Falls Boys (Hellbent 1)

“One night,” he starts, “it’s always at night in these stories, isn’t it?” I hear the smile in his voice. “A babysitter was watching a kid in a big house. Secluded. All alone. Dark.”

“Is this the, ‘The call is coming from inside the house?’ one?” I tease.

“Close,” he replies. “It was Grudge Night, and her friends were off having the time of their lives. Pulling pranks. Drinking. Racing. Getting wild.”

I see a shadow pass the hallway ahead and turn my back to him, hiding the light of my phone behind my hair. His footsteps fade as he goes down toward the surveillance room and the bedrooms, not noticing me at all.

“But not Winslet,” he tells me. “She knew they’d come for her. She stayed put that night so that they could.”

I turn, heading back toward the great room that he had just left. “Who was coming for her?” I ask softly.

He’s quiet, and I pass by the couch, barely visible in the moonlight streaming through the windows above, but I spot the hoodie he was wearing laying across the arm. A white T-shirt lays on top.

It warms in my stomach, the thought of him getting comfortable.

“During this week every year,” he says in a low voice, “a group from the rival school in Weston broke into houses. Not for anything valuable. Just for fun. They called themselves the Marauders.”

I grin. “We did, did we?”

“Most of Shelburne Falls spent the night at parties,” he explains. “Together. In groups. Safety in numbers. But she wanted to be alone if they came.

“What did we do when we broke into houses?”

“Whatever we let you do,” he says.

A shiver shoots up my spine.

“The Marauders would come, in their ’72 Dodge Charger that was scarier than any mask, and when you saw it enter town, you knew what was about to happen. You just didn’t know to who,” he tells me. “Sometimes, they’d give chase. Sometimes, they’d tie some people up as hostages for an hour to humiliate them. Everyone would laugh. It was good fun.” He pauses before continuing. “Sometimes, they’d do other things if people were into it. Behind a closed door, so no one would see.”

He makes Weston sound a lot more interesting than it is. Or maybe I’ve just had my head up my ass feeding kids and paying bills for most of my teenage years.

“You don’t have these stories at school?” he inquires.

“I never paid much attention.” I open the door to the Rivertown tunnel and close it behind me, satisfied I’m hidden for now. “Kind of wishing I had.”

“Where are you?”

My skin feels like it’s vibrating. “I’ll let you know when you’re getting warm.”

I walk, hoping he hasn’t turned on the interior cameras, because that would be cheating.

“Winslet was the popular girl here,” he continues his story. “Stunning eyes, confident, money… The ultimate cool girl, living a charmed life, despite the parents who left her alone all the time with nothing but a housekeeper and a credit card.”

Sounds like me, except for the housekeeper and credit card. And the cool, charmed part.

“And that’s why she knew they’d come for her.” His voice sharpens with an edge. “Because of everything they lost that she didn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Their best friend was dead,” he states. “He killed himself earlier that year…because of her.”

I stop. So, a Shelburne Falls girl rejected a Weston boy, and he lost it. I don’t know what started the beef between our towns, but that sounds as good a place as any.

“Some people say they were a couple,” Hawke adds. “They were in love, she broke his heart… Others say he barely knew her. He was just obsessed. Sick in the head with his madness for her.”

I approach the Rivertown entrance, seeing a girl on the other side. She faces me, smoothing her hair and ruffling her long bangs, and I step up close as Pirates fill the little caverns off to the side behind her, talking and laughing and carefree, because they’re only aware of what they can see.

I could flip the latch, grab her, and close the mirror before they even knew where she went. I mean, just for shits and giggles, of course. Being a Marauder must’ve been fun.

“Over the next several months after his death,” Hawke tells me as the chick applies lipstick. “She worked hard to escape the shadow of being the callous girl who’d driven a man over the edge. But she soon realized that in that shadow was exactly where she wanted to be. She became notorious. Powerful. Feared. She wasn’t letting his ‘stunt’ ruin her life, like I’m sure he hoped it would, when he blamed her in his suicide note, but…” A hint of pride laces Hawke’s voice. “She also wasn’t going to let anyone forget her part in it. She twisted it to use it.”