan says.
Kayla groans. “Do not say that.”
Cole drums two fingers against the shelf. “Not if you take Mercy Cut.”
Hillary’s head turns. “What?”
“Mercy Cut Road,” Cole says. “Old logging cut-through off County Six. Comes out past Mill Creek. Saves you a couple hours if you’re going east.”
Hillary is already pulling out her phone. “That’s not on the route.”
“It won’t show right,” Cole says. “Signal drops out there. But locals use it.”
“I’m local,” Hillary says.
“Local girls don’t take backroads in the rain?” Dylan asks.
Not smiling.
Just asking.
Hillary’s shoulders go stiff.
Kayla’s chin lifts a fraction.
There it is.
That little spark she gets when somebody makes a thing sound like a challenge.
“How much time?” Kayla asks.
“Two hours, maybe,” Cole says.
“Bullshit,” Hillary says.
Cole shrugs. “Don’t take it.”
Easy.
Too easy.
Like he does not care.
Which makes Kayla care.
I feel it happen before she even opens her mouth.
“Where’s the turn?” Kayla asks.
Hillary turns on her. “Kayla.”
“I’m asking.”
“We are not taking some random road because Cole Mercer said so in a gas station.”
Cole lifts both hands, palms out. “Hey. Your call.”
Dylan watches Hillary like her irritation is interesting.
My skin prickles.
Not fear.
Not exactly.
Just my body noticing something before my brain has evidence.
I hate when that happens because I never know what to do with it. If I say something, I’m dramatic. If I don’t, I get to sit there quietly and feel my stomach twist over nothing.
Most of the time, it is nothing.
Most of the time.
Kayla steps closer to Cole, phone ready for directions. “Tell me.”
Hillary exhales hard enough to move the loose hair near her cheek.
Melissa leans into me. “If we get murdered, I’m haunting Kayla first.”
“Do not manifest murder in Lee’s,” I whisper.
“I’m serious.”
“You are eating gummy worms for dinner.”
“And if they are my last meal, I deserve respect.”
I laugh because she wants me to.
Because Kayla is smiling.
Because Hillary looks like she might explode.
Because Cole is giving directions in a low voice and Dylan is standing too still by the door and my basket is cutting into my fingers and the rain is getting harder against the front windows.
Because this is how it works with us.
Something feels off.
I smooth it over.
Always.
At the counter, the cashier scans our pile of junk food and gives us a look over his readers. “Y’all feeding a team?”
“Emotionally, yes,” Melissa says.
Kayla tosses a pack of gum on top of everything. “Add this.”
“You don’t even like cinnamon gum,” Hillary says.
“I might become a person who likes cinnamon gum this weekend.”
“That is not how personality works.”
“It is for hot people.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
Kayla beams at me like my laugh is a point she scored.
Cole and Dylan buy nothing but two bottles of soda and a bag of sunflower seeds. Cole pays cash. Dylan stands behind him, looking out the window at the pumps, then at Kayla’s car, then away.
I notice.
Again.
Tiny thing.
Probably nothing.
Hillary makes us split the cost because fairness matters to Hillary even when the cashier is sighing and the line behind us is one old man buying cigarettes and a scratch-off.
Outside, the rain has picked up. Not pouring yet, but steady. The kind that dots your shirt dark and makes your hair frizz before you can cross a parking lot.
Kayla shrieks and holds her hands over her curls. “No. Absolutely not.”
Melissa tilts her face up. “I love this for you.”
“Shut up and run.”
We run.
Sort of.
Hillary speed-walks because she refuses to run in boots with a heel. Melissa clutches the snack bag to her chest like a newborn. I hold the water against my ribs and feel cold rain slide down the back of my neck.
At the car, Kayla unlocks the doors and starts barking orders.
“Snacks in back. Waters on the floor. Hillary, stop looking like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re about to call my mother.”
“I’m considering calling mine.”
“Your mom would tell you to have fun.”
“My mom would tell me not to take a road called Mercy Cut.”
Melissa pauses with one hand on the door. “Okay, when you say it like that, it does sound murdery.”
“Everything sounds murdery when you want it to,” Kayla says.
“Not everything.”
“Name one thing.”
“Cupcake.”
“Poison cupcake.”
Melissa points at her. “See, that’s on you.”
I load the waters onto the floorboard behind Hillary’s seat. My fingers are slick from rain and plastic. One bottle slips free and rolls under the front seat.
I bend to grab it, and through the space under the car, I see Cole and Dylan standing by the ice machine.
Not talking.
Just watching.
Cole’s hood is up now. Dylan’s cap drips at the brim.
They are not looking at me.
They are looking at Kayla’s car.
A horn blares from the road, and I jerk so hard my shoulder smacks the door frame.
“Ow.”
Melissa leans over me. “You good?”
“Yeah.” I rub the sore spot. “Just scared myself.”
She looks past me toward the ice machine.
Cole has turned away.
Dylan is buying ice now, or pretending to. The freezer lid is open. White cold air spills out around his hands.
Melissa pushes her glasses up. “Those two are weird.”
There.
A chance.
I could say yes.
I could say maybe we should take the main road.
I could say my stomach feels wrong and I know that is not evidence but can we please just be boring for once.
Kayla slides into the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
Music blasts out.
Hillary yanks the passenger door open. “If we take this road and die, I’m going to be so mad.”
“You can yell at me from heaven,” Kayla says.
“I’m not going to heaven if I die in your car.”
Melissa climbs in beside me. “Circle question.”
“No,” Hillary says immediately.
“Yes,” Melissa says. She shuts the door, rain sparkling on her glasses. “Who here is most likely to get us arrested before midnight?”
“Kayla,” I say.
“Kayla,” Hillary says.
“Kayla,” Melissa says.
Kayla twists around with one hand on the wheel. “Betrayal. All of you. Ugly.”
“Accurate,” Hillary says.
“Hate crime,” Kayla says.
“Against who?” Melissa asks.
“Girls with leadership qualities.”
I laugh, and this time it comes out easy.
Kayla backs out of the spot. The tires hiss through puddles. Cole and Dylan are still near the ice machine when we pass, their faces blurred by rain and windshield glare.
Cole lifts two fingers.
Kayla lifts hers back.
Hillary mutters something under her breath that sounds like dumbass road, but the music eats half of it.
We pull out of Lee’s and turn toward the edge of Briar Glen.
The town thins fast after the gas station. The pharmacy glow drops behind us. The churches become dark shapes with white signs. Houses spread out, porch lights floating on wet lawns like little warnings nobody asked for.
Kayla taps the steering wheel to the beat.
Melissa opens the sour gummies again.
Hillary stares at her phone, jaw tight.
I twist the cap on my water bottle but do not drink. I just listen to the plastic crackle under my hand.
“Last chance to be normal,” Hillary says.
Kayla grins at the road. “Normal is boring.”
“Normal is paved.”
“Mercy Cut is paved.”
“Cole said old logging road.”
“He said cut-through.”
“Those are not comforting synonyms.”
Melissa leans her head back against the seat. “For the record, I want it known that I support chaos but not death.”
“Noted,” I say.
Kayla slows at the edge of town, blinker clicking.
Left is the highway. Bright signs. Traffic. Normal.
Right is County Six, darker, narrower, leading out where the trees start crowding close to the road.
My mouth opens.
For real, it does.
I almost say it.
I almost say, Let’s just take the highway.
But Kayla glances at me in the mirror, smile sharp and alive, and I see the whole weekend sitting there in her face. The concert. The hotel. The last big thing. The version of us where we are still us.
So I close my mouth.
The blinker keeps ticking.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
Kayla turns right.
And I watch the last normal streetlight disappear behind us.
