I slid into the front seat and shut the door, my body tense and ready.
“Music?” he asked.
But he didn’t wait for an answer. Turning on the radio, he tuned to some oldies station with the volume almost too low to hear.
Turning the car around, he headed away from school and took me up into the hills, past the mansions, St. Killian’s, and the Bell Tower. I kept my bag on my body, just needing to hold it.
Martin pulled into the cemetery, slowing as we descended the drive and wound around the path to a sea of headstones plotting the landscape on the right and left. Rain hit the windshield, and he pulled off to the side, stopping the car.
I let my eyes drift around the grounds, fisting my hands to keep them from shaking. There wasn’t a soul in sight.
All my excuses came to mind. Which tone of voice might work best? Or maybe I just needed to be quiet. Sometimes if I just let him talk, the yelling would relieve him.
He lifted his arm, and I flinched, but then I noticed he was reaching into the back seat for something.
Setting a white bag down next to me, he reached into the cup holder and pulled out a soda with the straw already in it.
“Eat,” he said. “It’s lunchtime soon.”
An ounce of relief hit me, but I knew it meant nothing. He liked to toy with me.
“Edward McClanahan,” he said, gesturing out the window ahead of us. “They’re moving his body, Em.”
I saw the small digger and that the excavation had already begun, but there were no workers with the rain right now. Just a pile of dirt and a blue tarp over the hole.
“Family wants him safe and sound inside their new tomb,” he told me. “They’re hoping the town will forget the dead girl, and in all likelihood, it probably will. Out of sight, out of mind.”
I clasped my hands in my lap, only half-listening.
“Every year, those arrogant little losers make their pilgrimage here like they’re going to fucking church,” he continued, “but next year, it won’t be Edward in the grave. I bought it today. For Grand-Mère.”
For my grandmother. Not his. He never gave a shit about her. She wasn’t his. He did what he had to do for appearances, and he bought a woman who wasn’t even dead a used grave.
A Catholic grave. Did they even allow that?
I wouldn’t. It wasn’t happening. I—
“Eat!” he barked.
I jumped, sticking my hand in the bag and pulling out the burger as I turned my head out my window and away from him.
I took a bite, chewing about a hundred times until I could swallow it.
“I got a deal on it,” he said. “Since the plot had been used, of course. Get to keep the headstone, too. It’ll be shaved down. They’ll start working on her name in the next week.”
My chin trembled, and I felt the bile rise.
“One down,” he whispered. “And one embarrassment to go.”
I sat there, the burger with one bite taken out of it lying in my lap.
“I have plans, Emory.”
He unfastened his seatbelt, and I closed my eyes.
“And you would fit in nicely if you stayed in school and stopped troubling me.”
His hand whipped against my face, and my head hit the window. I let out a small cry, fire and pain spreading across my cheek and skull.