Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

To the hooligans who smashed my mailbox with a bat when I was 16: I hope you're all making better choices these days. This chapter is dedicated to you.

---

"Batter up, mofo!"

Jiang immediately obeyed, leaning as far out the window of the moving vehicle as he dared, bat at the ready.

SMASH

The mailbox crumpled inwards and flopped to one side, little red flag dangling uselessly. Jiang howled in victory as Kavinsky gave the Mitsubishi an unexpected burst of speed.

"Shut the hell up!" Ronan snapped, kicking the seat in front of him as he tossed an empty beer can out the window. Beside him, Proko- a lanky teen with acne and a permanently hoarse voice- brayed like a donkey.

"I think Lynch wants a turn," Kavinsky announced.

"Hell no, he's been whining like a little bitch this whole time."

Kavinsky slammed on the brakes.

"Yo!" Jiang's body jerked forward, arms pinwheeling to prevent him from careering through the windshield.

Kavinsky rolled his head to the side and regarded Jiang blankly.

"It's my bat!" 

Kavinsky simply stared, the street lamp outside casting unnerving shadows that accentuated gaunt cheeks and a hollow throat above his white tank. With his dark sunglasses- which he'd left on, despite the lateness of the hour- it was impossible to read the teenager's expression.

The only sound was the snick of a lighter as Proko hazily lit a spliff next to Ronan, the peaty scent of weed filling the car a moment later.

Jiang shifted uncomfortably. "Whatever," he muttered, shoving his bat to the back seat where Ronan caught it easily.

The Evo crawled forward again with a guttural growl and Ronan palmed the polished wooden handle, testing the weight of the weapon in his hand. He leaned out the window, struggling to find his footing as the car's movement and the alcohol in his blood rocked him to and fro. The wind that tugged at his leather jacket was warm, but not oppressively so; the Virginia summer was still young, and bearable.

The headlights illuminated a grey, metal mailbox ahead.

"Batter up!" Kavinsky rasped.

Ronan grunted and swung as hard as he could-- THUNK.

The timing was off. The intensity of the impact almost ripped the bat from his hand, sending shockwaves from his wrists to his shoulders and instantly cramping his hands. The mailbox dented, but nothing more.

"You suck!" Jiang shouted, and Ronan seethed.

Another mailbox loomed in the darkness ahead. Ronan imagined it was Jiang's large, stupid head and a surge of hatred, pure and uncomplicated, flooded his veins. He bared his teeth savagely and swung.

CRASH

The bat splintered in two above Ronan's hands as the mailbox toppled off its post and skittered across the asphalt. Proko cat-called and Jiang whooped loudly as Kavinsky peeled away from the scene of the crime, leaving the carnage of metal and wood behind with an unnecessary squeal of tires.

Ronan settled back inside the car, phantom vibrations rattling his hands as he flexed them. One of the scabs on his knuckles had ripped open and was now bleeding freely, a stark, black smear against pale skin in the semi-darkness. He wiped the blood on his jeans.

The destruction of the mailbox, while momentarily satisfying, had not improved his mood. He still felt like destroying something. Maybe Jiang's face, later. Maybe someone else's.

He reached down and cracked open another beer.

-

Hours after the gang had returned, their beer run a "smashing success", as Kavinsky had mockingly put it, Ronan found himself alone on the second floor balcony, listlessly watching inebriated teenagers chicken fight in Kavinksy's Olympic-sized pool.

He could taste blood; he vaguely remembered fighting someone earlier in the night. Jiang, probably.

"Starting to sober up?" Kavinsky drawled, appearing at Lynch's elbow, beer in hand. "Can't have that, the night is still young." He wasn't wearing his sunglasses, now, and Ronan could see how blown out the other boy's pupils were: wide circles of black within deep-set sockets. He was shorter than Ronan, a fact that surprised Ronan every time he realized it anew. Kavinsky loomed so much larger than life, especially when Ronan was wasted.

Ronan accepted the lukewarm beer and the small, white pill that had materialized in Kavinsky's palm. He downed them both- first the pill, then the beer, dropping the can over the balcony's edge and wiping at his mouth with his forearm. He burped, loudly. His head spun.

Kavinsky chuckled, a low, rumbling vibration that pissed Ronan off beyond reason.

"Boring," Kavinsky said, lighting a cigarette. "Stupid, too."

"What is," Ronan demanded.

"Other people." Kavinsky exhaled a thick stream of smoke, eying the scene below. "Hear that?" he shouted suddenly. "You're all boring! Fuck you, Swan! Fuck you, Debs! You too, Carruthers! Fuck all of you!"

Jeers and shouts echoed from below as Kavinsky stuck his cigarette in his mouth and held up both fists, middle fingers pointed proudly at the night sky. "Fuck the whole world," he announced.

It can burn, for all I care.

Ronan must have spoken the words out loud because Kavinsky turned to him, then, his grin wide and jackal-like. He gripped the back of Ronan's neck in a parody of friendly camaraderie, his fingers digging painfully into Ronan's skin. Ronan did not visibly react, just looked into Kavinsky's deep-set eyes, where his deep loathing and anger was reflected. Magnified.

"One day, Lynch. One day."

K

Kavinsky liked selling drugs. Not the money it brought in- he could care less about money, his family was literally rolling in it- but the power that came with it. The infamy. The respect.

Before he and his mom had moved to this godforsaken shit-hole town in western Virginia a year prior, finding anything beyond alcohol had been a luxury. But then Kavinsky had arrived, with his New York connections and bags of pills and packets of powder and endless supply of leafy green and had taught this town how to party.

The police didn't suspect him. Sure, the pigs were happy to pull him over every time they glimpsed his white Evo on the street past 8PM, but that was more because they thought he was a symptom of Henrietta's problem, not the cause of it.

His substance parties had become legendary, a beacon of hope in their dusty, boring town. Junkies and teenagers alike flocked to Kavinksy like gulls at a beach, hungry for the escape only he had to offer.

Which was how he'd found Ronan Lynch. Well, technically, Lynch had found him, had arrived at one of Kavinsky's parties a few months prior, stinking of beer and radiating hostility from every inch of his sharp, hungry frame.

"Guess what, Lynch. My daddy's dead too, you don't see me drinking myself to death behind the Aglionby bleachers every day. Fucking pathetic, man."

At that, Lynch had punched Kavinsky, shattering his favorite pair of sunglasses, and Kavinsky had fought back, faster and more vicious than the other teen, because no matter how angry Lynch was, Kavinsky was always, always, angrier. He was just so much better at hiding it.

And later- as Kavinsky pinned Lynch to the ground with one hand and broke his nose with the other- Lynch had grinned, blood gushing from his mouth and dribbling down his chin, and Kavinky knew he had given the sharp boy exactly what he needed.

And that was all Kavinsky wanted. To give Lynch what he needed.

After that, Lynch had become a permanent fixture at Kavinsky's parties. He disliked Proko and the other members of the gang, preferring instead to find his own corner to drink and fight anyone who got too close, but Kavinsky was fine with that. Best he kept Lynch separate, anyway.

And despite the wild nights: the endless partying, the sex with girls whose names he never remembered, the precarious drug use- it was the early hours of morning that Kavinsky grew to like best. After the gang had all passed out and the teens from neighboring schools had had their fill of racing and drinking, with the phantom scent of burnt rubber filling his nose and anticipation crawling across his skin, Kavinsky would hop behind the wheel of his Mitsubishi and follow Lynch's BMW through the dark, quiet streets of Henrietta. He always let Lynch pick the spot. Sometimes it was a dirt field on the outskirts of town. Sometimes the interstate. And once, Main Street, although they'd both gotten speeding tickets so now they stayed away from downtown Henrietta.

They would arrive and Lynch would slam on the brakes- no doubt trying to force Kavinsky to rear end him, the bastard- and the Evo would crawl up besides the idling BMW. Kavinsky would roll his window down, and the trash talking would begin.

"Hey, Lynch. Heard your mother can't tell the difference between you and your old man anymore. Is it true she tried to fuck you? Is that why she's in the psych ward?"

"Shuck the fuck up, you inbred garbage Bulgarian shit-stain," Lynch would snarl, or sometimes he wouldn't say anything, would just slam on the gas pedal and take off with a squeal of tires, and Kavinsky would have to scramble to catch up.

And so they would race.

Kavinsky would push the Mitsubishi to its limit, engine rattling his teeth, taste of gasoline sharp on his tongue, heart pounding in his ears. For a moment the only other real thing in the world was the dark BMW alongside him and the furious, spiky boy inside.

It was living.

And afterwards, whether Kavinsky won, or Lynch won- Kavinsky told himself it didn't really matter who won, that wasn't the point, anyway- Lynch and Kavinsky would sit on the hood of the beemer and split a six pack, or pills, or whatever Kavinsky had on him at the time, and the two of them would get well and truly blitzed.

And, sometimes, when Lynch was sprawled out on the hood of the BMW, too wasted on his nightly cocktail of Xanax and cheap beer to notice, Kavinsky would carefully lift the taller boy's shirt and do lines off his gaunt torso, or between his sharp shoulder blades, licking the powdery residue from the stark tattoos there with a slow precision, power humming in his blood and igniting every synapse.

So, quid pro quo, Lynch gave Kavinksy exactly what he needed, too.

R

When Ronan Lynch crashed his car for the third time in as many weeks, he instinctively knew the destruction would be too great to ignore, even before he stumbled from the car to assess the damage. His roommate, Richard Campbell Gansey III, had been ragging on him endlessly since school had ended a few days prior- about the racing, about the fights, about the drinking- and if he saw what Ronan had done to the car Ronan professed to love (driver's door caved in, front bumper scraping the pavement)- he might blow a gasket. Or, worse, call Declan.

Boyd’s Autobody was on the opposite end of Henrietta- K called it “the shitty part of town”, though Ronan felt that term could be applied equally to all of Henrietta- and was therefore far enough away from Monmouth to ensure some privacy.

Miraculously, Ronan managed to drive himself to Boyd’s, and none of the town’s three traffic cops (Ronan knew them all by face if not by name) pulled him over. Which was good, because he didn’t need a DUI on his already less-than-stellar record. 

He arrived a little after dawn. Boyd’s Autobody wasn’t much to look at, just a double garage with discolored siding and a small grey office jutting off of one side. The front lot was a graveyard of cars and pickup trucks in various states of disrepair. Predictably, the place was deserted.

The pills he’d downed earlier were starting to kick in, and for once Ronan thought he might be able to sleep, so he pulled into the lot, threw the car into park and promptly passed out.

A soft tapping dragged him unkindly back to consciousness. He winced at the sunlight streaming through the front windshield and brought a hand to his head, willing himself to think past his monstrous headache.

Another tap. Ronan looked up, furious at whatever had brought him back to reality. His dreams hadn’t been pleasant- they never were- but wakefulness, on the whole, wasn’t much better.

He registered the Boyd’s insignia on a blue collared shirt, a crop of dusty brown hair, a polite and muffled, “Sir?”

Ronan grunted and kicked open his car door. The Boyd’s employee, a teenager around Ronan’s age, stepped back to let Ronan out. Upon seeing the tall boy’s face, the employee started a little.

“Are you alright?” the mechanic asked, lilting Henrietta accent coloring every word.

“Fucking peachy,” Ronan shot back.

“We have a first aid kit in the office.”

“Just tell me how long it’ll take to fix,” Ronan growled, gesturing to the mess he’d made of the front end of the Beemer.

“Well…” the Boyd’s employee brought a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it apologetically. “I’m honestly surprised you were able to drive it here. I think we can hammer out the dent there if you don’t want to pay to replace the door, but we’ll need to-”

“I don’t care what you have to do, just how long will it take?” Ronan interrupted, pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead. A bolt of pain there reminded him how hard he’d cracked his head against the steering wheel when he’d rear-ended Kavinsky. And an ache in his jaw reminded him where Kavinsky had punched him for it after. 

The mechanic glanced at Ronan’s face again. Ronan glared, daring him to say something.

Instead, the other boy said, “My manager will be here soon, he can give you an estimate. You’re welcome to wait inside. There’s coffee.”

“I don’t want any fucking coffee,” Ronan snapped.

“All right, then,” the Boyd’s employee responded mildly. Ronan glared but the other boy was already walking away. Swearing under his breath, Ronan dragged himself to his feet and followed.

The large garage doors opened with a grinding, mechanical whir as he passed, and a few men in blue collared shirts talked and stamped out cigarettes. One or two of them nodded in their direction as the teenager led Ronan to the office entrance and held open the door.

Inside, the office was shabby and overflowing with stacks of paperwork. Ronan flung himself into a plastic chair and crossed his arms. The secretary- a haggard-looking woman with limp hair and crow’s feet- raised both eyebrows upon seeing Ronan but otherwise ignored the two of them.

With long, deft fingers, the mechanic made himself a cup of coffee- one cream, two sugars- and placed an empty mug next to the coffee maker.

“In case you change your mind,” he told Ronan, seemingly impervious to the glare Ronan leveled at him. Ronan saw the name “Adam” stitched into the shirt’s lapel, then was annoyed at himself for noticing. The mechanic ducked out of the office.

Ronan glared at the mug as though it had personally offended him. He glared at the side of the secretary’s head. Then, just because five minutes had passed and he was fucking bored, he got up and poured himself a cup of coffee. It tasted terrible and scalded the inside of his mouth. He drained it in two gulps.

“I take it this is yours?” The mechanic was back, Ronan’s cell phone in hand. “It was in the back seat. It’s buzzing like crazy.”

Ronan crossed the room and snatched it from the other teen. Eleven missed calls from Gansey. Fan-fucking-tastic.

He angrily punched out a few texts:

im alive.

stop calling

come get me. boyds autobody

“Here,” the teen said, handing Ronan a clipboard. There was grease on his knuckles Ronan hadn’t noticed before. “Your suspension’s out of alignment, your front bumper will need to be replaced…” he trailed off at Ronan’s evident disinterest. “Two weeks, maybe less.” 

“Two fucking weeks?” Ronan shot back furiously, as though it wasn’t his own fault his car was totaled.

“We’re pretty booked up.” The mechanic responded shortly and went back outside, leaving Ronan to stew.

Swearing loudly, Ronan scrawled his signature on the dotted line and fished a credit card from his back pocket. After the secretary finished processing his paperwork, he stalked outside to wait for Gansey and Noah, pushing past an arguing couple (“This is your fault, you call a taxi!”) and a stressed-out soccer mom juggling a cadre of sticky children.

Boyd’s was now bustling with activity, the small lot overflowing with cars and people. Ronan caught glimpses of the mechanic’s slim frame as he traipsed here and there, greeting customers and responding to the instructions other Boyd’s employees called out from the garage.

With an irritating grinding of gears, a beat-up pickup truck coasted to a stop at the end of the block. The driver leaned on the horn.

“She’s not gonna make it any further!” he called out the window, waving an arm to catch Ronan’s attention.

The Boyd's employee materialized and started to walk towards the truck.

“Lend a hand?” he asked over his shoulder, and it took Ronan a moment to realize there was no one else the other boy could have been talking to.

Ronan scowled and begrudgingly followed, circling the truck to stand beside him.

“On three. One, two…”

In unison, the pair of teens pushed, grunting with the effort. Slowly, the truck crept forward and down the small hill that led to the lot.

“Here’s good!” the mechanic called a minute later, and the truck stopped. He stood up straight and flashed Ronan a quick grin, there and gone so quick Ronan thought he might have imagined it. Above deep-set blue eyes, sweat had beaded on the other teen’s brow, and up close Ronan noticed that light freckles dusted his tan nose.

“I’m Adam,” the other boy said.

“I know,” Ronan growled. Adam’s brow knitted in confusion.

“Sorry, I don’t-“

“Your shirt,” Ronan snapped. “It has your fucking name on it." 

“Right,” Adam said. He waited. When Ronan was not forthcoming with his own name, he cleared his throat lightly.

“Thanks for the help.”

Ronan shrugged and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Where the hell was Gansey?

“About your car,” Adam started haltingly. “I could help fix it faster. I don’t mind working the extra hours since it would give me experience. But Boyd said I’d need permission from you first. I’ve only worked here a couple months, so I’m still learning, and most people don’t want a novice, so I understand if you aren’t comfortable with that. It wouldn’t cost you anything extra.” 

Ronan sized the other boy up. “Fine,” he said, finally. “But you fuck it up, I will break your fucking face.”

Adam pressed his lips together and raised an eyebrow. “All right, then. We’ll call you when it’s ready. Should be less than a week, but I can keep you updated, if you want.”

“Fine,” Ronan snapped. “Anything else?”

“Yes,” Adam said. “Next time you come in, try being less of an asshole. Since I’m the one who has to deal with you, and all.”

Ronan stared at Adam. The other boy's gaze didn’t falter.

Ronan then threw back his head with a bark of laughter. “Fat fucking chance, man.”

Adam’s voice was tinged with relief. “Well, I tried,” he muttered.
 

A

“There was a customer here for you. I told him we’re closed.”

Adam slid out from beneath the BMW, wiping his hands on his coveralls and slowly getting to his feet, the blood rushing to his head.

“I’m about to head out for the night,” Boyd said.

“Oh, sorry, sir,” Adam said. “I’ll get out of here.”

Reg Boyd, the owner of Boyd's Autobody, was a stout man in his fifties with thick greying hair and a mustache to match. He was not very easy to please- though that hadn't stopped Adam from trying.

Boyd considered the teenager in front of him. Then, he held out a key ring. “You alright to lock up?” 

“Of course,” Adam said, surprised.

“You’ll need to get here early to unlock the place. I can’t pay you over time for that.”

“That’s fine,” Adam said. “Thank you.”

Boyd grunted. “Talk to Pat. She’ll get you your own set of keys. You’ll need ‘em if you keep working late like this.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can’t pay you overtime for that BMW,” Boyd reminded him for perhaps the tenth time that week.

“I know, sir. I just want the experience.”

Boyd grunted again and scratched his chin. He was hard to read. “Maybe once you’re done, we’ll put you in rotation. See how it goes.”

Adam blinked. Being put in rotation meant he’d officially be a technician. A real mechanic. The lowest-ranking mechanic in the garage- but still. He’d be doing more than greeting customers and collecting paperwork. Pride swelled in his chest. He quickly tamped it down.

“Thank you, sir,” Adam said. “That’s really- thank you.”

Boyd nodded gruffly and exited the garage. Adam followed him out, still in a daze. He felt light-headed- when was the last time he’d eaten?- and went to make himself a cup of coffee.

His father played poker Thursday nights, and his mother had her part-time job at the factory, so he didn't need to be home any time soon. He briefly considered biking into town for something to eat but then squashed the idea. As it stood, even with the factory shifts he was about to start, he was going to be a couple hundred dollars short on his first payment to Aglionby Academy (due August 21st). Although, if Boyd made him a technician, he wouldn't be short on the payment at all... in fact, he'd probably have extra money to put towards his second payment (due December 19th).

Excitement and nerves churned in his gut. It was real. The past four months he'd spent scrimping and saving for application fees and filling out paperwork and applying for scholarships were going to pay off. He was really going to go to Aglionby Academy- the most prestigious high school in Virginia- in the fall.

“Your boss is a fucking liar!”

Adam whipped around.

A sharp, pale face was plastered against the office window, glaring at Adam between a gap in the blinds. It was the owner of the BMW, looking just as disagreeable as Adam remembered (although with considerably less dried blood on his face, which was a nice development).

Adam unlocked the door and poked his head out. The other teen- Ronan Lynch, Adam remembered seeing his name on the credit card receipt- was wearing a black tank top and jeans that were probably quite expensive. His buzzed head practically glowed in the dark and Adam could see the edges of what must have been a gigantic tattoo curling around his neck and shoulders. Leather bracelets wrapped their way halfway up his right forearm.

He wasn’t the type of person Adam wanted to run into in a dark alley. Or a dark autobody garage, now that he thought about it.

“My boss didn’t lie,” Adam said. “He told you we were closed, and we are.”

“Yeah, whatever,” the teenager said dismissively, elbowing his way past Adam to enter the office. “You’re here, so why can’t I get a look at my baby?”

“You aren’t allowed- is that a bird?” Adam asked, staring in shock at the crow perched on Ronan’s shoulder. As if in response, the bird cawed loudly.

“No, it’s a fucking chipmunk,” Ronan shot back. “Come on, I don’t have all day. Night. Whatever.”

“You really should go,” Adam said. “Your car isn’t done. It’s only been three days.” 

But he may as well have been speaking another language. Ronan stalked to the door behind the receptionist’s desk and pulled it open.

“Where’s she at?” he growled.

“Jesus Christ,” Adam said.

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Ronan snapped, and Adam couldn’t tell if he was serious.

With a sigh, Adam gestured to the door Ronan had opened. “Yeah, your car’s through there.”

Ronan stepped aside and gave a mock flourish of his hand to indicate, “after you”. Giving both the crow and its owner a wide berth, Adam entered the garage and led Ronan through the semi dark to the far end. The BMW looked naked and forlorn without its hood and bumper.

“The hood will come in tomorrow,” Adam said apprehensively. “One of the senior technicians will help me paint everything once it’s all installed. Don’t worry about the chips on the door there. That’s where I hammered out the dent.”

Ronan was circling the BMW, running his hand lovingly along the roof of the car. 

“You fixed the gas cover,” he stated bluntly.

“Uh, yeah, I noticed it was loose…”

“And got rid of the dent back here.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” Adam sighed, his stomach growling loudly. He was ready for this conversation to be over.

Ronan looked up sharply. “Is your car out front?” he asked.

“What?” Adam asked.

“Your car,” Ronan repeated, as if Adam was stupid. “Is it parked on the street? Or do you drive one of the clunkers out front?”

“I don’t have a car. I bike to work.”

Ronan scoffed. “A mechanic who doesn’t have car, that’s really inspiring some fucking confidence.”

“You didn’t sound too upset a minute ago.”

“Fine,” Ronan shot. “We’ll walk.” He stalked off towards the exit. “Come on,” he snapped, sounding irritated. 

Adam followed Ronan and his weird bird back to the office and went to close the office door the moment the other teen stepped outside.

“What the hell?” Ronan demanded, sticking a black boot in the doorway, preventing Adam from shutting it. “You’re coming with me, man.”

Adam blinked. “No, man, I’m not.”

“Why the fuck not? You’re not hungry?” 

“No,” Adam said shortly.

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Adam Whatever-Your-Last-Name-Is.”

“If you want me to finish your BMW, I have to actually be here to work on it.”

“Fine,” Ronan spat. He turned on his heel and stalked off into the night like some kind of skinhead super villain, pet bird cawing loudly.

Rubbing his forehead, Adam turned back to the coffee machine.

Thirty minutes later, Adam was hunched over the hood of the BMW, sliding a new radiator into position.

A loud, metallic banging behind him caused him to jump and jam his finger. He swore softly and brought his bleeding pinky to his mouth.

“Open up!” A now-familiar voice echoed from the other side of the garage door.

Adam leaned over the hood of the car, head hanging in defeat. What had he done to deserve this? Why couldn’t this guy and his creepy bird leave him alone? He considered ignoring the other teen. He glanced at his watch. Almost nine. He’d have to leave soon, anyway.

Adam dragged his feet back to the office door and unlocked it.

“I’m not opening the garage,” he shouted wearily. Moments later, Ronan emerged from the darkness toting a white plastic bag. Chinese food, if the smell was anything to go by. Adam’s stomach rumbled loudly.

“You can’t eat that in here,” Adam said forcefully. “You’ll stink up the place, Patricia will hate me.”

Ronan shot Adam a venomous glare that might have actually frightened Adam if he hadn’t been exhausted and well past the point of caring. Then, he turned and sprawled heavily on the curb, tearing into the bag and pulling out a white Styrofoam container that he shook in Adam’s direction.

Adam just stared. “No, thanks,” he said tightly.

“Don’t be a dipshit,” Ronan said dismissively.

Adam’s hands were shaking a little- Christ, his body got dramatic when his blood sugar was low. He willed himself to be still.

The problem was, the idea of accepting something for free was repulsive to Adam. Free handouts meant pity. Pity for dirt-poor, white trash Adam Parrish. He had spent his entire childhood cutting coupons and waiting anxiously for food stamps to arrive every month. And Ronan- who didn’t even know a single thing about Adam- had somehow sensed his poverty. Had smelled it on Adam, despite the job, and the Boyd’s uniform, and-

“I swear, man, if you make me eat all this alone I will fight you here and now,” Ronan snapped. “And I don’t lie.”

Hesitantly, Adam lowered himself to the ground. “I can’t pay you back,” he said. “At least, not until-“

“Shut the fuck up, man,” Ronan suggested. 

Adam weighed his options. On the one hand, he hated handouts. On the other, this guy did not seem the type to have the capacity for pity. So what did he want from Adam?

Stop overthinking, Adam told himself. And eat before this calamity of a teenage boy punches you in the face. He opened the container and picked a plastic fork up off the pavement.

“Thanks,” he muttered, hating himself even as he took his first bite. Ronan ignored him. 

A few minutes passed in silence. Once he’d started, Adam couldn’t stop eating. Everything was just so good. Despite the fact he’d brought the food, Ronan picked at his stir-fry, uninterested. 

“Why do you have a crow?” Adam asked eventually, watching with fascination as Ronan fed his bird a piece of pork, deftly avoiding her long, sharp beak. 

“She’s a raven.”

“Why do you have a raven?”

“They shit less than dogs.”

“Where did you get it?”

Ronan let out a short, annoyed huff. “I found her. Her name is Chainsaw. I don’t know how old she is. And yes, sometimes she shits on my clothes.” He speared another piece of pork for the bird. “You saving up for a car.” He spat it like a statement, although Adam supposed it was a question.

“Not a car…”

“Then what.”

Adam hesitated. He hadn't told a single soul about his acceptance to Aglionby. Not even his parents knew- he planned to keep it a secret from them for as long as possible- for his entire remaining two years of high school, if he could manage it (which he was pretty confident he could- the school was only an hour bike ride from his family's trailer).

“Saving up for school,” he said, voice nonchalant.

Ronan snorted. “Of-fucking-course. Gansey would love you.” He was silent for a moment and his bird cawed loudly. “College?”

“High school.” 

Adam glanced up. Ronan was staring at him. “You’re going to fucking Aglionby.”

“Uh, yeah.” Adam’s throat was dry. It hadn’t occurred to him that Ronan was an Aglionby student, although, in hindsight it should have been obvious. He’d certainly never seen Ronan at the public high school, and Ronan would have definitely been memorable. 

Ronan scoffed and leaned back on his hands. “Waste of money. Get a car instead, trust me.” He turned his head and spat on the pavement.

Heat flooded Adam’s face and burned his ears. He shoved aside his near-empty Styrofoam container and got to his feet. “Thanks for dinner,” he said tightly, fighting to keep his voice level. “I’ll have Boyd give you a call when the Beemer’s done.”

He turned and entered the office, gripping the doorknob tightly. He wanted to slam it shut, to hear the resounding bang, to shake the walls of the tiny room- but he forced himself to shut the door slowly, carefully. He was not his father. He would not lash out in anger.

But Adam couldn’t help but feel the anger. He would bet every cent he’d ever earned that Ronan didn’t pay his own tuition. Couldn’t possibly appreciate what he’d been given. And here was Adam, running himself ragged every day for the past four months, working two jobs and about to start a third so that he could afford to go to Aglionby and have a shot at getting into a decent college and maybe getting out of this town for good one day.

God, he needed to get out of Henrietta.

Adam shut his eyes and counted to a fifty. A hundred.

When he emerged from the office fifteen minutes later, Ronan, Chainsaw, and all traces of their meal were gone- gone, as though they’d never been there in the first place.
 

R

Ronan felt like destroying something. Or someone. Where was his brother, Declan, when he needed him?

He was restless. Angry. Well- he was always restless and angry. But he had been marginally less so earlier, when he’d gone to check on the BMW. Now the volatility was back in full force.

He bought a six-pack with a fake ID Kavinsky had procured for him and drained the bottles in record time behind the liquor store. 

Somewhere between beers four and five, his phone buzzed. Gansey. He did not answer.

Without a car, his options were limited. He could get a ride to Monmouth- Gansey would only be too happy to pick him up- but he didn’t want to spend all night staring at the ceiling. Boredom was not good for Ronan. He knew this about himself, had the scars to prove it. 

He had to keep moving. Like a shark. Move or die.

He started walking. He wanted to be behind the wheel of his father’s BMW so badly it was a physical ache in his chest, even through the dull haze of alcohol. He wanted to find an empty stretch of road. Drive so fast he stopped feeling anything but adrenaline.

Ronan’s phone buzzed. Kavinsky.

He answered.

“Noticed you aren’t at my substance party, Lynch. We should change that.” At hearing Kavinsky’s voice, fury surged in Ronan’s gut.

“In case you forgot, asshole, I don’t have a car right now,” Ronan growled.

Kavinsky laughed, deep and languid. Downers, Ronan guessed. ”I’ll send Jiang. Where are you?”

“I wouldn’t be seen dead in that piece of shit Supra,” Ronan snapped, trying not to slur his words. He only partially succeeded.

“Touchy, touchy. All right. I’m coming.”

Ronan gave Kavinsky the neighborhood cross streets where he’d ended up and ended the call. He withdrew a lighter and flicked it on, watching the flame dance.

He was melting the rubber off the heel of his boot when he heard the obnoxious rev of an engine and the pounding bass of rap music thudding behind him. Kavinksy’s white Evo gleamed in the street lamps as it approached, the knife insignia painted on the sides sleek and ostentatious. The car slowly pulled up alongside Ronan and Kavinsky rolled down his window, draping a bare arm over the window’s ledge, long gold chain glinting around his neck. He wore a pair of white sunglasses, despite the fact it was night.

“Hiya, Lynch,” he cooed as Ronan approached. “The party was downright boring without you. No one was fighting or getting arrested.” He tossed his cigarette out the window at Ronan’s feet. “I don’t want that freaky bird in my car.”

Ronan ripped open the passenger side door and threw himself into the seat. Chainsaw cawed and flew to the back of the Mitsu with a soft flutter of feathers, perching herself alertly on the back seat’s center divider. Kavinsky shook his head as he withdrew a tiny plastic bag and poured a neat line of powder above the car’s center console. 

“Where to, your highness?” he asked.

“I don’t fucking care,” Ronan said, his mood black and dangerous.

A predatory grin engulfed Kavinsky’s face. “Good,” he said as he leaned over the dashboard.

*

As they drove, Ronan cycled through the music on Kavinsky’s phone, barely allowing a song to play for five seconds before skipping to a new one. Kavinsky didn’t comment, although Ronan felt savagely vindicated when the shorter boy finally grabbed his phone from Ronan’s hand and threw it to the back seat. Chainsaw cawed angrily. 

Kavinksy drove to the highway. It was late, and so the road was empty as Kavinsky pressed his foot to the gas pedal. The Evo flew. EDM music blared deafeningly, the bass thudding in Ronan’s chest like a heart attack. The red odometer needle ticked quickly upwards: 90… 100… 110… Ronan stared pointedly out the window, ignoring the glances Kavinsky kept shooting his way.

Dark thoughts swirled. He wanted the BMW. To be surrounded by the only piece of Niall Lynch he had left. Don’t fucking think about it. He closed his eyes and pressed the side of his head to the cool window.

Presently, Ronan realized they were slowing. A semi screamed by, horn blaring as Kavinsky coasted, losing speed with every yard.

Then, with a mighty wrench of the steering wheel, Kavinsky made a U-turn that had Ronan grasping for the door handle to brace himself. They were still on the same side of the freeway, but now they were driving the wrong way.

“Hey,” Ronan snapped. “Cut it out.”

Kavinsky pressed his right foot to the floor. “Might want to put your seat belt on, Lynch.” 

“The fuck, K,“ Ronan said loudly. The Evo rocketed forward as Kavinsky shifted gears (badly, as always, the gears grinding in protest). White headlights of cars in the distance approached with startling speed.

A car was in their lane, perhaps 200 yards in front of them. The headlights were blinding, growing larger by the second.

“K,” Ronan said warningly. The car was 100 yards away now. Had it not seen them? Why wasn’t it slowing? Or getting out of the way? The Evo barreled forward. 50 yards-

“K! What the fuck--?”

The other vehicle slammed on its brakes with a squeal of rubber as Kavinsky easily switched lanes and maneuvered around it. Ronan’s knuckles were white on the seat handle, every nerve in his body rioting with adrenaline. 

“You made your point, man. Turn the fuck around.”

But Kavinsky’s expression was ablaze, a manic pleasure radiating from every inch of his face. More headlights approached, closer and closer and-

“Pull the fuck over!”

-closer and-

Ronan threw his arms up with a yell. Kavinsky wrenched the steering wheel- one approaching car leapt into the emergency lane, careening off the guard rail with a screech of metal- a pickup truck flew by, missing the Evo by a foot- and the Evo spun out with a deafening squeal of tires, bouncing off the guard rail and coming to rest facing the right direction down the highway. 

Ronan scrabbled for the door handle and shoved the door open, falling onto the pavement in an ungainly heap, scraping his palms on the asphalt. His entire body shook and as his thoughts jumbled together incoherently. Half a mile down the highway, he saw the taillights of the car they’d almost hit.

The driver’s side door opened. Kavinsky circled the car and stood over Ronan, waiting. Somewhere along the way, he had lost the sunglasses, and his eyes were wild. Exhilarated. Ronan finally found his voice. Anger propelled him to his feet.

“You could have killed us!” he roared, fisting his hand in Kavinsky’s shirt before shoving the other teen violently away.

Kavinsky remained silent, eyes tracking Ronan’s every movement. With a snarl, Ronan shoved Kavinsky again. Surprisingly quick, Kavinsky caught one of Ronan’s bony wrists and yanked him off balance. He forced Ronan’s arm up, so the leather bands were on display between them. 

“Thought that’s what you wanted,” Kavinsky said, sneering.

Ronan tried to reclaim his arm but Kavinsky held on tight enough to bruise. Between the bands and the darkness, it was impossible to see the angry lines that marred Ronan’s forearm, but they both knew they were there. 

The glow of the Evo’s taillights washed Kavinsky’s face in a red glow as he bared his teeth, the resulting display an inhuman rictus of loathing.

“You know, I’ve always felt, if you’re gonna end it, Lynch- do it right the first time.”

He held on for a moment longer before Ronan wrenched his arm away, stumbling with the momentum. Ronan’s eyes were narrowed and his breath came in labored spurts as his heart thudded in his chest. 

“Fuck you, man. Just-“ he cut himself off, still staring at Kavinsky like he couldn’t quite believe the other boy was real.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you speechless before, Lynch.”

“Stay away from me, you fucking psychopath,” Ronan said forcefully, backing away towards the road. “I mean it, K, stay the fuck away from me.”

“You came to me, man,” Kavinsky said, raising both arms wide, a dark savior. He didn’t move to approach as Ronan continued to back away.

“Not anymore,” Ronan shot back savagely. “We’re done.” Sensing that her owner was about to leave, Chainsaw flew out the open Mitsubishi door and landed on Ronan’s shoulder. Ronan turned and stalked in the direction towards Henrietta, blood running hot and pounding in his ears.

“You can’t stay away!” Kavinsky called, his voice blistering. “I know you, Lynch. I know you.”

*

Ronan walked. He lost time, his mind tearing itself apart with anger and self-loathing. Kavinsky’s words were seared across his mind, where they burned bright and acrid:

“If you’re gonna end it, Lynch, do it right the first time.”

Ronan lit his plastic lighter and held the flame to his left forearm, singing his arm hairs and willing the pain to steal his focus. To remind him that he was alive. To remind him that he’d promised Gansey he would remain so.

But thinking of Gansey was painful in its own way, so Ronan moved the flame closer to his arm until his skin blistered and the pain grew great enough that it could no longer be ignored.

Then, he grunted and abruptly threw the lighter as far as he could into the darkness. The sudden movement disturbed Chainsaw and she took flight with a soft caw, circling overhead until she felt it was safe to land on Ronan’s shoulder again.

When Ronan’s mind had settled enough to become aware of himself, he realized he could see further than five feet in front of him: dawn was approaching. He had, despite the odds, lived to see another day. The world was cast in a soft grey that lightened with every passing minute, illuminating old farmhouses and great fields of corn, sleeping cows and rusted pickup trucks. The sky’s color went from indigo to soft purple and, eventually, to pink. 

He was on the outskirts of Henrietta. He had walked for hours.

The alcohol had long worn off, leaving a massive headache in its wake that throbbed in counter-rhythm to the burn on his arm. He wished he hadn’t burned himself. It hurt, and he realized, suddenly, that he didn’t like the pain.

“You’re a great fighter, Ronan,” Niall Lynch said in his thick Irish brogue, pulling a twelve-year-old Ronan roughly but lovingly to his side. “You’ll be an even greater man if you learn to master the fight, rather than the other way around.”

Ronan leaned into his father’s embrace, the sweet scent of clove tobacco and sweat washing over him. He didn’t really understand what his father meant- he’d just won an impromptu boxing match against Declan, and wasn’t that what was important? Winning? Seeing his father’s sharp face- so much like Ronan’s own (that’s what everybody said) light up in delight? Hearing his father’s laughter every time Ronan got to his feet, refusing to stay down, no matter how many times Declan’s punches connected?

The fight was all that mattered, because the fight was what set Ronan apart. Was what made Niall Lynch look at Ronan and see himself, a fact that made him love his middle son all the more. And Ronan could look to his father and see himself in thirty years, and wasn’t that a privilege? To see his future? To see the man he would one day become?  

Ronan pushed the memory away.

He had been an inferno these past six months, burning so hot and for so long he feared there was nothing left but ashes.

By now, the sun had breached the horizon. Sweat beaded on his neck and dripped down his back so that his dark tank clung to him in the rising humidity. Mosquitos descended. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crowed.

His feet led him to his father’s car.

The garage door was open, but, as far as he could tell, the place was devoid of people.

Ronan wound his way through the graveyard of automobiles to where his father’s dark grey BMW rested stoically in the semi-darkness. She looked awful, vulnerable without her hood, her ugly innards laid bare. He opened the passenger door and folded himself inside, roughly pulling the door shut behind him.

For a long time, it was quiet but for the sound of Ronan’s ragged breathing. Slowly, as if in a trance, he leaned over to the driver’s side, pressed his face to the dark leather of the seat’s back, and inhaled deeply. The scent of clove tobacco was faint, but there was no mistaking it for anything else.

“Your mother’s been on me about quitting these things, so let’s keep this between us, eh, Ronan?” Niall Lynch said with a sly grin as he ground a hand-rolled cigarette into the ashtray.

Something thick and painful clawed at the back of Ronan’s throat, scrabbling for release. He folded his knees and pulled clenched fists to his chest, shivering violently as he squeezed his eyes close. 

Bitter tears escaped from beneath long lashes like a betrayal. The pressure at the back of his throat grew until he could no longer hold back a strangled cry. Something in his chest snapped and all at once he was weeping, pounding the car seat furiously as he fought for control.

Ronan walked outside, enjoying the sharp breeze that told him winter had arrived. The BMW was in the driveway, so his father must be home. The driver’s side door was open. There was something lying on the ground beside it. As if in a trance, Ronan approached.

His father- face bloody and beaten- lay sprawled besides his dark car. Niall Lynch’s eyes were wide open, as if in surprise, and blood had pooled beneath his head, creating a grotesque halo on the rocks below.  

Time did not exist, and as such, Ronan did not know how long it took for Aurora Lynch to find her middle son hunched over her husband, covered in blood that was not his own.

He remembered cradling his father’s head on his lap, staring unendingly into those dark brown eyes. He remembered thinking: Everyone is right. I really do look like him. He remembered feeling empty, a strange nothingness filling his ears for an eternity.

Then, he remembered the anger. And he only remembered the anger, until there was nothing but anger in the memory, and in every memory, for as far back as Ronan cared to remember.  

And so it was that Ronan became the anger, and convinced himself it had always been thus.

Chapter Text

A

Adam slipped out of his family’s doublewide into the early morning heat and carefully shut the flimsy aluminum door behind him. The lightening sky cast a soft, ethereal glow over the world around him, giving even his run-down trailer park a touch of magic. Of possibility.

But, of course, that was a lie. Somewhere, a dog barked.

Adam traveled to work with the rising sun in front of him, kicking up clouds of dust as his bike traversed the dry, dirt roads. Dust soon gave way to cracked asphalt as he wound his way past green forestry and parched, yellow fields.

He was sweating though his t-shirt by the time he arrived at Boyd’s, a full two hours before they were scheduled to open. His repairs on the BMW had been a welcome distraction from the drudgery of office tasks, but considering he’d been hired predominantly for the latter, he felt he shouldn’t shirk his duty. Even if his administrative duties would hopefully be made a thing of the past when he officially became a technician.

He had been working steadily for an hour, pausing occasionally to take a sip of bitter coffee, when a bird flew past the office window with a soft ‘caw’. And not just any bird, Adam realized with a stab of annoyance. A raven. He walked outside and, sure enough, Chainsaw was perched on the roof of a silver Saturn, haughtily looking about like she owned the place. Her owner was nowhere to be seen.

Adam entered the garage and approached the dark BMW, frustration mounting. Ronan’s flippant dismissal the evening before still stung, and Adam ran over the various ways he could ask Ronan to leave without starting a fight. He immediately spotted the back of Ronan’s buzzed head through the car window and was reaching for the door handle to yank it open when he heard Ronan speak.

No, not speak. Cry out.

Adam froze, irritation quickly giving way to uneasiness.

Ronan Lynch was hunched over in the passenger seat, head burrowed in his hands, bony shoulders- hooked tattoos visible even through the tinted window- shaking with emotion. His muffled, guttural sobs were an awful thing to behold: Deep, and terrible, as though something physical was being forcibly ripped from his chest, tearing his throat on its way out.

Those bowed shoulders spoke of a defeat Adam knew all too well.

Adam immediately diverted his gaze and silently backed away until he was safely ensconced in the office, where he shut the door and pushed all thoughts of the other boy from his mind.

Ronan Lynch was far easier to digest- and dislike- when he was angry and uncivil. Adam could not reconcile the savage teen he’d been dealing with to the broken creature he’d just glimpsed.

Adam poured himself another cup of coffee and went outside to try and coax Chainsaw out of the tree she’d flown to.

“Want something to eat?” he asked, offering a stale cookie he’d found in an office drawer. The bird turned up her sharp beak and hopped further up the branch, her jet-black feathers glimmering with green and purple in the morning light.

He heard boot steps echo behind him, from within the garage. He turned.

Ronan stood in the entryway, too caught off-guard to appear angry. He looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red and, with the exception of the ugly purple bruise looming on his temple, his face was drained of all color. He was still wearing the same clothes from the previous evening: sweaty tank top, leather bands that wrapped halfway up his forearm, and dark jeans that were now ripped in one knee.

Ronan looked away first.

“Chainsaw,” he croaked. Chainsaw did not move. “Come here, bird,” he commanded.

“There’s coffee,” Adam said, suddenly. He rubbed the back of his neck. “If you wanted any.” He half-hoped Ronan would refuse.

Ronan shoved his hands into his pockets and glared at the ground near Adam’s feet, brow furrowed. “Fine,” he said. A quiet part of Adam, inexplicably, leaped in victory.

They went inside. Adam seated himself safely behind the office desk and resumed filing paperwork in the metal cabinets that lined the water-stained walls. Ronan poured himself a cup of scalding coffee and drained half of it immediately. He then hoisted himself bodily onto Patricia’s desk, sending a stack of papers cascading to the floor with a whoosh, and crossed his arms. Adam huffed in annoyance but continued working, his back to the other teen.

“Pallisk. Pallish.”

Adam turned, confused. Ronan was squinting at a piece of paper that Adam recognized as a repair form he’d filled out earlier in the week.

“Don’t they teach you to write at that shitty public school?” Ronan’s rusty voice had now regained some of its usual edge. He tossed the paper aside.

Adam raised a light eyebrow. “Don’t they teach you manners at that fancy private school?”

Ronan scoffed. “They fucking try, Pallish.”

“It’s Parrish.”

“Adam Parrish.” Ronan repeated slowly, as if working the words over, testing their meddle. “Middle name?”

“I don’t have one. Do you?”

Ronan was silent for a moment, now wrapping a rubber band around his fingers, cutting off the circulation. “Niall.”

“Ronan Niall Lynch,” Adam said. “There’s a name you don’t hear every day in Henrietta.” As soon as the words left his mouth, Adam pressed his lips together. He sounded patronizing and quaint, especially with the long Virginian accent he could never quite eradicate.

Ronan snorted derisively. “You sound like my great Aunt Mary. And she was old when she kicked it.”

“I’m honored to be keeping her memory alive.”

“You gonna grab my cheeks and kiss me, too?” Ronan said grouchily.

“Not on the lips, I hope,” Adam said. Ronan’s brow furrowed darkly and he mumbled something Adam didn’t quite catch. “Your great aunt kissed you on the lips?” Ronan’s scowl deepened, and Adam felt amusement build. “That’s… really something.”

“Scarring is the word you’re looking for,” Ronan shot back. “Declan swears she gave him cold sores.”

Adam grinned outright at this.

“Grow the fuck up,” Ronan groused, flicking the rubber band so it bounced harmlessly off Adam’s shirt.

“Is Declan your brother?” The question was inoculant enough, Adam thought, but Ronan crossed his arms again and scowled in response.

“Yeah,” Ronan grunted, finally. Then, with feeling: “Shit.”

He reached over and grabbed the office phone from its cradle, clawed hand stabbing a series of numbers. Adam noticed an angry red burn on his forearm.

Ronan leaned as far away from Adam as the phone’s cord would allow, but Adam still heard the tinny rings and panicked male voice that answered on the other end of the line: “Ronan?”

“Yeah. It’s me- Gansey, I’m fine,” Ronan said forcefully, this time sounding both more tired and more like himself than he had all morning. “I need a ride.” Ronan lowered his voice to a growl: “Tell me you didn’t call Declan.” A pause. “Good. No. Boyd’s. The mechanic off Maple and…” he looked to Adam.

“Willington.”

“Maple and Willington... Yes I’m here with someone, I’m here with my fucking mechanic, I just said I’m at a mechanic’s- hello?” Ronan slammed the phone in its cradle with a clang.

“Where were we,” he snapped.

“Your great aunt and venereal diseases, I think.”

“You’re on thin fucking ice, Parrish.”

Adam rummaged in a desk drawer and unearthed a faded Elmo lunch box.

“Speaking of. You should put ice on your head if you want the swelling to go down. There’s a freezer in the garage. And you should run that under cold water,” Adam suggested, nodding to the blistering burn on Ronan’s arm.

“What are you, my doctor?” Ronan shot back, but he nonetheless followed the mild-mannered teen’s directives, placing his arm under the faucet in the tiny office bathroom and applying the antibiotic ointment Adam pulled from the lunchbox. He left to find some ice and Adam began picking up the paperwork the disgruntled teen had knocked to the floor. Upon his return, Ronan brusquely waved Adam away and hunched over to gather the rest of the mess himself, which Adam thought showed major moral improvement.

A car outside honked. Ronan slammed the stack of papers and ice pack onto the desk and stalked from the office, glass door swinging shut with a clash behind him. Adam peered through the blinds.

An offensively bright orange Camero was pulling into the lot. Its teenaged driver exited the car. He was well-groomed and bespectacled and wore a lime green collared shirt and salmon colored pants. He was, perhaps, the last person on earth Adam expected someone like Ronan Lynch to associate with. 

“I told Noah you’d texted me last night so he wouldn’t worry,” the boy said, his voice polite but tight with anger. “I can’t believe you would do this to us, after everything- after you promised you wouldn’t. What am I supposed to do here? Do you have any idea how close I was to calling Declan? The police?”

To Adam’s surprise, Ronan hunched his shoulders and jammed his hands into his pockets, turning his disgruntled gaze to the other teen’s boat shoes. Chainsaw flew over to Ronan and landed on his shoulder, pecking at her owner’s ear. Ronan swatted at the bird’s sharp beak with a loud swear.

The brown-haired boy’s shoulders slumped in defeat. Wearily, he asked: “What happened to your forehead? Kavinsky?”

Ronan jutted his chin in agreement.

“Jesus, Christ,” the other teen said. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No, Gansey, I don’t need a doctor,” Ronan snapped. “I need a shower and about ten beers to kill this hangover, and maybe a rain check on the fucking lecture.”

Gansey stared at Ronan, gaze somehow both reproachful and hurt. Ronan rubbed a hand over his face, relenting: “K almost got us killed in that trash Mitzo he drives around and I’m never hanging out with that fucker ever again. Can we go now?”

Gansey’s expression softened. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Come on, Ronan.”

As the orange Camaro left the lot, Adam wondered if Gansey and Ronan were related. The two boys didn’t look alike, really, but there was a connection between them that Adam couldn’t quite put into words. Even though they had been arguing, it was not hatred that had fueled their angry exchange. It was something else- something foreign to Adam, for whom family arguments usually resulted in long sleeves in the middle of summer and missed work and terrible, taut silences that devoured him from the inside out.

As the dust from the Camaro settled outside the window, he felt a lack that nonetheless weighed heavily on his heart; a keen absence that made the dusty-haired teen fervently wish he was not sitting in the tiny, shabby office, alone.
 

K

Kavinsky found Lynch’s ancient flip phone on the floor of the Evo the day after their little joy ride. He perused Lynch’s texts as he sped down the interstate, glancing up occasionally to weave past slower motorists with a deafening burst of the Evo’s engine.

Lynch’s texts were extremely uninteresting. Mostly one-sided conversations with that roommate of his who had, in the absence of Ronan’s own mother, apparently taken on the role with relish:

Where are you?

PLEASE call me back.

Are you okay?

I’m serious Ronan, I will have to call Declan if you don’t at least tell me you’re alive.

im alive

stop calling

come get me. boyds autobody

Kavinsky leaned back in the driver’s seat, flipping Lynch’s phone open and shut as his mind worked. Boyd’s autobody. So that’s where the BMW was. Maybe he should visit, leave a gift of some kind in Lynch’s car for him to find. He opened the flip phone with a dramatic flick of his wrist- why did they ever stop making flip phones, they were fucking great- and called Gansey.

“Ronan?” An obnoxiously polite voice echoed from the phone’s tinny speaker as Kavinsky lit a cigarette.

“Dick the Third!” Kavinsky said. “Is your boyfriend around? I wanna chat.”

There was a long pause. When he finally did respond, Gansey’s tone was painfully polite. “Why do you have Ronan’s phone, Joseph?”

Kavinsky frowned at the use of his given name. “Why d’you think, Dick? Not my fault Lynch can’t keep track of his shit. Now, as much as that old money plantation accent of yours gets me hard, I’m tired of hearing it. Put Lynch on, Dickie boy. Day’s a-wasting.”

“No. You can drop his phone off at Nino’s tomorrow-“

“We’re done talking, man,” Kavinisky said, because clearly the other boy was a little slow.

“I’m not going to-“

Kavinsky hung up, slamming the phone shut with a satisfying smack. He didn’t know where Lynch lived these days- no matter how wasted he got, Lynch had always been adamant that Kavinksy never drive him home- but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, because Lynch would find out where Kavinsky’s parties were this week, and he’d be there, obliterated and itching for a fight, like always.

Except Lynch didn’t show at the substance party Kavinsky threw that Thursday, or Kavinsky’s birthday blowout on Friday. He wasn’t sulking around his usual spots either; Kavinsky cruised down Sycamore Street in the evenings and stopped by the corner liquor mart half a dozen times that weekend, but Lynch must have been staying clean for once. It was really pissing Kavinsky off.

He started sending Dick the Third dick pics- apropos, Kavinsky thought- but Gansey never responded, so Kavinsky thought he might have blocked Ronan’s number. He considered doing the same to Ronan’s other contacts (didn’t Lynch have a younger brother? Mark? Marvin?). But in the end, Kavinsky decided against it. He was trying to get a rise out of Lynch, not get arrested.

The week passed in a colorless blur of girls, music and cars. Kavinsky coasted through each night, bored out of his skull.

He came home late on Monday and noticed the kitchen lights were on. His mom spent most of her time sleeping (aided, no doubt, by the small white pills her quack doctor gave out like candy) and the house was usually silent and dark. Unless Kavinsky was hosting a rager, of course. Which tonight, he wasn’t.

The sound of drunken female laughter reached his ears as he entered the enormous house through the garage. Kavinsky’s mother and a woman he vaguely recognized were seated around the lavish kitchen’s marble island, which was littered with wine bottles.

Mrs. Kavinsky’s dark hair was shellacked into an up do, and she had dark red talons that matched her lips. She was in her mid-40s, though Proko had once assured her she looked much younger. (His best friend had looked to Kavinsky, then, clearly concerned he’d crossed a line and was about to get his ass kicked, but Kavinsky couldn’t have cared less about either of them so he’d let the comment slide).

“Hello, ladies,” Kavinsky droned, tossing his keys onto the counter and crossing to the fridge.

Upon seeing her son, Mrs. Kavinsky drained her wine glass and reached for the bottle. Her friend, a busty brunette whose daughters had gone to school with Kavinsky in New Jersey, clasped a hand to her heart in mock shock.

“That can’t be Joseph, you didn’t tell me how much he’s grown, Linda!” She leaned over and rubbed her hand against his chin. “Look! Stubble!”

Kavinsky smiled blandly and escaped to the back patio with his beer.

An hour later, he was texting a girl from town, trying to convince her to sneak out and come over, when the patio door slowly slid open behind him. He turned, eyes narrowed. He’d assumed everyone had gone to bed.

His mom’s friend, barefoot but still in her slinky black dress, exited the house and took the seat next to Kavinsky, flouncing into the chair with a soft, “oof!”.

Some legs for a house mom, he thought appraisingly. She wasn’t bad looking, not by a long shot. It was clear she’d had work done (her dress was cut to accentuate every fake curve), and her skin shone with artificial smoothness. A vacant smile played on her lips.

“Was wondering where you went off to, Joseph,” she slurred, wrapping her arms around herself. “It is chilly out here.”

It wasn’t. Kavinsky assessed her for a long, calculating moment. Then, he slowly shrugged off his track jacket.

“Oooh, thank you,” she purred, draping the jacket over her shoulders. “So, remind me, are you still in school? I can’t remember how much older you are than Clarissa.”

Kavinsky didn’t bother responding. She looked on silently as Kavinsky packed a bowl.

“I haven’t smoked weed since college. I don’t even remember how,” she tried again with a light, girlish laugh.

Kavinsky held the small glass pipe out to her. “Inhale,” Kavinsky instructed. “Cover the little hole there. That’s it.”

The woman wrapped pink-stained lips around the stem of the pipe and inhaled deeply as Kavinsky lit the end for her. Immediately, she began to cough. She shook her head, eyes watering, and tried to hand the pipe back.

“Try again,” Kavinsky commanded. She looked doubtful but gave it another shot. “Hold it, hold it… now breathe out.”

Smoke billowed from the older woman’s mouth and she began to laugh yet again, her eyes bright. Smirking, Kavinsky took the bowl and expertly took a couple puffs.

“I don’t remember your name,” he admitted, holding his breath for a moment before exhaling. “Unless you want me to keep calling you Mrs. DePaulo.”

“Denise. And it’s soon to be Allen. I’m getting divorced.”

“So sorry to hear that, Denise.”

Denise missed the sarcasm. “Trust me, I’m much better off. He was banging his secretary. That slut is half his age. I mean, I realize I don’t have the tits of a teenager anymore but I take care of myself. I work out. It wasn’t just that girl. It was everything, the lies, the sneaking around-“

Her voice was starting to grate so he cut in: “You should get revenge.”

“I thought about cutting his dick off.” She laughed again, pearly teeth gleaming in the dark.

“Forget about him,” Kavinsky said, watching her beneath heavily-lidded eyelids. “We're talking about you.”

Denise quickly licked her lips, then- a sloppy, nervous gesture. “What do you think I should do?”

“Well,” Kavinsky took another hit and exhaled, smoke billowing lazily as he rasped. “So your old man’s fucking some chick. What I’m trying to figure out is, why does he get to have all the fun?”

The woman was staring openly at Kavinsky now, swaying slightly where she sat, and he knew instinctively- he had her. He felt a thrill of power.

“I shouldn’t-“

“Shouldn’t what?” Kavinsky interrupted softly, leaning forward. He placed a hand on her bare knee, rubbing his thumb in small circles as he spoke. “Do yourself a favor and do something for yourself for once, Denise.”

Denise was still staring, her face flushed in the almost dark, and Kavinsky leaned imperceptibly closer. He didn’t say anything. He knew he wouldn’t need to.

The older woman reached out and grabbed Kavinskys chin then, dragging him in for a primal clash of skin and teeth. The inside of her mouth tasted like Pinot Grigio. Kavinsky kissed back deeper, clawing a hand into her hair and rubbing his hand further up her thigh.

“There’s a couch in the pool house,” he hissed in her ear as she attacked his neck.

“Stop talking,” she begged. Kavinsky was all too happy to comply.

*

The following morning, Kavinsky woke to find himself alone in the pool house. Half-empty bottles covered the glass counter; he and Denise had hit the mini-bar pretty hard the night before. He found his phone buried in the cushions and made his way to the main house, his head pounding.

The kitchen was still a wreck. He drank from a carton of orange juice as he scoped out the rest of his place. His mother, predictably, was passed out in her bed. The guest bedroom was empty.

He pulled out his phone. He vaguely remembered the older woman stealing his phone at some point, and sure enough, a new contact had been added: Denisee :)

He fired off a text-

dont tell me youre gone already

- and went to take a shower.

When he emerged, there were a series of texts waiting for him.

Joseph. Last night should not have happened.

it was very inappropriate and we both should be ashamed of ourselves, me especially.

Do not contact me again.

Kavinsky stared in disbelief as cold rage hardened in his gut. He clenched his fist, imagined himself driving it through the woman’s skull, shattering those perfect teeth, ripping out a fistful of ratty, ugly hair- but, no. Bitch was probably halfway back to the shore by now.

There was no one around to see him, so he allowed his expression to darken with vicious fury as he texted, relishing words designed to penetrate. To hurt.

youre a lousy lay and a fat slut denise

no wonder your husband left you

He would keep this up for days- weeks, even. What could she do? Call the cops? And even if she blocked his number, he could use the burner phones the gang all had. A new phone number carrying a new insult, a new threat, every day. Denise Allen wanted to forget this had ever happened. He would not let her.

He slammed his cell phone down and swiftly turned his attention to other tasks, laying out the last of his powder in neat rows of white lines on the kitchen counter, tending to each one carefully with his mother’s credit card. Breakfast of champions.

He was already reworking the whole story in his mind, rearranging and embellishing last night’s chain of events in a way that would make for the most entertaining version when he saw the guys later.

Reality was overrated. The story told later was always better.

*

Kavinsky peeled off the interstate and wound his way through seedy side streets by memory until he found the address he was looking for: a squat, dilapidated house on the outskirts of Richmond. He parked crookedly on the front lawn (which was more dirt than lawn, anyway, so it wasn’t like he was bringing down the property value of the neighborhood) and sauntered to the front door like he owned the place. Which, considering the amount of money he usually spent in this shit hole, he could have if he wanted to. Fifteen minutes later, he exited carrying a Dora the Explorer backpack.

His dealer had a fucked up sense of humor.

He started to drive, fingers tapping erratically on the steering while. Then, deciding he had waited long enough, he pulled over a few blocks from the dilapidated house, parking on the side of the street under a canopy of maple trees. He wrenched open the backpack and began to rifle through his purchases.

He yanked a pocketknife from the center console and, opening it with a snick, cut a neat, practiced hole in the corner of a plastic-wrapped white brick. He brought a small lump of powder to his nose on the blade’s edge and inhaled sharply. Momentarily satiated, he licked the knife and began sorting through the other contents of the bag until his hand wrapped around something cold and metal.

Triumphantly, Kavinsky unearthed a compact handgun from the depths of the bag.

Marco had asked what plans Kavinksy had for the gun.

“If someone’s giving you trouble but you don’t wanna get your hands dirty, my pop's got a guy in Bayonne. It ain’t pretty but he gets the job done.”

Kavinksy had waved the older teen off, leaning forward to light his cigarette from the guido’s outstretched lighter. “This is just an insurance policy, man. In case some redneck meth head starts running his mouth.”

And it was true. Kavinsky’s father had owned a gun- a sleek silver Magnum- but Kavinksy was pretty sure his mom had gotten rid of it. Probably some latent sense of self-preservation. Because while she’d never said anything outright to her only child, she sometimes got this look on her face when Kavinsky entered the room. It was more than disgust- she was very outspoken about her dislike of Kavinsky’s friends, his grades, his attitude- and it was more than the expression of uncertainty she'd worn like a second skin in the weeks following her husband’s death.

It was a look of fear.

Kavinsky pulled the gun fully from the backpack, enjoying the weight of it in his palm.

Fear was a boring emotion, reserved solely for the weak and tedious. Kavinsky himself had never been afraid. Not when his father’s temper had been at it’s worst, not when he and the gang were racing (or diving off the trestle, or lighting fires they couldn’t control, or engaging in any of the other live-threatening shit they did on a regular basis), and certainly not any of the times he’d been pulled over by the police.

Other people felt fear. Proko, Swan, Jiang. They acted hard, but Kavinsky saw right through them. As for Lynch… Kavinsky knew he could break Lynch of this particular base emotion. Fear was boring, but Lynch was not. Lynch could- and would- be taught, molded. If he would just fucking come back.

Because no matter how far Kavinsky pushed Lynch, no matter how many lines Kavinsky crossed, Lynch always came back. Couldn’t stay away.

A

Thursday morning saw Adam dragging his feet into Boyd’s office, stumbling a little over the mat in the entrance. He was exhausted. His new job at the factory was tedious and not particularly difficult- any monkey could assemble parts on the supply line- but the hours were late and the factory itself grim and poorly lit. He’d only had two shifts and he already hated it.

And he hadn’t slept well the previous night; he never did after a fight with his dad. He turned on the desktop computer- a relic that had been with the shop for over ten years, and took about as long to boot up every morning- and started a pot of coffee. His movements were stilted and slow, his joints screaming in protest. He felt impossibly old.

While he waited for the coffee pot to boil, he filled a paper cup with water and carefully watered the small collection of ferns that lined the top of the filing cabinets. He’d rescued the plants from a neighbor’s garbage heap a few weeks prior and, although they’d initially been yellowed and parched, he’d managed to nurse most of them back to green with a steady diet of unfiltered water and indirect sunlight.

An orange Camero pulled into the lot. Adam watched through the window as Ronan and his friend, Gansey, exited the car. Ronan, dressed in a leather jacket despite the heat, looked as disgruntled as ever. Chainsaw was situated at her usual perch on his shoulder, bobbing along agreeably as Ronan stomped towards the office. Gansey, hair neatly parted and polo shirt wrinkle-free, was not wearing his glasses, and looked all the more regal for it. That, Adam thought, is the very picture of someone meant to go far in life.

A third boy crawled out of the backseat and righted himself. He was a shorter than the other two, with a wild mess of grey-blond hair and silver Converse sneakers that glittered in the early morning sun. He said something and Ronan casually turned around to tug him into a rough headlock, dragging him along as he walked. Adam could hear carefree laughter echo across the empty lot as the three approached the office.

“Come on Ronan, I was kidding, I was kidding-“

The shorter boy squirmed free of Ronan’s headlock as Gansey answered his cell phone: “Hi, Mom. No, it’s all right, I’ve got a moment…”

Ronan stomped past the other two and entered the office with all the grace of a pissed-off tornado.

“How is she?” he demanded by way of greeting.

“Does ‘she’ have a name, by the way?” Adam asked, not bothering to move from where he was leaning against the window. He was suddenly feeling much more awake.

“Names are for people,” Ronan snapped.

“And birds,” Adam said, eying Chainsaw.

Ronan threw himself into a chair. “Hurry up!” he called through the door. Gansey waved Ronan off and continued to pace in a leisurely circle around the lot. The other boy had stopped to doodle obscenely on the dirt-caked car window with his finger.

Adam peeled a sheet of paper off the glass door and handed it to Ronan.

“The fuck is this?”

“A list of our operating hours. So you know when Boyd’s is actually open.”

“Fuck you,” Ronan snarled.

“The car isn’t finished. I told you-“

“You’d call, yeah, I got it,” Ronan snapped. “Gansey’s got a problem with the Pig.”

“Pig?”

Ronan jerked a thumb in the direction of the Camaro.

“Thought names were for people.”

“And birds. And shitbox cars that only break down every time you drive them.” The last bit was directed at Gansey as he entered the office, the blond boy humming with energy right behind him.

These were people he would be going to school with in the autumn. Adam’s stomach flipped, as it always did whenever he thought of Aglionby.

"Hello," Gansey said brightly, holding out his hand. "I'm Richard Gansey, this is Noah Czerny. And you're already well-aquatinted with our third roommate, Ronan, yes?"

Adam had the fleeting impression he was shaking the hand of a politician, rather than one belonging to a teenaged boy. Noah was picking the office hours sign off the ground.

“They aren’t open yet,” he announced. Adam noticed a discolored stretch of skin beneath Noah’s left eye- a port-wine stain, perhaps, or a scar. “They don’t open for another two hours. I could’ve slept in, dickhead.” This last bit was directed at an unconcerned Ronan, who kicked a leg up on the chair next to him.

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “I’m Adam. Ronan said you were having a problem with the Camaro?”

“Oh, yes, if you wouldn’t mind taking a look. It makes a weird noise every time I go above thirteen miles an hour. But we can wait until you’re open, if that’s better for you.”

“I want to look at my baby first,” Ronan announced. He slammed both feet to the floor and marched to the garage door, swinging it open so violently it banged against the wall.

“Ronan,” Gansey admonished.

“I’m used to it by now,” Adam said with a small shrug. “He’s not even my worst customer.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Gansey muttered as the three of them followed Ronan into the dark garage. Adam turned on the lights and opened the garage doors while Noah and Ronan circled the BMW, which was looking considerably more put-together than the last time Ronan had stopped by. At least the new parts were properly installed and attached, even if they weren’t painted yet.

“I apologize for anything rude he may have said or done,” Gansey said with the beleaguered air a person might have when discussing their unruly child. “He wasn’t always so…” He trailed off and gestured vaguely towards Ronan, who was flipping Noah off as Chainsaw cawed.

“I can hear you guys,” Ronan called. “Give the parenting bit a rest, Gansey, fuck’s sake.”

Gansey looked contrite as he nodded to the orange Camaro. “I don’t want to waste more of your time than necessary. Shall we?”

At Adam’s instruction, Gansey backed the Camaro into an open space in the garage. The Camaro- the “Pig”, as Ronan had called it- was old and worn, and Adam was surprised someone like Gansey would drive a car like it. He rolled up his sleeves and carefully popped the hood.

“What happened there?” Gansey exclaimed. Adam glanced up and followed Gansey’s gaze to Adam’s arms, which were littered with purple and green bruises, all in various stages of healing. Ronan shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the Camaro, looking irritated and bored.

“Hazard of the job,” Adam said mildly. He leaned over the hood of the car. “You need a new drive belt. That’s probably what’s causing the noise.”

“Will that be difficult to replace?”

“No. I can do it now, if you like.”

“Even better,” Gansey said, “why don’t you show me how to do it myself?” Adam raised his eyebrows and considered Gansey’s request.

“All right, then,” he said. “Give me a minute to find the right size.”

After Adam had successfully replaced the belt- and then had taken it off the pulley system so Gansey could practice replacing it himself- Gansey asked if Adam could show him how to change the oil.

“I always pay someone else to do it,” Gansey said. “But I like knowing how to do things myself, you know?”

Adam did know. Gansey was a good student, listening attentively as Adam patiently explained the differences between synthetic, regular and blended oil. He was practically giddy when Adam raised the car off the ground with the press of a button and pointed out the valve that would spill the old oil into a red bucket.

“I can do this part,” Adam said. “Sometimes the oil splashes.”

But Gansey insisted, and didn’t seem to mind one bit when drops of oil splattered on his salmon shorts. Adam wondered how much shorts like his cost. Gansey had shrugged off the stain as though it was unimportant- undoubtedly, he had a dozen more pairs just like them at home. Adam shook himself mentally. This was a line of thought that would lead to resentment, and he didn’t want to resent Gansey. He couldn’t afford to, not when he’d be going to a school full of Ganseys in the fall.

Ronan began pushing a precariously-balanced Noah around on a silver dolly. Adam watched as the spiky teen launched the shorter boy headfirst into a pile of tires and rubbed the back of his neck uncertainly- his co-workers would be showing up any minute.

“Maybe give the dolly a rest,” he suggested as Noah extracted himself from the tire pile, breathless.

“Killjoy,” Ronan muttered. But he allowed Noah to take the dolly from his hands and put it back in its place.

“So, Adam,” Gansey said, dumping the Camaro’s old oil into the large container Adam pointed to. He wiped his dirty hands carelessly on his shorts. “Do you go to the public high school in Henrietta? Or do you attend school elsewhere during the year? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”

Adam’s stomach, predictably, flip-flopped. His throat was suddenly dry.

“I’m… I’ll be going to Aglionby this year,” he said. Gansey’s face lit up with joy.

“Really? What year are you?”

“Junior.”

“Us, too! This is wonderful, you can help me if I have any problems with the Pig at school. Have you gotten your schedule yet? What classes are you taking?”

Adam’s heart, inexplicably, felt lighter than it had a moment before. “Shakespeare, Calculus, Latin 2-“

“Did they have Latin at the public school?” Gansey asked, surprised.

Adam felt his face warm in shame. Aglionby’s Latin 1 class had been filled, but Adam needed the language credit.

“No,” he admitted. “I- there’s a few books at the library, I’ve been studying…”

“Oh, you can’t learn Latin from a book,” Gansey said easily. “I mean, you can, but it’s rather difficult.” Adam’s heart plummeted, again. “It’s a good thing you met us, Ronan’s top of the class. He can help you.”

“No, he can’t,” Ronan called out from the other end of the garage.

“I’m not great at Latin, myself,” Gansey said. “But I’ll bring you my old notes. What time do you get off? Let’s meet at Nino’s. My treat.”

“Hell yeah,” Noah said, raising a fist in victory.

Adam tensed as he tried to figure out the most polite way to turn down Gansey’s offer.

“Don’t talk about food,” Ronan called. The passenger side door of the BMW was open and he was standing in the car, leaning both forearms on the hood. “He practically had a seizure when I got Chinese last week. I think he has an eating disorder.”

Gansey’s mouth fell open and he looked to Adam for confirmation. “Chinese food?”

“And it wasn’t poisoned?” Noah asked conversationally, hopping onto the hood of the Beemer.

“I didn’t realize that was a concern,” Adam told Noah. Ronan swatted viciously at Noah until the blond boy reluctantly slid from the hood of the car.

“Well,” Gansey said, eying Adam with bright interest. “I owe you for teaching me to change the Pig’s oil, at the very least. I have cash-”

“It’s fine,” Adam said. “Just cover the cost of the belt and we’ll call it even.”

“You just spent an hour of your time teaching me how to fix my car,” Gansey argued. “You can’t tell me that isn’t worth anything.”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. It was Thursday, so he technically didn’t need to be home until later… “I’m off at six. Although I usually work on the BMW after.”

“Skip that,” Noah said. “His car isn’t going anywhere.”

“Hey,” Ronan growled. “I want to actually drive her again before school starts.”

“It’s June,” Noah pointed out.

“Put your number in and I’ll text you when we arrive at Nino’s.” Gansey held his smart phone out to Adam, who didn’t move to take it.

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

“Really?” Gansey said, politely shocked. “Well, you’re still better than Ronan, at least you have an excuse for being unreachable.”

“I told you, I lost my phone,” Ronan snapped.

“And just how drunk were you when you lost it?” Gansey asked pointedly. Ronan rolled his eyes in a fashion far more dramatic than the situation warranted and swung himself into the seat of the BMW, out of view.

“Well, let’s just agree to meet at six-thirty then,” Gansey said, pocketing his phone.

“He doesn’t have a car,” Ronan called.

“We’ll pick you up at six-fifteen,” Gansey amended.

“I’ll bike to Nino’s,” Adam said, feeling overwhelmed and annoyed with the whole conversation. “It’s fine. Really.”

The two boys went to the office to settle the bill, where Gansey insisted he pay for both the belt and the oil. Adam was handing Gansey the receipt just as Patricia arrived.

“Whose hideous carrot clunker is that outside?” she asked Adam bluntly as she paused in the doorway to ground out a cigarette in the ashtray next to the entrance.

“That would be mine,” Gansey said good-naturedly. Patricia startled a little.

“See you tonight,” Gansey told Adam as Patricia held the door open for him, staring openly as the polished teenager left the building.

After he’d left, Patricia shook her head. “I stand by what I said,” she told Adam raspily. “That car is uglier than sin.”

*

Adam was nervous as he chained his bike to the stairwell outside Nino’s Pizzeria. He’d gone over his interaction with Gansey obsessively all day in his head, and had come to the conclusion he’d come off exactly the opposite of how he’d hoped to. Aglionby boys, he thought, did not need to work. Changing their own oil was a novelty, not a necessity. They did not own thrifted jeans or sneakers so old the soles were held together with duct tape. They did not need to teach themselves Latin because the class had not been offered in public school.

Why had Ronan brought Gansey and Noah to the garage? Adam would have much preferred to meet the other boys at school, where everyone- dressed in the same blue Aglionby uniform- would be on equal ground.

Adam had considered not going to Nino’s at all. His t-shirt was worn (and, now that he’d been biking, sweaty), and he hadn’t been able to get all the grease out from under his fingernails. But he had no way of contacting Gansey, and he thought not showing up would have made a worse impression.

He entered the restaurant.

He spotted the three boys easily. Noah and Gansey were talking animatedly while Ronan sulked in the corner, looking antisocial and pissed off. An expensive, brown leather satchel rested on the ground next to Gansey’s feet.

“Hello,” Adam said quietly, sliding into the open seat next to Ronan. Ronan’s eyes cut to Adam and away dismissively.

“Adam!” Gansey exclaimed. “I already ordered, I hope you like either pepperoni or pineapple. But if you don’t, order whatever you’d like. Noah would be very happy for the excuse to talk to our waitress again.”

Adam grimaced. He’d planned to stick to a slice of cheese pizza, or maybe just breadsticks if Nino’s didn’t charge. But if Gansey had already ordered…

“That’s fine,” he said, doing his best to clip his Henrietta accent.

“I brought my notes,” Gansey gestured to the bag at his feet. “But first, I must ask you a very important question.” His face had gotten very serious.

“All right,” Adam said, suddenly alarmed.

“Oh, for the love of Saint Peter,” Ronan grumbled.

“What are your opinions, if any, on dead Welsh kings?” Gansey asked. Noah snorted into his soda.

Adam tilted his head, considering. “Well. I suppose I don’t have many, as my knowledge on the subject is, uh, lacking.”

Gansey’s face split into a crooked, boyish grin. “Excellent.”

Over the next thirty minutes- interrupted every thirty seconds or so by Noah- Gansey regaled Adam with a rather convoluted history of Great Britain's twelfth century monarchs and his belief that the body of one of these kings had been buried near Henrietta, Virginia several hundred years ago.

Adam became increasingly engaged in the lively monologue despite himself, and before he knew it, Adam was agreeing to go on an “expedition” to a cave an hour outside of town that upcoming Sunday.

“I get off work at one,” Adam said. “So I could go after that.”

“The garage isn’t open Sundays,” Ronan said.

Adam looked at Ronan, surprised. He’d thought the other boy hadn’t been paying attention.

“I do landscaping on Sundays,” Adam said.

“How many freaking jobs do you have?” Noah asked around a mouthful of pizza.

“Three,” Adam responded, then wished he hadn’t said anything.

“My word,” Gansey said, looking impressed. “Well, that’s all right, because Ronan has church in the morning anyway.” He didn’t appear to be joking.

The conversation skated on, to Aglionby's social hierarchy ("We'll tell you who to stay away from," Noah said, shooting a pointed look at Ronan that Adam couldn't decipher) to the three boys' living quarters (Adam was envious to learn they had recently moved out of the school dorms to become roommates in a warehouse Gansey owned) to Henrietta (Adam kept his comments short and diplomatic since Gansey seemed enchanted by the dusty, dirty town) and, finally, to Latin.

Gansey handed Adam a thick notebook filled with neat, block lettering.

“Take it away, Ronan,” he said with a flourish. Scowling, Ronan uncrossed his arms and dragged the notebook towards himself.

“Do you know any of these?” he asked brusquely, pointing at a list of verbs on the first page.

“I recognize those two,” Adam said. “They’re similar in Spanish.”

“Well, Latin isn’t Spanish,” Ronan snapped.

“But it is the basis for all the romance languages,” Noah interrupted.

“Who’s the teacher here, you or me?” Ronan demanded. He ripped the page from the notebook and shoved it at Adam. “Memorize these. Next section.”

Ronan was an impatient teacher, though Adam had been expecting that. But he was also extremely knowledgeable, which was something Adam had not been expecting. Ronan seemed the type more likely to skip class than attend, but the proof was in his encyclopedic Latin vocabulary.

Adam was self-conscious as he answered Ronan’s questions and stumbled through conjugations, but he slowly started to realize that Gansey’s grasp on grammar was only marginally better than his own, and Noah’s translating abilities equally bad (although that might have been because the blond boy was incapable of sitting still long enough to translate more than two words at a time).

Noah squabbled and challenged Ronan at every turn, until Gansey finally stepped in as Ronan raised a glass threateningly- either to throw at Noah wholesale or dump on his head, Adam wasn’t sure.

“Okay,” Gansey said, raising his hand placating. “Why don’t I go pay and give Noah another opportunity to chat up our waitress? You two keep working.”

“She’s totally into me,” Noah said confidently, eagerly leaping from the vinyl seat as soon as Gansey had slid from the booth.

Adam pulled out his wallet, half-standing.

“No, no,” Gansey said. “This one’s on me, remember?”

“I can pay for myself,” Adam said.

“He owes you for fixing the damn racket the Pig was making so sit down and shut up,” Ronan snapped.

“Nice, Ronan,” Gansey said dryly.

“Whatever.”

“I can pay.”

“I really won’t let you.”

Adam’s ears felt hot as he stared at Gansey, whose expression was mildly exasperated. Slowly- knowing he would hate himself for it later- he sat and tucked his wallet away as Gansey departed. After a moment of silence, Adam became uncomfortably aware that Ronan was staring at his arms, which he’d placed on the table in front of him.

Before he could lower his them below the table, Ronan reached out and wrapped his hand carefully around Adam’s bicep, right above the elbow. There, his fingers perfectly overlaid a set of five dark, oblong bruises. His touch was light but Adam nevertheless jerked at the sudden contact.

Ronan quickly withdrew, scowling. His eyes flickered to Adam’s and then away, out the window.

Now it was Adam’s turn to stare.

The confusing moment was broken as Ronan’s entire body tensed.

“Son of a bitch,” he spat furiously. His anger was directed at something outside, though it was dark and the glare of restaurant lights prevented Adam from seeing anything besides his own reflection.

As Ronan slouched further down in his seat, the bell above Nino’s entryway jingled. Adam swiveled to see a teenager around their age swagger inside. The newcomer was short- though not as short as Noah- and had spiked, dark hair. He wore a set of white sunglasses and a gold chain that hung loosely over a white track jacket. He looked like an asshole.

He made a show of pausing in the entrance and looking around, like he was casing the joint in a bad gangster movie. He ignored the greeter and sauntered over to their table, the smell of cigarette smoke wafting with him.

“Lynch,” he drawled, ignoring Adam completely. “Long time, no see. You missing anything?” His voice was amused as he pulled a dull, silver cell phone from his pocket and waved it tauntingly.

“Fuck off,” Ronan snapped.

“Come on, babe, don’t be like that,” the other boy said. “I’ve got a forty in the car. Proko’s throwing a rager at one of the river warehouses tonight. Whaddaya say? It’ll be fun.”

Now that he was up close, Adam sensed a restless, cagey energy emanating from the newcomer that put him on edge. He looked to Ronan uncertainly. Ronan's jaw was set, his gaze burning a hole in the glass in front of him.

“Excuse me, what’s going on here?” Gansey’s tone was withering as he approached, Noah right behind him.

“Dick!” the teenager said, slapping Gansey genially on the back. “You did say to meet you at Nino’s to drop off the phone, right? Or am I making that up?”

“Yes. A week ago,” Gansey said. All trace of his usual warmth was gone, and his expression was rigid as he stood resolutely in front of the other teen. He held out his hand. “So give it to me and leave. Please.”

“Hey, it’s not yours,” the other boy said, holding the phone out of reach. “I’d rather give it to Lynch directly, make sure it doesn’t get lost along the way.”

He leered at Ronan and offered up the phone.

Adam wished he wasn’t situated between the two boys. He quickly squashed a spike of irrational panic. Ronan continued to stare daggers at the cup in front of him, his hand flexing around the glass like he was considering throwing a punch. The other boy was subtly shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Adam thought of a coyote, biding its time before attacking the hen house.

Gansey seemed to sense it, too. “Joseph, either give us the phone or don’t, but you need to leave.”

The boy raised an arm in innocence. “Woah, man, chill out. I was about to go anyway. You coming, Lynch?”

“No.” Ronan’s tone was low and harsh in its disdain.

“Don’t you want this back? Matthew’s been calling all week.”

Ronan froze, then ground out: “I don’t care about the phone.”

The other teen slowly licked his lips, his expression unreadable behind the white sunglasses.

Then, he tossed the phone onto the table with a dull thud.

“See you on the streets,” he said, each word biting. He turned and left the restaurant.

Chapter Text

R

Ronan yanked the passenger seat of the Pig forward and stepped aside.

“Come on,” Noah complained. “I called shotgun.”

“Too bad,” Ronan snapped.

Grumbling, Noah crawled into the back seat. Adam’s bicycle was sticking out of the Camero’s truck (Gansey had found a bungee cord; the whole operation was tenuous at best), so he settled himself in the back seat next to Noah, pulling on his seatbelt as Ronan slid the seat back with more force than was necessary.

“I don’t know why you hang around that creep,” Noah mumbled as Gansey started up the Pig.

Ronan didn’t bother responding. It was a conversation he’d already had a million times with Gansey. He knew, intellectually, that Kavinsky was bad news. That Ronan was the worst version of himself when he was around the drug dealer. But what he had never said- couldn’t explain, for a lot of reasons- was how badly he needed Kavinsky. 

The past week had been a waking nightmare. Without Kavinsky- or, more specifically, the pills Kavinsky provided like candy- Ronan hadn’t slept, had endured a constant, dull headache, had stared at his ceiling for hours each night, praying desperately for dawn. He was tearing himself apart from the inside out. The tension was building.

Seeing Kavinsky had felt like a bat to a solid metal mailbox: an electrifying jolt that shook him to his core. It was shameful, but Ronan tried not to lie, not even to himself: He had desperately wanted to go with the other teenager.

Gansey would have been disappointed, but he must be used to that by now. Noah would have been mad, but it wasn’t in his DNA to stay angry for more than five minutes. Parrish… well, Parrish didn’t know Ronan well enough to be disappointed, or angry. He would have thought Kavinsky was Ronan’s friend. Would have linked them together in his mind and extended any judgments about Kavinsky to Ronan himself.

And Ronan was not like Kavinsky. He had to believe that.

From the backseat: “I didn’t know they still made flip phones.” Ronan craned his head to look behind him. Adam was leaning against the window looking back at Ronan, amusement written in the finite curve of his lips.

“I’m gonna sell it to a museum if Ronan doesn’t pay his rent,” Noah said. 

“He’d probably thank you,” Gansey said. To Adam, he added, “Ronan hates his cell phone.”

“Why’s that?”

“He doesn’t like talking to people. Or people in general,” Noah piped up.  

“That’s not true,” Gansey said, always the first to Ronan’s defense.

Noah leaned forward, draping an arm over Gansey’s headrest. “Name five people he actually likes.”

“Seatbelt,” Gansey told Noah.

“It’s on,” Noah insisted. “Come on. I wanna know.”

“He likes Matthew.” 

“Chainsaw,” Ronan supplied, cycling through radio stations.

“I’ll allow it.”

“Gansey’s all right,” Ronan grunted.

“I do think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Okay, that’s three,” Noah prompted. “And?”

Ronan made a big show of furrowing his brow, as if in deep thought. Noah bounced impatiently and punched Ronan in the shoulder.

“What the hell, Czerny.”

 “Oh come on, Ronan.”

“Children,” Gansey admonished.

“He won’t admit we’re friends! “ Noah cried. “After all the times I let him copy my math homework-“

“Some friend, Czerny, your grades are shit-“

“Yeah but you wouldn’t've passed at all without my help!“

“I didn’t pass, asshole.”

“That’s only ‘cause you called Mr. Davies a crotchety old sheep fucker!” A surprised huff of laughter sounded from the back seat. Ronan felt a corner of his own mouth lift, despite himself.

“Everyone else was already thinking it,” Ronan defended himself.

“You’re one to talk. Aren’t the Irish known for that kinda thing? Out there alone in the fields, nothing else to-“

Ronan spun around. Noah tried to back away but wasn’t fast enough as the taller teen easily wrestled him into a one-armed headlock and squeezed.

“How do you put up with this?” Adam asked Gansey, neatly avoiding one of Noah's flailing arms. 

“I really don’t know,” Gansey responded, sounding very much the martyr.

“I can’t breathe, Ronan! Ronan! I can’t breathe!” Ronan released the shorter boy, who retreated to his corner of the backseat, laughing wickedly. “I am number four though, right?”

“Not right now you’re not.” 

“So, Adam,” Gansey said imperiously. “I feel we spent a great deal of time talking about ourselves. Tell us about you.”

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“No. Do you?”

“An older sister, Helen. She just got her pilot's license.”

“She flies planes?”

“Helicopters. Well, just the one. She might give us a lift on Sunday, actually, I still need to ask her.”

“In her helicopter?” Adam parroted, sounding profoundly shocked.

“Gotta be safer than the Pig,” Noah pointed out. As if on cue, the Pig whined loudly and the engine stuttered.

“Hm,” Adam said. “May be the radiator.”

“Do I need a new one?”

“I won’t know until I look at the engine again. I can do that Sunday.”

“My dad says the Pig’s more money than she’s worth,” Gansey said. “But I disagree. All the best things in life require a bit of effort. But there I go, talking about myself again.”

Ronan rested his head on the worn leather headrest, allowing Gansey’s familiar tenor and Adam's soft Henrietta accent to wash over him. Every so often Noah's excited voice jumped in, bobbing in and out as the radio played quietly in the background. The road became rocky and uneven beneath them as Gansey eased up on the gas to maneuver around potholes in the dirt road. The high beams cut a sharp path in the pitch black that surrounded them. Trees towered on one side; on the other, rusted mailboxes jumped into view.

Gansey slowed as they reached a fork in the road.

“Here is fine,” Adam said, glancing at his wristwatch. “It gets narrow.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gansey said. “I need to know where to pick you up Sunday.”

Adam drummed his fingers nervously on one knee. “Left.”

Yellow porch lights illuminated small, derelict houses and pickup trucks of every shape and size as they ventured further into the darkness. One trailer had a large, angry sign posted out front: “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT”. American flags abounded.

“Here.”

Gansey slowed to an unsteady halt in front of a double-wide trailer that might have been white, once. Cracked flowerpots lined the front stoop and yellow weeds choked the cement walkway leading to the front stoop. If it were not for the light on inside and the dark pickup truck parked beside the trailer, Ronan would have thought it was abandoned.

He did not understand how such an ordinary place could have produced someone so interesting.

Ronan unfolded himself from the Pig and yanked on the seat lever to let Adam out. Together, they wrestled Adam’s bike from the trunk. A dog barked viciously in one of the neighboring yards as Adam wheeled the bike to the driver’s side.

“Thank you for dinner and the ride,” he told Gansey through the open window as Ronan threw himself bodily into the passengers seat.

“Thanks for your help with the Pig.”

“See ya Sunday,” Noah called, preoccupied with a game on his cell phone.

“Let’s get out of here, “ Ronan said as Adam's slender frame disappeared around the side of the trailer. “This place fucking blows.”

*

Sleep came easily to Ronan, for once. 

He was at church: the simple, wooden Catholic church he had grown up attending dutifully every Sunday. Or, maybe, he was at his childhood home. It was hard to tell, and it kept changing, anyway. A figure stood in front of him. 

In much the way of dreams, the person did not look much like Parrish- his features were unfamiliar, and the hair was wrong, somehow- but Ronan knew that’s who it was.

When not-Parrish spoke, however, it was Kavinsky’s voice that snaked from between his teeth: “I know you, Lynch. I know you.”

Ronan woke with a start, sucking in deep lungfuls of air until he felt dizzy. He untangled himself from his sheets and glanced at the fluorescent digital clock on his nightstand. 2AM.

Shivering, he reached under his bed and fished out what was left of his stash: a near-empty bottle of Jameson and a sheet of cold medicine tablets. He wished he had some Ambien. Or a Xanax. He glanced at his phone. Two unread texts from Kavinsky. He threw his phone violently into his bedside drawer and slammed it, furious with his moment of weakness.

He popped a handful of blue gel pills and chased them with the rest of the whisky.

Around 3AM, he gave up trying to sleep and wandered out to the cavernous main room of Monmouth Manufacturing. Gansey sat cross-legged on his bed, illuminated by a single bedside lamp and surrounded by dusty old library books. He had removed his gold wire-framed spectacles and was wiping the lenses with his shirttail, yawing widely. His hair stood up in about ten directions, as though he had been running his hand repeatedly through it. Nevertheless, he smiled widely as Ronan approached, holding up one of the books.

This was Ronan’s favorite version of his best friend: unpolished and unafraid.

“Thomas Wells agrees with me,” Gansey announced, holding up a tome (“A History of European Monarchs”) triumphantly. “There’s a journal entry written by one of Glendower’s daughters that suggests a journey west.”

“Where?”

“Unfortunately, she didn’t say. But this coupled with those church records points to Glendower dying en route, and we know he wasn’t buried in Britain.”

Roman could practically feel the energy crackling through Gansey like a live wire. It was easy to give in to Gansey’ excitement, generate some of his own.

“How do you know they didn’t just bury him in an unmarked grave? You said people hated him.”

“Doesn’t matter. While he may not have agreed with Glendower’s method of ruling, Father Mattius was loyal to the crown, to a fault, some would say. He would have made sure the grave was marked, or at least its location recorded.”

“Just playing devil’s advocate, man.” 

“Hmmmm.” Gansey was already perusing the next page.

Ronan sprawled on the navy comforter at the foot of Gansey’s bed, sending books tumbling to the floor. Gansey moved his feet to make room for the taller boy’s lanky form as Ronan propped himself up on sharp elbows.

He listlessly leafed through the 300 pages of “A Brief History of Medieval Royalty”, his mind wandering immediately. 

“Hazard of the job.”

Adam No-Middle-Name Parrish was a fucking liar; Ronan knew signs of a fight when he saw them. Ronan wondered how the quiet boy had gotten into a fight in the first place. Parrish hadn’t started it, Ronan was sure of that. But Ronan could teach him to finish it. Fighting- and fighting well- was so much more useful than Latin, anyway.

As if sensing Ronan’s line of thought, Gansey said: “I like Adam. I think he's one of us.”

Ronan had thought so, too. But Gansey had to be the one to decide these things. Ronan didn’t trust his own judgment.

Gansey was watching Ronan thoughtfully.

“What?” Ronan snapped.

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie.”

Gansey smiled wearily. “Sorry. I don’t quite know how to put it into words. It just feels like you're back.”

“I didn’t go anywhere.”

“Maybe not... I just mean.” He gestured to the books, and to Ronan on the edge of his bed. “We used to do this all the time.”

The back of Ronan’s throat tightened. When he spoke, his voice was scratchier than he would have liked.

“Gansey.”

“Yes?”

Ronan didn’t speak. After a time, Gansey returned to his book, and Ronan’s mind turned uselessly over the words he had been too cowardly to speak out loud:

Don’t give up on me.

*

“Learn to fight,” Ronan said bluntly, examining the scarring on his knuckles. “My brothers all box. I’m the best of us.” He clenched his fist, noting how the puckered lines stretched white across sharp bone.

He was seated in the front seat of the Pig, one foot outside, the other propped on the dashboard. Heat waves shimmered above black pavement in the convenience store parking lot, and his shirt clung to his back in the ghastly humidity. Gansey needed to hurry the fuck up so they could get this AC cranking again.

“No. Thank you,” Adam said, his voice flat. He was leaning against the Camero’s side above the rear wheel, arms crossed and shoulders hunched.

“What, you like getting the shit kicked out of you?”

“No.”

“Then learn to throw a punch, Parrish. It’s not rocket science.” Ronan raised his fist in demonstration. “Like this. Not-“ he tucked his thumb beneath his other fingers- “like this, unless you want a broken thumb.”

“I said no, Ronan.”

The absolute finality of the other boy’s tone had Ronan looking around in surprise. Adam’s profile was carved from stone: the definitive curve of lip, the fine nose, a pair of deep set eyes, one of which- the one closest to Ronan- was bruised and bloodshot.

There was something off. Pieces of the puzzle of Adam Parrish that Ronan should have fitted together by now… it was there and then gone before his brain had the ability to latch onto it. It was too hot to think. Ronan stopped trying. 

“Whatever, man,” he said, letting his hand fall to his lap.

Gansey and Noah emerged a few minutes later, hands full of beverages and, in Noah’s case, candy.

Ronan casually snatched a bag of M&Ms from Noah as he lifted himself from the car, letting Noah re-enter the inferno of the Pig’s interior.

“I said I didn’t want anything,” Adam said pointedly as Gansey held out a water bottle.

“I know,” Gansey said, “But I’d rather no one die of heatstroke.” He glanced to Ronan uncertainly as Adam folded himself into the backseat, ignoring the bottle in Gansey’s outstretched hand. Ronan shrugged. Wasn’t his problem Parrish was about as friendly as a cactus today.

The rest of their drive to the caves passed in relative silence. Adam had poked around under the hood before they’d left and the Camaro, miraculously, did not break down en route, though the car still made angry grinding noises every time Gansey hit the brakes (“When was the last time you replaced the brake pads?” Adam asked. “Never,” Gansey replied. Ronan, in a rare display of self-preservation, pulled on his seatbelt).

Once they’d parked, the hike to the caves was not very long, but it was steep and Ronan had to keep stopping to fish rocks out of his boots. He almost gave it up- his head was pounding and the sweat was pouring off him in rivulets- when they finally, finally arrived. The “caves” were less “cave” and more “series of rocky overhangs”, but what had Ronan’s attention was a stream that pooled into a body of mossy water right next to them.

Ronan ignored Gansey (“Lets spread out and look for anything that looks man-made…”), stripped to his boxers, and jumped feet-first into the pond. Moments later, he was nearly killed as Noah- fully clothed- also jumped in, practically landing on top of him.

“You’re dead, Czerny!” he shouted, dragging Noah under the cold, greenish water, feet skittering across mossy rocks beneath them. Laughing, Noah slithered away and managed to wrap an arm around Ronan’s neck, dragging him under from behind.

When Ronan resurfaced, spitting out river water and wiping moss from his face, Adam was standing on the embankment above him, looking down uncertainly.

“Don’t even-“ Adam started warningly as Ronan latched onto one of Adam’s ankles and yanked.

Adam fell backwards on the mossy embankment, landing hard on his ass as Ronan kicked off, grip still firm on Adam’s flailing foot.

Adam crashed to the water and resurfaced a moment later, coughing. “You bastard,” he spluttered.

Ronan grinned, and immediately received a face full of mud for his moment of weakness.

“Hey!” he growled, irritated, before another handful of mud splattered against the side of the head. Gansey stood a few feet away, knee-high in the water, arm already re-submerged as he searched the river floor for his next missive. 

“You’re a dead man,” Ronan threatened as Gansey splashed to the relative safety of the reeds that lined the river’s edge.

“Marco!” Noah called, eyes closed and arms outstretched.

“Polo,” Adam responded, sliding away from Noah with a gentle ripple.

Rather than respond, Ronan splashed the water obnoxiously in Noah’s direction.

“Polo!” Gansey called, still hovering among the weeds.

And so the afternoon passed.

*

Adam tapped on the glass. Ronan rolled down the Pig’s window.

“Yeah?” he grunted.

“Forgot to tell you,” Adam said. His hair was still damp and plastered to either side of his head. His expression was serious- it always was- but his blue eyes were bright. “I finished the Beemer last night. Boyd wants to look everything over, and then you can come pick her up tomorrow afternoon.”

“About damn time,” Ronan said.

*

For the first time in six months, Ronan slept through the night. 

A 

Adam biked to Boyd’s. He drank a cup of coffee. He watered his plants. He filed paperwork. He double-checked the paint job on the BMW. Filed receipts. Drank another cup of coffee. Greeted customers. It was his usual routine, and yet there was something different about it, too.

Life, for Adam, was a riptide that dragged him under when he least expected it. It was an opposing force, a foe to be conquered and beat into submission. Adam had learned young: to struggle was to stay abreast of the next wave.

Today, however, he was free from the usual, relentless weight of living. He sensed the weight trailing behind him, but today it could not touch him.

Adam wondered if this was what happiness felt like.

At two o’clock, the orange Camaro pulled into Boyd’s. Adam waved the car to the far end of the lot, where the BMW was waiting expectantly in the blazing Virginia sun.

He exchanged fist bumps with Gansey and Noah as Ronan stalked over to the BMW and swung open the driver’s door. Ronan's brow was furrowed, his expression vaguely unpleasant but largely unreadable. He raised his hand and Adam tossed him the keys.

“Let me know how she runs,” Adam said.

Noah opened the other door to the Beemer and was clambering inside when Ronan said sharply: “No. Get out.”

“Fine,” Noah sulked, slamming the door. Ronan settled himself slowly, almost reverently, inside the car and closed the door. A moment later, the engine revved and the car peeled out of the lot with a screech of tires, the scent of burnt rubber heavy in its wake. 

“Well,” Gansey said. “That might be the last we see of him for awhile.”

“Being honest, it’s not the car I would have picked out for him,” Adam said conversationally.

“Yeah, but it was his dad’s, and his dad was killed last year,” Noah explained brashly. “So it’s really important to him.”

The image of a hunched, defeated figure in the passenger seat of the BMW flashed across Adam’s mind as he digested this particularly grim bit of information.

“Noah,” Gansey said warningly. “That’s Ronan’s business.”

“What?” Noah protested. “Adam could look it up if he wanted to, it was in the news. And it’s not like Ronan’s ever gonna talk about it so how is he supposed to know?”

“Do you have a car?” Adam asked Noah, sidetracking him.

“Yep,” Noah said, settling himself cross-legged on the Camaro’s hood. “Can’t drive it, though. Failed my driving test four times. Doc says it’s PTSD.” He waved his hand in the general direction of his face, and Adam realized he was gesturing to the large, discolored patch of skin on his cheek.

“Car accident when I was sixteen,” Noah explained. “My best friend died.”

“I’m- sorry,” Adam said, a bit unsure how to react in the face of Noah's matter-of-factness.

“It’s fine,” Noah assured him. “Gansey can tell you the whole sob story, if you really wanna know. I gotta pee.”

“Gansey,” Adam said carefully, once Noah was out of earshot. “How old is Noah?”

Gansey was silent for a long moment. "Almost eighteen," he said, finally. "A careless driver ran a red light. His friend died on impact. Noah almost died, himself."

“That’s terrible,” Adam said, aghast.

“Yes,” Gansey agreed, his voice pained. “He was in a coma for six months, then physical rehab. Of course, this was all before we met him. He had the option of private tutoring, but he wanted to go back to Aglionby. It helps he looks so young, most people in our year don’t even know he’s older. The administration has been very accommodating.”

Gansey frowned, lost in thought, and it occurred to Adam for the first time that Gansey might know something about the weight of life, too. Adam cast about for a change in topic.

“Did you want me to look at the brakes?”

“Oh!” Gansey’s expression cleared immediately and was replaced with conspiratorial excitement. “Yes, please. And then explain how to replace them-” 

“-so you can do it yourself, next time,” Adam finished for him.

“Naturally.”

The Pig did, in fact, need new brake pads. Gansey didn’t blink at the cost, merely handed Adam his credit card when Adam brought over the clipboard and forms for Gansey to sign. Resentment prickled, but Adam refused to acknowledge it. Not today.

While Adam worked, Noah joined them and they discussed Gansey and Noah’s respective families (Gansey’s mother was a politician, Noah’s father a CEO) and their plans for the remainder of the summer (Noah had summer school and Gansey’s family was vacationing to Fiji- though he didn’t want to join them: “We’ve already been twice, and, frankly, a beach is a beach, you know?” Adam, who had never been to the beach in his life, busied himself with the brake pads.)

The conversation turned to life after Aglionby.

“I hope to study history,” Gansey said, though the way he said it sounded like a confession. “My mom would prefer I go into politics.”

“If I’m not famous by the time I’m twenty, I don’t know what I’ll do,” Noah said, tapping away at his cell phone.

“What on earth do you plan to be famous for?” Gansey asked.

“Rock star. Model. Actor. Like David Bowie.”

“What instruments do you play?” Adam asked. He could not imagine Noah sitting still long enough to learn piano or guitar. Maybe he sang.

“None. You’re worse than Ronan! I’ll figure it out,” Noah said, waving his hand dismissively. “I’ve got the look down, that’s what matters. I already have a following on Instagram.”

Gansey and Adam exchanged looks- Gansey’s exasperated, Adam’s politely blank- as Adam slid back under the car.

“What about you?” Gansey asked Adam. Adam remained silent, focusing on the underbelly of the car above him. Noticing the grease on his hands. He hoped the conversation would have moved on by the time he re-emerged, but Gansey was still waiting expectantly, seated on the blue plastic chair Adam had brought out for him, one boat-shoed foot propped on his opposite knee. “I was saying, what do you want to do, Adam?”

“I hope to go to college,” Adam said carefully. Neither Gansey nor Noah seemed to have a particularly strong opinion of those words. But then again, they were not Adam’s parents.

“Which one?” Gansey asked.

“Any of them.” Except for the community college. He would not stay in Henrietta, Virigina for a single second longer than he had to.

Two years. He just had to make it two more years.

“Come now, you must have a short list. You would do well at Harvard, I think. Obviously I haven’t seen your grades, but I can tell you’ve got an academic mind. Helen went to Princeton- it’s still a point of contention for her and my parents, especially my dad. He went to Penn,” Gansey explained, as though this information should mean something to Adam. “Anyway, she thought Princeton’s academics were rigorous enough, but I would still consider Harvard first before I’d think about anywhere else.”

Adam stared at Gansey, heat rising to his face. Harvard. As if Adam had the money to even apply to Harvard, much less attend. Was Gansey that removed from reality? Did he not see Adam for who he was- dressed in dirty coveralls, face smeared with grease, accent so profoundly second-class he couldn’t hope to eradicate it no matter hard he tried?

But Gansey did not seem to notice Adam’s disbelief. “Of course, if you don’t know what you want to study yet, it’s best to keep your options open, that’s what my mom keeps saying.” Gansey rolled his eyes. “She’s just worried I’ll go to Brown. Still, anything’s better than Cornell.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed, voice flat. “Anything but Cornell." 

“Mmm,” Gansey hummed in agreement.

Adam was saved from furthering the wretched conversation when a very familiar charcoal BMW pulled recklessly into the lot.

“Watch it, asshole!” one of Adam’s coworkers shouted. Ronan flipped off the entire garage.

“We doin’ Nino’s, or what?” he demanded as he exited the car. Adam pushed himself to a sitting position and watched the lanky teen approach.

“Yes, thank God,” Noah said immediately. “I’m starving. When do you get off, Adam?”

“Half an hour ago. I have to work tonight though. At the factory.”

“At least let us bring you back a slice,” Gansey said.

“No,” Adam said, as politely as he could manage. “Thank you.”

Ronan twirled the keys in his hands, considering Adam, his expression unreadable. Then he offered his hand and pulled the mechanic to his feet.

*

Adam settled into the BMW.

Accepting a ride to the factory from Ronan had not felt as degrading as accepting a ride (or anything else) from Gansey. Maybe because Adam felt like Ronan owed him, in a way, for fixing the BMW. And because of how inconvenienced Ronan acted about it, even though the taller boy had been the one to suggest giving the ride in the first place.

“What kind of music do you want.”

Adam knew it was a question, although Ronan spat it like a statement that had somehow offended him.

“I don’t really care."

“Bet you like shitty music. Coldplay. Dave Matthews Band.”

“What’s wrong with Coldplay?”

“They’re soft,” Ronan said derisively. His eyes lit up. “You ever heard the Murder Squash song?”

“No,” Adam said. “But it does not sound like a song I would particularly like.”

He was right. He did not like the Murder Squash song. Not the first time Ronan played it, during which Adam grimaced but suffered in silence. And certainly not the second time around, where Adam made it clear he was considering throwing himself from the moving vehicle.

“For the love of God- what, that’s not taking His name in vain, Ronan, I’m sure the creator of the universe is on my side here- turn it off before my ears bleed.”

Ronan started the song a third time. Adam grabbed the music player from Ronan’s hand and frantically jabbed at the pause button. He was planning to find a Coldplay song but Ronan, clearly sensing an act of retribution, immediately snatched the player back.

Ronan was a reckless, terrifying driver- he weaved in and out of traffic, breezed through stop signs and blasted horrendous, electronic music that Adam felt thudding in his very bones. But he was also an incredibly focused driver, and for that, Adam felt some measure of relief.

Adam leaned forward and turned the music down. “Gansey told me about Noah,” he said, after a moment.

Ronan shrugged. “Shit happens.”

“It’s just- Noah seems so happy.”

“Because he’s an idiot,” Ronan said definitively as he turned the music back up.

They did not need to take back roads to reach the factory. The highway- clogged with traffic at this hour- was the most direct route. But Adam didn’t comment when Ronan crossed three lanes prematurely and careened around the curve of the off-ramp with the intensity and speed of a race car driver. 

They reached a long, straight road- stalks of corn stood sentinel on either side- and Ronan pressed his foot to the floor. With a roar of the engine, the BMW flew. Adam’s heart pounded in rhythm to the music as the speed of the car rattled his teeth together. He could not speak- he was petrified, because they were going to crash, and this is how he would die, and God what a stupid way to die. 

He risked a glance at Ronan.

The sharp teen was transformed. His expression was nothing short of joyous, eyes glittering in concentration. Adam closed his own eyes and prayed for survival.

Ronan was forced to slow as the road curved, and the BMW returned to speeds that were only moderately over the speed limit. When Adam could speak again, he aimed for casual when he said, “I take it she’s running all right, then.”

“Like a dream.” Ronan’s crooked grin was sharp but true as he glanced at Adam.

The weightless feeling- happiness, Adam remembered this feeling had a name- returned in full force.

*

K

party at swans tonite. 421 e elmore

*

got a hookup on xans if ur running low

* 

street race at the lot tmrw

*

u coming to the race tonite

ur missign quite a p arty  

*

missed u last night lynch

u coming to the 4^th next week or what

*

r u comin to the 4^th

dont leave me hanging lynch

*

About a week after returning Lynch’s phone, Kavinsky cruised by the garage where he remembered the BMW was being fixed. He slowed to a crawl, hunting for charcoal grey amongst the dull reds and blues of beat-up sedans and minivans.

He didn’t spot Lynch’s ride, but one of the Boyd’s employees caught his attention. Kavinsky stopped the Evo completely. 

The teenager- some white trash local, by the looks of it- was kneeling, inspecting the side of a pickup truck and scribbling on a clipboard. It took Kavinsky a minute to place the brown-haired teen, and when he did, the realization rankled. 

Why the hell had Lynch been hanging out with his fucking mechanic at Nino’s? Possible explanations whispered in the back of the teenager’s mind as Kavinsky lit a cigarette, watching the other teen with new interest.

The mechanic turned and did a double-take at the sight of the white Mitsubishi idling ten yards away. Kavinsky rolled down his window so the other boy would have no doubts as to who the owner was. Lazily, Kavinsky raised his hand in the shape of a gun and pointed at the other teenager.

Bang, he mouthed as he slowly pulled away from the curb. He tapped a quick text to Lynch:

u coming to the 4th?

He didn’t get a response, of course, which pissed him off more than he could say. But it was fine. It was all fine. Once Lynch had his car back, he’d be back on the streets, Kavinsky was sure of it.

And then things would go back to the way they used to be.

Chapter Text

A

Monmouth Manufacturing was an industrial warehouse on the outskirts of Henrietta, and it was somehow the perfect place for Gansey, Ronan and Noah to inhabit. Nothing quite made sense. The cavernous living room (which also doubled as Gansey’s bedroom) was a smorgasbord of old bookcases, miniature cardboard towns and dirty laundry. The fridge was in the bathroom. Ronan’s door was wallpapered with speeding tickets. Noah’s room didn’t have a door at all.

The first time Adam had visited, he’d been in awe. He didn’t know any other teens who lived on their own, and the place had felt like a paradise. Now that he’d been a few times, the novelty had worn off. 

The feeling of longing had not.

“We attached a shopping cart to the back of the BMW and built a ramp,” Noah said one morning, skateboarding alongside Adam’s bike as they coasted across cracked pavement to the entryway. Today, Noah wore a yellow baseball cap backwards and a bright green tank top that said FIRST LEMME TAKE A SELFIE. 

“Sounds dangerous.” 

Chainsaw circled above, cawing in welcome. She had grown considerably in the few weeks Adam had known her and Adam was more terrified than ever of her long claws and razor-sharp beak.

“Wanna give it a try?” Noah asked. 

“Maybe later,” Adam said noncommittally.

“Cool. Just don’t tell Gansey.”

Adam leaned his bike against the wall and entered the cavernous warehouse. Dust swirled in the rays of sunlight that poured in from high windows on every side. Gansey was in the center of the room, carefully wrapping a thick, leather-bound journal in a polo shirt and laying it gently inside a suitcase. He looked around as Adam entered and nodded in welcome.

“Are you going somewhere?” Adam asked. 

“My grandmother passed away last night,” Gansey said solemnly. “I suppose I don’t have to technically leave until tomorrow, but- family, you know.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. It’s honestly all right.” Gansey said. His furrowed brow and beleaguered expression belied his words, however. “I invited Ronan, but he doesn’t want to be anywhere near a funeral. Can’t say I blame him, of course.”

“You’re worried about Ronan?”

“I’m always worried about Ronan.”

“I’m sure he’ll manage to feed himself for a few days.” Adam was joking, but Gansey just shook his head, worrying his bottom lip between perfectly straight teeth.

“Listen, Adam- I know it’s a lot to ask, but you and Noah are the only other friends he has, and Noah’s not really-“ Gansey cut himself off, tried again. “Could you… would you keep an eye on Ronan while I’m gone? It’s the first time I’ll be away since… since before.”

Adam raised a pale eyebrow, incredulous. “Gansey, you may as well ask me to babysit a natural disaster. He doesn’t listen to me.”

“I know,” Gansey said, his tone pleading. “He doesn’t listen to anyone. Just… call me if he disappears, or lands himself in the hospital. That’s all." 

“He isn’t your responsibility, you know.”

“He doesn’t have anyone else.”

Neither do I. Adam pushed the maudlin thought away.

“All right, then.”

Gansey flashed a relieved grin- a real smile, not the fake, politician one he used on waitresses at Nino’s and clerks at convenience stores. It was the boyish, slightly uneven grin he reserved specifically for clever history jokes, close friends and, apparently, mechanics. “Thanks, Adam.”

“Don’t mention it.”

*

Adam had sworn he would never again accept a ride from Ronan Lynch. And yet there he was, seated in the passenger seat of the BMW for the third time in a week. Perhaps Ronan’s disregard for his own life was starting to rub off. 

Gansey had been gone over 24 hours, and there was still no word on when he planned to return. Adam wondered if Ronan felt the lack as keenly as Adam himself did. At the moment, they were headed to Monmouth Manufacturing, where Adam supposed they would test out the shopping cart ramp or play video games until Adam needed to be home. 

“Czerny’s in a shitty mood,” Ronan warned Adam as he directed the BMW onto the industrial street.

“What’s wrong?” Adam asked.

“He won’t leave his room.”

“That’s not like him.”

“That’s why I just said he’s in a shitty fucking mood, Parrish.”

“He’s clearly not the only one.”

Ronan flipped Adam off in such a lazy, routine manner that Adam had to laugh. Ronan didn’t smile, but it looked like it might have been a near thing.

They pulled up to Monmouth and Adam almost stepped on a pile of smashed plastic and electronics as he exited the car.

“What happened here?”

“We threw it out Czerny’s window after he blew up his lava lamp in there.”

“That was a perfectly good microwave.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

The pair traipsed inside and Adam set about rummaging through the copious Nino’s leftovers in the bathroom. No point in letting good food go to waste. He paused, realization dawning.

“How am I supposed to heat anything up?” he asked, annoyed. There was no answer, so he exited the bathroom, ready to deliver a Gansey-worthy lecture on the importance of thinking ahead.

He stopped suddenly at the sight of Noah hunched over on the couch. The blond boy’s knees were drawn to his chest and his head was tucked behind his arms. He looked up at Adam, his expression bleak, miserable and oddly child-like, before burying his head in his arms once again.

Ronan was also staring at Noah, arms crossed. He looked to Adam and shrugged- I told you so- before disappearing into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him. Typical, Adam thought bitterly.

Adam approached Noah and hovered uncertainly besides the couch. 

“Hi, Adam.” Noah’s voice was muffled behind his arms.

“Hello. Can I sit down?”

Noah lifted one shoulder minutely, which Adam took for a “yes”. He sat, carefully considering his words. What would Gansey say?

“What’s- um. Are you… all right?” Probably something a bit more eloquent than that.

“Fine.”

“All right. Well, if it’s something Ronan did-“

“It’s not Ronan.”

“Oh. Well, then…”

“You’re really bad at this,” Noah informed Adam, resurfacing from behind his arms and settling his chin on his knees.

Adam grimaced apologetically. “Sorry.”

“It’s cool. At least you’re trying. Unlike someone else I know.” Noah frowned at Ronan’s closed door, then sighed deeply. “Probably for the best. Ronan’s not very good with words.”

“No,” Adam agreed. They fell silent, Noah still staring at Ronan’s closed door, Adam studying his folded hands.

“It’s the anniversary of the accident,” Noah said.

“The car accident? The one you mentioned the other day?”

Noah nodded, head bobbing. "Barry was almost seventeen. We were gonna throw a big party."

Adam was, again, at a loss. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

Ronan’s bedroom door opened with a bang and Ronan emerged with the biggest shit-eating grin Adam had ever seen. He was holding several large, colorful tubes, and it took Adam a moment realize they were fireworks.

“I was saving these for a special occasion, but fuck it. Wanna go blow some shit up?”

The corner of Noah’s mouth quirked up.

“I guess.”

“You in, Parrish?”

Adam eyed the explosives wearily, feeling a newfound respect for Gansey, whose role of being the voice of reason had never seemed quite so difficult until Adam was the one inhabiting it.

“Well, someone needs to make sure neither of you lose a finger.”

*

“Stop sign,” Adam pointed out.

Rather than slowing, Ronan leaned on the horn and blasted through the empty intersection a moment later. Adam closed his eyes. It was better not to look. He had just survived two hours of Ronan and Noah’s pyromania- he could survive a fifteen minute car ride home, even if it was Ronan who was driving.

A buzzing noise caught his attention, and it took him a moment to locate its source. He pulled Ronan’s scratched silver flip phone from the seat pocket next to him and peered at the square caller ID screen on the front. 

“Matthew’s calling,” he informed Ronan. “Your younger brother, right?" 

Ronan held out his hand and Adam turned the vibrating phone over. Ronan flicked it open and brought it to his ear.

“Yeah?” Ronan asked, his voice as soft and inoffensive as Adam had ever heard it.

Almost immediately, Ronan’s features hardened and his hand twisted on the steering wheel, knuckles popping. The BMW jumped forward in speed.

“Declan, I swear to fucking Saint Peter-“ He was silent for a long moment, eyes narrowed.

Then, he abruptly snapped the phone shut and yanked on the steering wheel, making a wide, illegal K-turn in the middle of the road. 

“Can I ask where we’re going?”

Ronan’s expression hadn’t changed, but there was tension in the way his jaw muscle oscillated ever-so-slightly as he ground his teeth. He did not answer Adam, merely glanced in the side mirror before changing lanes to pass a slower car on the winding country road.

Twenty minutes later, the BMW turned into what looked like a hotel parking lot. An enormous, stately brick building with white trim towered above them, silhouetted against the setting sun. Adam craned his neck to catch the words on a marble sign out front- Hillcrest Assisted Living- as Ronan flew into the lot, parked diagonally across two spaces and threw the gear shaft into park. 

“Should I-?“

“I don’t care what you do, Parrish,” Ronan snapped, yanking the keys from the ignition and exiting the car.

Bewildered, Adam followed Ronan inside the brick building. A young woman sat behind a counter in the entryway. Adam didn’t catch the words Ronan growled at her, but she didn’t look particularly affronted by Ronan’s appearance or rudeness, so Adam thought this was probably not their first introduction.

Ronan jabbed at an elevator button to their right and the pair stood in silence until an elevator dinged its arrival. On the third floor, the doors opened to reveal a brightly lit, crème-colored hallway with green carpets. It very much looked like a hotel- a nicer one than Adam had ever been in, to be sure, but he’d seen movies- and Adam wondered who they were visiting, and how long they would be staying, and if he should have insisted that Ronan drive him home first.

Ronan stalked down the hallway, long legs eating up space at an impossible speed, and turned a corner. Adam trailed behind as the taller teen disappeared into “Room 307” without a backwards glance. Adam cautiously caught the door before it fully closed.

The living room beyond was one of the nicest he had ever been in. A large leather couch and matching chairs surrounded a gas fireplace and big screen TV. Generic pottery adorned the mantle place. Beyond, Adam glimpsed a kitchen area, where two people were seated at a kitchen table, coffee mugs in front of them.

One of them, a young man wearing a collared shirt and tie, stood. “Ronan-“ he started, his voice warning. 

“How long?” Ronan demanded, his face red and splotchy with anger. With a jolt, Adam realized Ronan was shaking, his fists twitching at his side.

The young man crossed his arms and widened his stance. His hair was dark and neatly parted, his features sharp and strong, much like Ronan's. Adam's first thought was that the other boy's presence paralleled Gansey's own unique, effortless regality; this was someone of wealth and power. But he could not imagine Gansey looking down on anyone quite so coldly or dispassionately. Adam surmised this must be Declan Lynch, Ronan's older brother.

“Jesus Christ, Ronan, calm down. See, this is why I didn’t call you sooner.”

Ronan started forward. The third person- a blond boy of about fourteen- jumped to his feet and raised a placating hand.

“Don’t fight,” Matthew Lynch implored his brothers earnestly. The youngest Lynch was a surprise to Adam. Blond curls framed a sweet, round face and light blue eyes. Matthew was tall, like Ronan, but where Ronan was lean and angular, Matthew was broad and sturdy.

Ronan’s eyes were practically glittering with malice as he glared at his older brother, but he halted at Matthew’s command. Declan’s attention moved to Adam.

“Who is that? What’s he doing here?” he demanded.

Ronan abruptly turned on his heel, pushing open an oak-paneled door to enter what Adam presumed was a bedroom.

“I’m a friend,” Adam said, and was surprised how much he meant it.

“Ronan doesn’t have friends,” Declan responded dismissively, eying the grease stains on Adam’s jeans. 

“Apparently he does,” Adam replied evenly, at the same time that Matthew said, “You know that’s not true, Declan.”

“Someone tell me what the fuck is going on with her.” Ronan had reappeared in the doorway. 

“Doctor Evanston don’t know,” Matthew replied in hushed, worried tones. “They told us she hasn’t moved since last night.”

“Her eyes are open.”

“She’s awake,” Declan started, but fell silent at the venomous glare Ronan leveled his way.

“It’s some kind of episode,” Matthew said. “Would you talk to her Ronan? That seemed to help last time.”

Ronan’s glare lessened in severity as he looked to Matthew. He nodded shortly and disappeared once again into the room.

Declan sat at the kitchen table and picked up his cup of coffee, doggedly ignoring Adam and his brother. Matthew approached the bedroom doorway and stopped just outside it. Adam was considering leaving when the younger boy looked over and offered a small smile. 

“Sorry everything’s so crazy,” he whispered. “Is this your first time visiting?”

Adam nodded, but the youngest Lynch brother was already looking back inside the room, wringing his hands fretfully and looking so forlorn that Adam felt to leave would be nothing short of abandonment. He crossed the living room to join Matthew.

The bedroom was neat and impersonal: a queen-sized bed, wooden dresser, floor-to-ceiling windows. A tray of food rested untouched on the bedside table. The drapes were drawn and it took a moment for Adam’s eyes to adjust to the semi-dark.

A frail, petite woman was seated on the edge of the bed, her back to the doorway. Limp blond hair was pulled back in a loose bun atop her head. She did not move as Ronan approached and slowly sat besides her, the bed dipping slightly beneath his weight.

“Mom. Snap out of it. Mom.”

The woman- Ronan’s mother- did not move so much as a muscle. Ronan raised his hand, perhaps to touch her shoulder, but let it fall limply to his side almost immediately.

“Mom.” Ronan’s voice was low and even, but Adam heard something else- anger, perhaps- simmering just below the surface. Still, the woman did not respond.

“Aurora.” Ronan said it firmly, his voice deepening authoritatively. Something in the way he pronounced her name- how the R’s rolled off his tongue, how the word lilted up at the end- was foreign to Adam. 

The woman turned her head.

In profile, Adam realized Aurora Lynch was not as old as he’d first assumed. Her eyes were glassy and wide, and loose tendrils of hair framed a round, pretty face. It was immediately clear where Matthew had gotten his angelic looks.

Ronan reached around her and grabbed the tray of food.

“You need to eat.”

Aurora- Ronan’s mother- raised her hand and cupped Ronan’s check. Ronan froze, jaw working. For a long moment, her eyes roamed Ronan’s face, her expression at once both lost and wondering.

“Niall?” she asked faintly. Then, again, in desperation: “Niall?”

Ronan’s head jerked back, out of his mother’s grasp. “Dad’s dead,” he said harshly. Beside Adam, Matthew’s breath hitched.

Aurora’s hand fell to Ronan’s chest, where she clutched at his shirt, as though to keep him in place. A wedding ring glittered on her finger. For a long moment, the only movement was her clenched hand, rising and falling with her son’s labored breathing.

“Ronan,” she said finally, her voice breaking. “Ronan, I’m so sorry.”

“Matthew. Help me here,” Ronan said brusquely.

Matthew scurried inside and dutifully took the food tray from Ronan as Aurora buried her tearful face in both hands, rocking forward, where Ronan caught her head and held it to his chest. Ronan's features were carved from stone as his mother wept.

Adam had seen enough. He felt unmoored, his heart heavy with a grief that was not his own. He turned away from the doorway. 

Declan was still seated at the kitchen table with his hand wrapped around the mug, staring resolutely in the other direction.

Adam left.

* 

Adam must have dozed off in the BMW because he found himself startled awake some time later by the sound of angry shouts right outside. He felt a stab of panic as he exited the vehicle, both at the tone of the voices and at the lateness of the hour.

In front of the BMW, Ronan landed a vicious punch to Declan’s jaw. Declan stumbled backwards but came back swinging (and missing, then swinging again) to land a solid hit directly to Ronan’s right eye. 

“Fuck you Declan-“

Adam did not know how long the fight would have gone on if Matthew had not exited the brick building at that exact moment, dashing to the parking lot and waving his arms in panic when he saw his older brothers. 

“Don’t fight! Come on Ronan, stop this,” Matthew pleaded, lumbering to a stop a few feet from where Ronan had his arm wrapped constrictively around his older brother’s neck. “Things are bad enough already.”

“Don’t call me on Matthew’s phone again, you fucking coward,” Ronan spat, shoving Declan from him.

Declan spun around, panting angrily. “Not like I have a choice Ronan, you never answer your fucking phone.” He brought a hand to his reddening jaw, as if to assess the size of the bruise forming. “I have my internship tomorrow,” he ground out. 

“Tragedy,” Ronan seethed. To Matthew: “See you Sunday.”

“Bye, Ronan.”

Ronan turned from his brothers, hostile gaze landing on Adam. Blood dripped from a cut above his eyebrow. He yanked open the driver's side door and threw himself inside and Adam followed suit, though with considerably less aggression.

The ride back to Henrietta was silent but for the roar of the BMW’s engine. Outside, dusk darkened to night as Adam stared out the window unseeingly.

To discuss what Adam had witnessed with anyone else would have been difficult. To discuss it with Ronan would have been impossible, for two reasons. The first was that Ronan’s preferred method of communication was nonverbal. And the second was that Adam, for whom personal details were sacred, felt no desire to pry any more than he already had.

Still, he felt the weight of what he’d seen. He wondered if that had been part of Ronan’s purpose in allowing Adam admittance to his mother’s apartment: to share the burden, if only a little.

Or maybe not. Adam didn’t understand why Ronan did half the things that he did, and he wasn’t sure if Ronan did, either.

He glanced at his watch. God, it was late. He really needed to be home.

The stoplight ahead turned red and Ronan reluctantly eased off the gas, then slammed on the brakes. All was silent for a moment. Then, the car next to them revved its engine loudly. The back of Adam’s neck prickled.

Apprehension coiled in his stomach as he recognized the white car next to him as a Mitsubishi Evo- the same Evo that had crawled past Boyd’s a few days prior. The Mitsubishi’s engine revved again, and the car’s grating electronic music grew louder as the driver’s tinted window lowered. 

Kavinsky’s eyes, hollow and seemingly too-large for his face, met Adam’s. The teen sneered, naked hatred engulfing his expression. He raised his hand in the shape of a gun and aimed his pointer finger at Adam’s head. Pulled the invisible trigger.

Adam’s blood chilled. 

“Get out, Parrish,” Ronan said, voice low and dangerous.

“What?” Adam asked, thrown.

“Get out of the car,” Ronan said through gritted teeth. “You’ve got five seconds.”

“I need to get home.”

“Get. The fuck. Out.”

Adam frowned, unease bleeding into anger as he reluctantly unbuckled his seatbelt. Ronan’s knuckles shone bright on the steering wheel and there was a furious set to his jaw that remind Adam of the Ronan he’d first met, all those weeks ago- the Ronan that Adam had forgotten about. The version Adam didn’t recognize anymore.

Adam climbed from the car. The moment he shut the door, the light turned green, and the Mitsu and the BMW roared away on either side of him with a deafening squeal of tires. Adam jumped, heart thudding uncomfortably fast in his chest.

The twin set of tail lights quickly turned to pin pricks in the distance, then faded altogether, and Adam was left standing in the center of the back country road, alone and with no way home.

K

Kavinsky was on top of the world, and it wasn’t due only to the lines he’d snorted off the Evo’s dashboard with a rolled up fifty earlier that evening.

It had been too long since he’d seen the long nose of Lynch’s BMW crawling the streets of Henrietta, and seeing the car- on Sycamore, no less, the best road for street racing in town- had felt fortuitous. About damn time Lynch returned to the streets. And right before the 4^th of July, too. 

He switched gears, giving the Evo another impossible burst. Next to him, the BMW shot forward as well, keeping pace. Adrenaline pounded in Kavinsky’s veins. Ahead, a traffic light loomed. This was the best part about racing on Sycamore: If he timed it right, he could make it through the second intersection and into the elementary school parking lot beyond before the opposing light turned green. Ahead, the light turned yellow. Kavinsky didn’t slow. Neither did the BMW.

The light turned red just as he blasted through the intersection, the sound of car horns trailing behind him. He slammed on the brakes and downshifted, spinning out in a beautiful 180 before coming to a stop, the smell of burnt rubber filling the car. He glanced out the window. Lynch had spun out as well, twenty yards to his left. Kavinsky relished the adrenaline flooding his veins for a moment before he exited.

“Can it be?” He called out, searching his pockets for a lighter and the remainder of a spliff he’d rolled earlier. “Lynch is back on the streets? Someone call the cops.” He lit up, marveling at the slight shake of his hands.

Lynch shot from his car, pissed off about something, and- yeah, Kavinsky was familiar with this old song and dance.

“You forget how to drive or something, Lynch? That was me going easy on you, goddamn. How’s your mom, by the way? Last I saw her- last night, obviously- she was still batshit, but- hey, like mother, like son.”

He was laughing as Lynch approached, jumpy and breathing like a wounded animal. Kavinsky exhaled, smoke billowing from his mouth and nostrils, and offered up the rest of the joint as a peace offering. In one fluid motion, Ronan snatched the joint, threw it to the ground and punched Kavinsky in the face.

Kavinsky fell back against the Evo as Lynch landed another series of punches- one, two- to the shorter teen’s gut. Kavinsky doubled over, wheezing with laughter. Then, he shot forward like a bullet, ramming his shoulder into Lynch’s solar plexus and throwing the taller teen off his center of gravity, laying him out flat. Lynch’s head crashed into the pavement, hard- and damn, that must have hurt- but Lynch didn’t seem to notice as he lashed out, arms swinging wildly as Kavinsky struggled to get a decent choke hold. 

Lynch kneed Kavinsky off him and stumbled to his feet, fists at the ready, waiting for Kavinsky to get up for round two.

Lynch could be funny like that, Kavinsky mused. Wouldn’t push his advantage in an unfair fight. Wouldn’t kick a man while he was down. If their positions were reversed, and Kavinsky was the one standing- he’d have gone in for the K.O.

Kavinsky slowly rolled to his knees and grinned up at the taller teen, tasting blood.

“I missed this, Lynch,” he crowed. “Forgot how easy you are to rile up.”

“Forgot you can’t fight for shit,” Ronan snarled. “Get up.”

Kavinsky straightened, still grinning, but instead of approaching Lynch, he stood, popped open the trunk of the Evo and pulled out a six-pack of beer cans. He shook his head, making a show of contrition.

“You know, man. I shouldn’t have said that about your mom. That was way out of line. Speaking of…” He plucked a square, plastic baggie from his pocket and shook it in Lynch’s direction, eyebrows raised. 

Lynch followed the other teen’s every movement through narrowed eyes, fists still raised. Kavinsky tensed, waiting. 

When the other teen didn’t start swinging, he sang out, “Don’t make me drink these alone!” and slammed the trunk shut, setting the six-pack safely on top.

Lynch slowly lowered his hands. “No, man,” he growled. “This-“ he jutted his chin at Kavinsky, the cars- “was a mistake. I told you, we’re done. Quit texting me. Just leave me the fuck alone.”

And Kavinsky couldn’t quite believe his eyes as Ronan Niall Lynch walked away from a fight.

R

Ronan drove recklessly- mindlessly- for ages, only stopping after the gas needle had been resting on empty for some indeterminate amount of time. He pulled off the highway. He didn't recognize the name of the town on the exit sign- was he even still in Virginia? Did it matter?

He pulled up next to a gas pump and killed the engine. The furious fog that filled his mind was slowly lifting, leaving him exhausted. 

"Get. The fuck. Out." 

In the moment, he hadn't wanted Parrish anywhere near him. The other boy knew too much about Ronan already, and Ronan had been losing his tenuous grip on his anger, his sanity. If Adam had seen who Ronan became when he was around Kavinsky- then Adam would know Ronan for who he really was. And Ronan couldn't face that. 

And yet. Ronan hadn't stayed with K. He felt a grim sort of pride that immediately twisted in his gut as the image of Adam- standing in the center of Sycamore looking so fucking betrayed- flashed across the forefront of his mind. Ronan punched the rim of the steering wheel and got out of the car.

He filled the BMW's tank and sped back in the direction of Henrietta. He flew down Sycamore and followed the route back to Adam's trailer park, but there was no sign of the other boy. 

Defeated, he returned to Monmouth.

Noah was passed out on the couch, controller in hand, the GTA home screen displayed brightly on the TV in front of him. Ronan grabbed Gansey’s blanket off his bed and tossed it roughly over the sleeping teen, not bothering to keep quiet. Noah always slept like the dead.

Ronan fed Chainsaw and crashed onto his bed, exhausted. Sleep never came.

*

It was noon before Ronan finally emerged from his room, feeling miserable. His head was pounding, despite the over-the-counter painkillers he’d popped like candy. He hadn’t bothered to change from yesterday’s clothes. All he could think about was how badly he wanted a beer, a handful of pills, something, anything-

“You look like hell,” Noah chirped. “Pancake?” The blond teen was bent over their portable stovetop (Monmouth didn’t have a kitchen) with a plastic spatula. The print on his shirt today read: BITCHIN’.

“No,” Ronan snapped. Chainsaw flew from his bedroom and found her perch, claws digging into his bare shoulder. The pinpricks of pain steadied him.

“Good call,” Noah said, prodding at the mess of pancake batter in front of him.

Ronan left. He drove. First, to the liquor mart in town- though he didn't get out of the car, just sat in the parking lot for a while, debating whether to go in- then to Nino's, where he bought a pizza he didn't intend to eat- then to Boyd's, which was bustling. He didn't catch sight of a teenaged, brown-haired employee amidst the chaos.

"Can I help you?" The female office manager appeared at Ronan's open window.

"Parrish here today?" Ronan asked, still scanning the garage. The smell of the pizza was making him nauseous. 

"Adam called in sick this morning. Your Beemer's blocking the entrance."

*

Church on Sunday was a tense, quiet affair for the Lynch brothers. It was an unspoken rule amongst the older two that fighting was admissible almost anytime, anywhere- but not on the Lord's day. Not at church, at least. For the duration of Ronan's life, St. Agnes' had been one of the few places to consistently see the entire Lynch family of five in attendance, and although that number had been whittled down to three, Ronan refused to desecrate this holy ground with violence. 

“She’s doing better,” Matthew told Ronan hopefully as they exited St. Agnes’. The sun shone brightly, searing Ronan’s eyes. “Maybe she’ll be able to come home soon.”

“I doubt it,” Ronan said. Declan shot Ronan a furious look over the top of Matthew’s head that Ronan returned with relish. If Declan had been lying to Matthew- filling his head and heart with false hope- Ronan really would kill his older brother, Lord’s day be damned.

“The doctor’s said she’s been talking more, ever since you came. We should all go visit again this afternoon." 

“No,” Ronan said, far more sharply than he meant to. His younger brother’s face fell, and Ronan felt like shit for the hundredth time that weekend. 

*

He stopped by Boyd’s again first thing on Monday.

“Adam’s still sick,” the office lady informed him, sounding exasperated. “Please get your car out of the entrance, there’s plenty of street parking."

Ronan drove to Parrish’s place next. Normally, he wouldn’t have- It was Gansey’s job to worry, but Gansey was still gone (“I hope to be back Independence Day at the latest” he’d told Ronan’s voicemail the previous evening), and Ronan was filled with an awful restlessness he couldn’t shake.

He pulled up in front of Adam’s double-wide, lip curling instinctively at the sight of the dismal place. And there was Adam, back to Ronan, watering the plants on the stoop with a cheap plastic pitcher. 

He turned at the approach of the BMW, and Ronan stopped the car. Even from fifteen feet away, he could see the dark splotches that marred Adam’s face, and Ronan knew, instinctively, the truth his mind had been shying away from- willfully ignoring- since he’d first seen bruises on Adam’s arms.

Adam carefully placed the pitcher on a concrete stair and approached the car, glancing behind himself before speaking.

“Why are you here,” he asked, his voice flat. He wasn’t bothering to clip his accent, so the Henrietta in him twanged with every word.

Up close, Adam’s injuries were terrible to behold. One eye was swollen and purple, his lip was cut, and a string of bruises circled his neck like a grotesque necklace. Unadulterated rage flooded Ronan.

“To make sure your old man didn’t kill you this time,” Ronan snapped.

Shock flashed across Adam’s face for brief moment. “He didn’t…” he faltered at Ronan’s incendiary expression and glanced behind him again. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Come on.”

The corners of Adam’s mouth turned down. “No.”

“What the fuck, Parrish. Let’s get out of here.” 

“I’m not going anywhere with you.” Adam’s voice was quiet and even, but Ronan sensed anger behind the words.

Ronan’s voice, by contrast, grew loud and heated. “Well, I’m not leaving, so hope your dad doesn’t mind I’m blocking the goddamn driveway-" 

His expression tight, Adam yanked open the passenger door and sat inside, closing the door carefully shut behind him.

“There. Are you happy?" 

Ronan threw the car in reverse and gunned the engine, kicking up a cloud of dust as he peeled away.

“What do you want, Ronan? What the hell could you possibly want with me?”

“I wanna know why you’d rather be back there, getting the shit beat out of you-“

“And why do you think that happened?” Adam cut Ronan off. “Maybe because someone left me stranded on the other end of Henreitta, and I had to walk back. Maybe because I was two hours late for dinner.”

Guilt weighed heavily in the pit of Ronan’s stomach. “Don’t pin this on me, Parrish,” he growled.

“Why shouldn’t I, Lynch?” Adam shot back.

“Because I’m not the one who fucked up your face. But, hey, maybe you like being your old man’s punching bag all the -“

“Shut up,” Adam said, voice tight with anger.

“Just didn’t peg you as a masochist.” 

“I’m not like you.”

“Then why the fuck do you stay, Parrish?”

“Well, where the hell else am I supposed to go?” Adam exploded, face and neck reddening around the purple and black.

For some reason, this rare display of emotion pissed Ronan off even more. He slammed on the brakes, and Adam’s arms flew out to brace himself against the dashboard.

“You could figure something out you if you wanted to, Parrish. But you don’t, because you’re a coward.” 

“I’m a coward?” Adam’s voice was high and incredulous. “At least I face reality instead of taking my anger out on everyone else.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“I know about your dad.” Adam crossed his arms tightly across his chest, staring straight ahead. “And it sucks, but you know what? It’s not my fault. It’s not Gansey’s. It’s not Noah’s. You storm around, treating everyone like shit, and I’m sick of it.”

Another burst of rage- black and noxious- clouded Ronan’s view. “Get out of my car,” he growled.

Adam’s bark of laugher was thin and brittle. “This feels familiar.”

“It should. No one wants you around, Parrish.” 

The words hung heavy in the air between them. Adam looked at Ronan then, something raw and vulnerable creeping into his expression, but Ronan was on a roll.

“What?” Ronan demanded. “You thought we were friends? First people in your life to treat you better than dirt and you think that means we’re friends? Fucking pathetic, man.” He leaned over and pushed open Adam’s door. “Now get the fuck out. I don’t want losers in my car.”

Adam’s expression went blank at a terrifying speed. One moment, he was staring openly- a gaping wound Ronan could barely stand to look at- and the next, he was carved from marble, though his eyes still flashed in fury.

“Don’t ever speak to me again,” Adam spat as he exited the car, slamming the door hard enough to rattle Ronan’s teeth.

In the silence that followed- a deafening, hollow, silence that made his ears ring- Ronan felt a stab of remorse. The kind of remorse that was worse than guilt. The kind that constricted one’s chest, made it difficult to breathe. The kind that took all of Ronan’s hate and fury and sadness and turned it inward, where it churned noxiously in his mind and soul.

And the reason was this:

Ronan hated liars more than anything in the world; It was the reason he couldn’t stand his own brother, why he’d stopped talking to Kavinsky.

And yet, when faced with the truth- the ugly, incontrovertible truth- Ronan had become the biggest liar of them all.

K

Kavinsky had spent weeks planning the evening’s substance party. Because it wasn’t just any substance party. It was the July Fourth substance party.

Last year’s rager had been epic. This year, it would be catastrophic. Proko had procured a shit-ton of fireworks (the good kind, the ones you were supposed to get a license to use) and Kavinsky had cut a deal with a junkyard a few towns over so that a dozen empty cars would be waiting in the fields where the party was going down.

And yet. Kavinsky could barely drag himself out of bed, much less bring himself to leave the house, despite the fact that the party would be starting in a few short hours. Everything just felt so pointless.

He drank deeply from the bottle of Jack he’d been nursing for the better part of the afternoon and pulled his handgun from his desk drawer, begrudgingly admiring it. The gun was black and compact, the cool metal a comfortable weight in his hand. He still hadn’t used it. Hadn’t found the right reason to. Lovingly, he loaded the gun: one, two, three, four, five-

“We’re done, man.”

Kavinsky’s eyes shot up, scanning the room for the owner of the voice. Lynch’s voice. But he was alone.

-six, seven, eight bullets. He slammed the cartridge home and stretched out his arm, admiring the dull light reflecting off the barrel. He squinted one eye shut and aimed at the forehead of a Playboy bunny who smirked seductively down on him from his wall.

He wondered how it would feel to point the gun in earnest, pull the trigger, end a life. He hadn’t felt anything the first time he’d killed someone, but that had been different. Hadn’t been violent enough. Hadn’t been up close, or personal. A gun, though- that would be loud, and violent, and most importantly, real. 

Because nothing was real, anymore. Nothing could hold his attention. His life had become an endless cycle of boring people and boring sex and boring music and boring cars. Fuck them all. He just wanted something interesting to happen. Was that too much to ask for? It was. It always would be.

In a rush of despair, Kavinsky raised the gun to his head, jammed the cold metal to his temple, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. The trigger did not compress. He whipped the gun in front of him, trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong with the piece of shit. If his dealer had sold him a fake, Kavinsky would skip the gun and beat the guido to death with his bare hands.

It took Kavinsky about a minute to realize the gun’s safety was on, but by the time he’d found the little lever and flipped it, the urge to off himself had passed. Some other time. 

He tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans and made a row of neat lines with the powder he’d set aside for his personal stash. He rolled a twenty and leaned forward to inhale, quick and practiced, four times.

Like a car crash, adrenaline flooded his veins, and the world and its infinite possibilities opened before the teenager. He rubbed his nose and chuckled at himself. How had he wanted to kill himself, just minutes before? Especially before July Fourth? He really was losing it.

He grabbed his cell phone. Lynch should be at the party. Kavinsky would even let him torch the first car, that would make Lynch happy. Remind Lynch where he belonged. Remind Lynch what he and Kavinsky were. What they were to each other. Maybe they’d race tonight. Maybe they’d do more than race.

Kavinsky sent a text: 

see you at the 4^th

And, miracle of miracles, Kavinsky’s phone pinged with Lynch’s response almost immediately:

no you wont. stop texting me

Kavinsky’s elation crashed, twisted into something dark in his gut. He tried to drudge up amusement at the fact that he’d finally, finally, pissed off Lynch enough to warrant a response. But what the fuck? What was Lynch’s problem? Kavinsky grabbed his car keys. 

Time to hit the streets.

* 

Kavinsky cruised through Henrietta, taking the long way to the fields where the July 4^th party was already underway. Texts from the gang poured in:

Where the fuck are you??

you got the shit? Ppl are ready to party K

holy shit that rebecca girl just bitch slapped some girl from west hanover hahahhah

DUDE YOU ARE MISSING THE PARTY

Kavinsky turned up his music, heavy bass drowning out the endless pings and phone calls. They could wait. He had shit to do. He didn’t exist to come at their beck and call.

His plan wasn’t one he was fully conscious of, and it wasn’t really a plan. More of a whisper of an idea. It probably wouldn’t work. But it would be hilarious if it did, he thought savagely.

As dusk settled and the smell of barbeque wafted through the air, Kavinsky drove slowly past Boyd’s Autobody. The garage was dark and empty.

He sneered, slammed his palm to the dashboard. It was fine. It was what he was expecting, anyway. He’d find some other way to get Lynch to the party. He did a line to refocus.

Lynch might be at Nino’s. Kavinsky could swing by there, grab a slice, just see who was around. He hadn’t eaten much for a few days, anyway. He’d just swing by.

He was about to flip a bitch in the middle of the street when a bicyclist a little further down the road caught his attention.

Kavinsky registered a red t-shirt, a head of light brown hair, the slight frame of a teenager.

Slowly, he smiled. Raised his forefinger and thumb in the shape of a gun, held the other boy in his sights.

Bang.

Chapter Text

A

Adam became aware of the vehicle behind him only a split second before it hit him, ramming it’s shiny white nose into the back of his bike, side-swiping his hip and left leg and propelling him bodily to the ground. It was there and over before he had time to fully register it; one moment, he was pedaling, lost in his thoughts- the next, he was sprawled in the knee-high weeds that lined the asphalt road.

For a moment, he lay perfectly still, taking stock. His right leg was tangled in the bike chain. The front bumper of the car- the underside dark and greasy- was two feet above him, having stopped just short of running him over.

He didn’t feel any pain for a moment, but he knew from experience- it would come. 

And sure enough, it did, ricocheting up his side and settling amidst his ribs. His leg throbbed painfully as he carefully disentangled himself from the bike, noting the blood from a scraped knee, the irreparable tear in his jeans.

Dimly, he registered the sound of a car door opening, the scuff of sneakers on asphalt. He brought a shaky hand to his nose. The tips of his fingers came away red and sticky.

Kavinsky swaggered into view, leering over Adam as he leaned against the hood of his car, drumming his fingers endlessly on the white hood. He wore his signature white sunglasses and glinting gold chain, and he had the haggard, rawboned look of the terminally ill.

“I don’t think I caught your name,” the other teen sneered, not moving to help the bleeding boy before him.

Adam stared in disbelief. He said nothing.

“Be like that,” Kavinsky said, shrugging. “Let’s go.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Mistu.

“What?”

“Day’s a-wasting, lover boy.”

“You just hit me. With your car.” Adam knew he was stating the obvious, but he couldn’t stop himself. His brain was still scrambling to catch up, to make sense of the sequence of events that had led him to this point.

“Jesus fuck, you’re stupid. What does Lynch see in you?” Kavinsky reached behind his back and pushed himself off the lid of the car, withdrawing his hand as he did so.

He pointed a gun at Adam.

Adam’s first wild, desperate thought was: I always knew it would end like this.

He blinked, hard, forced himself to breathe past the panic flooding his chest like a tidal wave. It was Kavinsky holding the gun- Kavinsky, not his father. Get it together, Parrish.

“Fuck, let’s go!” Kavinsky erupted, waving the gun in the direction of the car, then back at Adam. Adam startled, then slowly got to his feet, hands raised, palms facing outwards in peaceful surrender.

Kavinsky chuckled, voice low and raspy, and the word that whispered in Adam’s head was unhinged.

Carefully, Adam limped to the car and opened the passenger side door, cold dread seeping into his veins along with the certainty that this would not end well. 

Kavinsky bounded to the driver’s side, tearing it open and pointing the gun again as the injured boy carefully lowered himself into the passenger seat.

Perhaps Kavinsky thought Adam would try to run in the two brief seconds the firearm hadn’t been trained on him, but Adam was not a fool. The road was quiet and darkening by the second, and walking was difficult enough. Even if he hadn’t been injured, Adam knew not to run. Running always made everything worse. 

Kavinsky settled himself into the driver’s seat with a flourish, rested the gun on one thigh and tapped out a neat line of cocaine on the dashboard with his other hand.

Adam watched in reluctant fascination as Kavinsky leaned over the center console, rolled twenty at the ready, and inhaled sharply, twice, the white particles vanishing from the black dashboard with astonishing speed. He doled out another line and offered the bill to Adam, tapping his nose to dispel the traces of powder that clung to his nostril. 

Adam shook his head, worried that Kavinsky might force him, but instead the other teen shrugged and leaned over the dashboard again. He resurfaced, grinning widely and wiggling his eyebrows gleefully in Adam’s direction.

Adam now had an idea of what was fueling the other teen’s erratic behavior, but he wasn’t sure if that knowledge helped him. The rattling engine of an approaching car behind them caught his attention. 

“Don’t even think about it, man,” Kavinsky said warningly.

A pickup sped by, honking loudly as it drifted to the left to give the white car a wide berth.

With a feral grin, Kavinsky started up the Evo and gunned it with dizzying speed, quickly overtaking the truck in front of them and swerving dangerously around it.

Perhaps, before they reached wherever they were going, if there was a moment of distraction, Adam could snatch the gun. Wrestle it from Kavinsky, throw it out the window. Or train it on Kavinsky himself, threaten to pull the trigger- but, no. Adam could not imagine himself doing any of that. That was not his way.

He would have to figure something else out.

K

“Say cheese, Trailer Trash,” Kavinsky drawled, holding up his cell phone.

The other boy looked away, but Kavinsky had already gotten his photo- a little blurry, but good enough. The blood beneath the guy’s nose was visible, which was a nice touch. He lowered the phone and texted it to Lynch.

missing anything?

“I’m Kavinsky, by the way, pleasure to officially make your acquaintance,” he said, tossing the phone on the dashboard.

The other boy said nothing, staring out the window, giving Kavinsky nothing.

“This is the part where you introduce yourself, sweetheart.”

Still, nada.

“Hey.”

Kavinsky took his hand off the wheel and smacked the guy upside the head.

That got a reaction. The other boy ducked and raised an arm defensively, eyes flashing sullenly in anger.

“What do you want, Kavinsky?”

“The answer to that is way too existential to get into right now. But in the short term, I wanna know your fucking name,” Kavinsky said. “I’m trying to have a fucking conversation, here.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. So if you don’t mind pulling over, I need to be home by nine.”

“Jesus, fuck, man, I’m trying to help you here. You get in good with me and my friends and you’ll never have to work a shitty day job again. Actually, know what? I’m getting tired of asking.”

Kavinsky pulled over and pointed the gun, pressing the barrel against the brown-haired boy’s jaw.

 “Yes, it’s loaded, and I figured out how to turn the safety off about an hour ago so there weren’t won’t be any mistakes if I decide to pull the fucking trigger. Capiche?”

And the look on the other boy’s face sent a surge of adrenaline through Kavinsky in a way the coke hadn’t. 

It was the same expression Lynch had worn the night of their little joyride down the wrong side of the interstate. The look his mother had worn when she’d learned her son was dealing the same drug that had been found, inexplicably, mixed into her husband’s whisky the night he overdosed.

“Adam Parrish.”

Kavinsky lowered the gun.

“See? How difficult was that? I don’t get it. What does Lynch see in you? You must be fucking magical in bed, ‘cause it aint your goddamn winning personality.”

Confusion knitted itself on Trailer Trash’s forehead. “We’re friends,” he said.

“I don’t get it,” Kavinsky repeated, pressing down on the gas pedal so that the Evo leapt forward.

“You wouldn’t,” Trailer Trash muttered. There was an insult in there, somewhere, but Kavinsky couldn’t parse it out.

“There’s a pack of smokes in the glove compartment. Be a doll, wouldja?”

Trailer Trash opened the glove compartment and pulled out the small, white box. He held it out to Kavinsky.

“My hands are a little full.” Kavinsky held up the gun in demonstration, while the other hand remained perched lazily on the steering wheel. 

Trailer Trash set his jaw and pulled out a cigarette, shoving it unceremoniously into Kavinsky’s mouth.

“This shit isn’t gonna light itself.”

Trailer Trash huffed and rummaged around again, unearthing Kavinsky’s gold-plated lighter. He had to lean in, chapped hands cupped around the end of the cigarette to prevent the flame from extinguishing. Kavinsky couldn’t help grinning at the other boy, whose expression was set in distaste. The flame caught and Kavinsky released a mouthful of acrid smoke in his face, laughing as the other boy leaned away, lips pressed together.

Trailer Trash slammed the glove box door shut.

“Ohh, feisty. Tell me, did Lynch blacken your eye? Or did daddy do that when he found out you were sucking some other guy’s-“

“What do you want?” Trailer Trash interrupted. 

“It speaks!” Kavinsky cried triumphantly, taking a long drag and exhaling a thick stream of smoke. He pulled up to a stoplight and, feeling a little low, reached into his pocket, snatching the small baggie there and tapping out another line on the dashboard with practiced fingers.

“Whooo!” he exclaimed a moment later, riding the wave of adrenaline. Trailer Trash was staring. Fucking loser.

“Here’s the thing about Lynch,” he informed his captive audience. “He’s fucking predictable. He’s always looking for a reason to fight. So- let’s say you steal his shit, right? He’s gonna fight you to get it back.” 

“That didn’t seem to be the case with his phone,” Trailer Trash said slowly, which kind of threw Kavinsky for a loop.

“The hell do you know about it?”

“Nothing. I just mean- if you think kidnapping me is going to get a rise out of Ronan, I don’t think that’s going to work.”

Up ahead, a car slowed to turn right, blinker flashing. Kavinsky swerved, eliciting a sharp intake of breath from Trailer Trash as the Evo narrowly avoided a head-on collision with a minivan in the opposing lane. 

“Don’t be a pussy,” Kavinsky spat. He gunned the engine.

“Sorry,” Trailer Trash said, and he sounded like he meant it. “You’ve known Ronan longer than me, so you’re probably right. All I meant was- Ronan and I aren’t friends anymore. So I don’t think he’s going to care that I’m with you.”

“He got tired of fucking you? Don’t blame him, you’re a drag, man…”

Trailer Trash pursed his lips. “Do whatever you want. I’m just letting you know.”

Kavinsky drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, considering Trailer Trash’s words. It made sense. Lynch liked shiny, dangerous things. Trailer Trash must’ve been a phase. Like how Skov used to only date Asian girls. It hadn’t lasted, he’d just needed to get that shit out of his system.

On his dashboard, his cell phone began to vibrate, the name Lynch dancing across the screen. Kavinsky grinned. He shouldn’t have doubted himself. He killed the music.

“Go ahead.”

Trailer Trash hesitated. Then, expression blank, he picked up the phone and taped the screen to answer it.

“Ronan?”

Lynch’s voice, brash and angry, echoed through the tinny speaker.

“Fuck’s sake- Parrish, what the flying fuck are you doing with that Bulgarian sack of shit.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Put him on.”

Trailer Trash extended the phone to Kavinsky, but Kavinsky ignored it. After a moment, he brought the phone back to his ear. “He doesn’t want to talk. Apparently.”

“Talking’s boring,” Kavinsky said. “Tell Lynch we’ll see him at the 4^th. I’ll even let him torch the first car.”

“He said-“

“I fucking told him. I’m not coming-”

“Not yet, you aren’t,” Kavinsky called, his voice dripping with innuendo.

“-so get him to drop you off somewhere. I’ll pick you up. Or you can walk. Whatever.”

Trailer Trash glanced to the other teen. Kavinsky stroked his chin, pointer finger dancing along the stubble there. He took a pensive drag of his cigarette, as though he were carefully considering Ronan’s words.

“Nah,” Kavinsky said. Trailer Trash’s shoulders seemed to sag, a little, though his expression remained blank. “Tell Lynch we’ll see him at the party.”

Ronan swore loudly as Kavinsky snatched the phone from the other boy’s hand and gleefully hung up. He turned on the radio and rap music thudded from the speakers once again.

Kavinsky drove for thirty minutes, leaving the town far behind and entering the no-man’s land of hay and corn that separated Henrietta from it’s nearest neighbor.

“Where are we going?” Trailer Trash asked in the brief silence between the end of one song and the beginning of another.

“You haven’t heard about the 4th?” Kavinsky asked raspily, cracking a window to toss the butt of his third cigarette. “Last year was fucking legendary, man. You need to get out more. Now stop talking, you’re killing my buzz.”

A

Kavinsky made an abrupt turn onto a dirt road and the Evo wound its way through sparse trees for a mile, eventually emerging into a large, open field. As far as the eye could see, mud-caked pickups, tired station wagons and even a giant tractor were parked haphazardly, surrounded by clusters of tailgaters and illuminated by a dozen campfires that people were enthusiastically feeding with sticks and bits of cardboard.

A group of college students blasted country music and shotgunned beers while another cluster of partiers ate burgers off a portable grill and sipped from paper cups, laughing and catcalling one another. 

It became clear to Adam that they were on the fringes. The real party was on the other end of the field, where a dozen rusted junker cars were scattered like skeletal remains. Here, the portable grills and campfires gave way to trashcan fires, and the music grew louder and more insistent as lawlessness reigned. A grizzled man in his twenties jumped onto the hood of one of the clunkers and took to the windshield with a bat as his friends cheered him on.

The Evo was forced to a crawl as people streamed by on all directions, yelling and drinking and fighting and laughing. It was fully dark, now, so Adam could not make out the individual features of the partygoers; they became a seething mass of humanity, united only by their shared desire to get so wasted they wouldn’t remember anything tomorrow.

One girl- shoeless and inebriated- puked into one of the burning trashcans, nearly lighting her long hair on fire before her equally drunk friend pulled her away.

“Kavinsky!”

“Yo, K!”

Excited teenagers pounded on the windows and hood of the Evo, startling Adam. 

“Watch the paint job!” Kavinsky shouted. “Goddamn disrespectful motherfuckers.” But his expression was self-satisfactory, a cat among unsuspecting canaries.

He pulled up under a copse of maple trees where the Evo easily fit into a line of expensive cars. Here, teenagers shared bottles on shiny hoods and draped themselves over one another in a haze of smoke. Kavinsky cut the engine.

“You,” he rasped, looking directly at Adam, his expression disgusted. “Be smart.” Adam could see himself reflected in Kavinsky’s dark sunglasses, his features distorted in the curve of the lenses, and was disturbed by how wretched he looked. Dried blood flaked under his nose and the side of his face was smeared with dirt.

Kavinsky ran his tongue over his bottom lip unconsciously, considering the boy in front of him. Adam tensed, waiting for Kavinsky’s next move.

And then Kavinsky was tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans, was opening the door, was flicking his cigarette butt into the trees. Muffled music thudded from the red Supra next to them.

A blond, Slavik-looking boy with a diamond earring and blindingly white sneakers appeared and pulled Kavinsky out of the car and into a brief hug.

“The fuck you been, K? We got a line of customers a mile long here.”

“Calm your tits, Skov.” To the rest of the teens nearby, Kavinsky shouted, “You motherfuckers ready to party?” 

A round of cheers went up as he circled the car and popped the trunk.

Adam wiped at his dirty cheek and bloody nose self-consciously, wincing. He slowly exited the passenger side, gripping the top of the door as he tested his weight. Pain rocketed through his side, but he was not so injured he could not walk. 

Behind the Evo, Kavinsky handed a Spiderman backpack to Skov (“Charge Brand double, that asshole still owes me for last year,”) and a handle of whisky to a pretty brunette (“Just for you, sweetheart”) who gave Kavinsky a sloppy kiss on the cheek before she joined a pair of girlfriends on the hood of a silver Mercedes.

The doors of the Supra flew open and a group of teenaged boys boisterously emerged, the peaty smell of what Adam could only assume was marijuana wafting with them.

“Hey, yo, yo, yo, what’s up, man?” An Asian boy wearing a thin gold chain and basketball jersey raised his hand in greeting. Adam instinctively raised his own, and, before he knew it, he was being pulled in for a half-handshake, half-hug. The other boy’s eyes were unfocused as he smiled vacantly at Adam. “Cool, cool, that’s cool, man,” he said, though Adam hadn’t said anything.

“Can I use your phone?” Adam asked.

A hairy, sweaty arm suddenly wrapped itself roughly around Adam’s neck, pulling him into a side headlock. For a moment, Adam panicked, but the arm settled into something friendlier- if still aggressive- as its owner dragged Adam towards the nearest trashcan fire and shoved him to the ground.

“Sit an’ stay where I can see you,” a gruff, male voice commanded. It belonged to a burly man a few years older and about fifty pounds heavier than Adam. He had a round, pockmarked face partially hidden by an unkempt yellow beard and he wore a black leather vest over his broad, bare chest.

“I do whatever K pays me to,” he boisterously informed Adam, West Virginia accent present in every word. With a scrape of glass on ice, he withdrew two bottles from a cooler and cracked the cap off each on the lid of the trashcan. “For now, he’s paying me to babysit your ass. So grab a bottle and enjoy the party, ‘cause you sure as hell ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

He kicked the top of the cooler closed and sat, offering one beer to Adam.

“Clash,” he said, and it took Adam a moment to realize that his name.

“Adam,” Adam said, hesitantly reaching up to accept the bottle.

“I ain’t seen you around, not at any of K’s parties or nothin’. I usually man the front door, you know, make sure no one gets in who shouldn’t. Deal with anyone causin’ problems.”

“I’m not going to cause any problems,” Adam assured him, edging away from the heated metal of the trash can. “I want to leave.” 

“No can do,” Clash said. He drank deeply from his brown bottle.

“Did Kavinsky say why he wants me here, exactly?”

“You don’t owe him money?” Clash narrowed his eyes and raised his eyebrows pointedly. Adam mutely shook his head.

“Well, I sure as hell don’t know, then. But he don’t want you leavin’, that’s all I know. Hang on, I gotta deal with this. I wouldn’t move if I were you, unless you want that pretty face of yours gettin’ even more messed up.”

Clash got heavily to his feet and lumbered away, his expression stern. About ten yards away, a fight was erupting between Skov and another boy who was yelling, though Adam couldn’t make out the words.

Adam scanned the faces of the nearby partiers, wondering if any of them would lend him their phone if he asked- but then what? Who did Adam have to call?

He could call his mother. She would not be happy to fetch her wayward son 45 minutes away, but she might come, if his father allowed her to.

The only other numbers he knew by heart were Gansey and Ronan’s. Gansey was still gone. And Ronan… well, Ronan already knew where Adam was, but Adam did not delude himself into thinking Ronan might give Adam a ride home. His track record in that department was less than stellar.

And then- it was a trick of the firelight, but he saw a tall, angular figure that looked a lot like- but no, that was only because Adam had just been thinking about him. 

But it was Ronan, storming through a crowd of rowdy college kids, a string of swear words trailing in his wake as someone spilled a beer. Ronan fended off a drunk guy with almost comical ease, using the guy’s forward momentum to toss him casually into one of his buddies. 

Something leapt in Adam’s chest. Something he couldn’t name, not right away. A kind of lightness.

Hope.

He ruthlessly stamped it out. He needed to keep his mind clear. He needed to survive this.

Ronan’s expression was lethal, but his anger did not seem out-of-place, here. Here, amidst the fire and the debauchery that the sharp teen so easily navigated, Adam thought he understood Ronan in a way he hadn’t, before.

Ronan arrived, towering over Adam and looking for all the world like he wanted to fight someone. He crossed his arms, the hooked lines of his tattoos jutting from beneath his dark tank top.

“The fuck are you doing here, Parrish.”

“I don’t want to be here.” Adam had to raise his voice to be heard above the cacophony of music and the shouts of drunk passerby. “He pulled a gun on me.”

Ronan’s face darkened further in the flickering orange of the firelight.

“What.”

“You think I’d choose to be here otherwise?”

“I don’t see him here now. Just leave.”

“He tries that and we're gonna have a problem.” Clash was back. He saluted Ronan. “How are ya, man? Where you been? They finally nail you with a DUI?” 

“Fuck off,” Ronan snarled. “Where’s Kavinsky?”

“Said he was lookin’ for you. You both gonna stay put if I go get him?”

“Yes,” Adam said immediately. “We won’t move.”

Clash held out an expectant hand towards Ronan.

“Can I fucking help you?”

“Do I look like I was born yesterday? You all must think I’m retarded or somethin’. Gimme your keys. I ain’t stupid enough to believe either of you.”

Scowling, Ronan slapped the BMW’s keys into Clash’s outstretched paw and Clash lumbered off.

“He picks now of all times to grow a damn brain cell…” Ronan grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets, eying Adam out of the corner of his eye.

“You don’t happen to have another set of keys?” 

“No.” Ronan was silent for a moment, staring as two of the college guys wrestled ten yards a way, the crowd of onlookers growing by the second. “What’s wrong with your arm.”

Adam grimaced and pressed his forearm more firmly to his side. “Not my arm. I think a couple ribs might be broken.”

Ronan’s eyes widened for a moment.

“You fought him?” His tone was incredulous.

“He hit me with his car.”

Ronan’s gaze snapped to Adam’s, the intensity in them electrifying.

“That fucker.” Ronan was off like a shot, lost in the mass of people surrounding the college wrestlers almost immediately.

Adam got to his feet uncertainly and followed the taller teen into the crowd, which was quickly parting to make room for a new spectacle: Ronan.

Ronan grabbed a dark-skinned teenager- Adam recognized him as one of the teens from the Supra- and shoved him.

“Swan! Where the fuck is Kavinsky.”

“Chill out, Lynch! How should I know?”

Ronan attacked, landing a serious of vicious punches to the drunk boy’s gut before Clash was there, yanking Ronan off his bewildered victim.

“Goddamn, Lynch, I leave you for two seconds- he’s over there!” Clash shoved Ronan in the right direction. “You-“ he pointed to Adam. “You’re still with me.” 

R

Once he reached the edge of field, Ronan easily picked out the blindingly white Evo in the line of glittering cars. Kavinsky was leaning against the hood, holding court, his face drawn and shadowed. As Lynch watched, the teen took off his white snapback and placed it on the giggling girl next to him before wrapping an arm possessively around her shoulders. Two of Kavinsky’s merry band of idiots, Jiang and Proko, were crowded around a trashcan fire, passing a blunt between them. EDM music blasted from the Evo’s speakers.

Kavinsky looked up, his eyes hidden behind his signature white sunglasses, and bared his teeth in a wicked facsimile of a smile. A jackel spotting its prey.

“Kavinsky.” Ronan spat the name with the same venom he would any swear word.

“Lynch!” Kavinsky called. “Glad you could make it.” 

“I’m not staying.” 

The smile lessened, but did not disappear. He leaned over and whispered something in the girl’s ear.

“Come on,” she whined, nuzzling his neck.

“Babe.” His tone left no room for argument.

“Fine,” she muttered, disentangling herself from under his arm, swaying slightly as she stood. Kavinsky slapped her butt and she squealed as she sauntered away. 

“Proko! It’s showtime. Go get the shit ready. The main act just arrived.”

The other teens departed and Kavinsky pushed himself off the hood of the Evo to rummage in a cooler next to the trashcan. He unearthed a can with a scrape of ice and approached Ronan, holding it out. 

Ronan knocked the beer to the ground, seething.

“Really? That’s the play you wanna make? Wrong fucking choice, man.” Kavinsky reached behind his back, beneath the white track jacket, and pulled out a handgun. He let it fall casually to his side, where it blended into the dark wash of his jeans.

 Ronan’s blood pounded in his ears, the situation coming into sharp focus for the first time that evening.

“I told you, you’re torching the first car,” Kavinsky informed Ronan, and his tone was no longer playful. “The only question is, whether Trailer Trash’s hillbilly ass is gonna be locked in the trunk when you do.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Ronan croaked, fury churning in his gut. “Let’s just do this.”

“I don’t know, man,” Kavinsky drawled, tapping the gun methodically against his thigh. “You don’t seem ready to party.” He reached into his jacket and pulled something out. He offered his hand, fist clenched, to Ronan.

“I’m not doing that shit anymore.”

“You’re either with me, or you’re against me. You have a choice.”

“Do I?” Ronan snapped.

“Sure, man. It’s not your head I’m pointing a gun at. Figuratively speaking. Though, I could bring Trailer Trash over here to make it more literal, if you want.”

Unbidden, a memory echoed in Ronan’s head: 

“Ronan doesn’t have friends."

“Apparently he does.”

It wasn’t much of a choice.

Ronan picked the can up off the ground and popped the tab, holding it away from his body as amber liquid bubbled and frothed down the side. He held out his other hand.

Kavinsky opened his fist, and a red, circular pill dropped to Ronan’s palm.

“The fuck is this?”

“Not something that’ll kill you, sorry,” Kavinsky said. “But if you’re a good boy, I’ve got some Oxy with your name on it for the end of the night.”

“What is it,” Ronan repeated, jaw set.

“You rather I make Trailer Trash take it? Fuck, that’d be entertaining.”

Ronan scowled and threw back the pill, washing it down with a swig of foul-tasting beer. 

It tasted terrible. It tasted like a homecoming.

A piece of him had missed this: drinking, drinking with Kavinsky, getting high with Kavinsky. Another piece of him hated the demon of a boy before him, hated himself, hated the pair of magnets they had become, attracting and repelling each other in equal parts. 

In front of him, Kavinsky tapped out a long line of powder on the barrel of the gun and inhaled sharply- once, twice, three times.

“You should lay off the snow, man.”

 “Yes, mother-may-I,” Kavinsky said in an annoying, sing-songy voice.

"What about Parrish?" Ronan demanded, gaze on the nose of the Evo. He wondered which part of the car had hit Adam. Whether Adam was seriously injured. Stop fucking thinking.

Kavinsky tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans, out of sight. Ronan’s head remained bowed, his dark eyes meeting Kavinsky’s sunglasses as the shorter teen leaned in, a foot from Ronan’s face.

“Depends. You with me, or against me?”

Ronan knew Kavinsky was toying with him, that the other boy knew the answer already, and just wanted to hear Ronan say the words out loud.

“I’m with you."

It cost him something to say those words. 

Kavinsky’s grin was feral, each of his teeth exposed and yellow in the flickering firelight. He folded his hand in the shape of a gun and pressed his pointer finger to Ronan’s temple. 

Bang, he mouthed.

Ronan looked away, and Kavinsky chuckled and pulled out his cell phone.

“Lighten up, Lynch. I’ll tell Clash to lay off your fucking boy-toy.”

Kavinsky jaunted away, towards the center of the field where the dozen junker cars waited patiently for their fate. Ronan turned slowly to follow, finishing his beer and picking up another as he went, hurling the empty can into one of the trash fires he passed.

“Ronan!” Adam appeared, grabbing Ronan’s elbow, but Ronan yanked his arm out of Adam's grasp and kept walking. Adam hobbled ahead and planted himself in front of Ronan, clutching his side with one hand, the keys to the BMW with the other. He held them up to Ronan.

“I’ve got the keys. We can leave.” Dried blood was crusted around Adam's nose, and the flickering firelight cast his mottled bruises into sharp relief. He looked determined, Ronan noted with grim satisfaction. Not uncertain, or afraid, as he'd looked in the awful photo Kavinsky had sent earlier that evening.

Up ahead, Kavinsky had stopped to light a cigarette, the flame washing his face in orange light behind cupped hands. He didn’t move to intervene, just watched Ronan behind a haze of smoke. Waited.

“You leave,” Ronan said bitingly, shoving Adam’s hand away. “I’m staying.”

“Ronan,” Adam started, sounding frustrated.

“Get lost, Trailer Trash,” Ronan growled, stepping forward menacingly.

Adam’s face flashed with anger, as Ronan knew it would.

“Fuck you.”

“Language, Parrish. Get yourself to a fucking hospital, or something.” 

Ronan brushed past Adam then, knocking the other boy’s shoulder, and Adam did not move to stop him this time. 

He joined the throng of drunken people emerging from all directions- word of the impending festivities was spreading- and fell into step beside Kavinsky, putting the beer bottle to his lips.

“Proko!” Kavinsky yelled. “We doin this or what? Proko’s got this secret sauce,” he told Ronan conspiratorially. “Shit spreads like napalm.”

In the heart of the chaos, Prokopenko was carefully filling empty liquor bottles with something brown and watery. Jiang and a few others were doffing their shirts and stuffing strips of fabric into the bottle necks.

“Lynch, your shirt,” Kavinsky demanded gleefully.

“Fuck off.”

Kavinsky stopped stock still and stared at Ronan, his eyebrows raised, his expression blank. Ronan felt a twinge of unease.

“Lynch,” Kavinsky said quietly. Dangerously. “I said. Your shirt.” 

Ronan clenched his jaw, tightened his fists, but- what the hell was the point in fighting? Kavinsky had already won. He peeled off his tank top and threw it savagely at Jiang, who began hacking at the shirt with a switchblade, tearing it to jagged strips.

“Good boy,” Kavinsky said lowly, tapping the side of Ronan’s face with his palm. Ronan jerked his head out of reach, hissing. Kavinsky chuckled as he slinked away to join his buddies.

Ronan drained his beer, and the alcohol tasted like a promise- a promise that no matter what happened, no matter what Kavinsky did, no matter what Ronan felt- soon enough, he’d be too fucked up to remember how unbearable it all was.

Moments later, someone pressed a large, blue vodka bottle into Ronan’s hand. Flaming fabric from Ronan’s shirt trailed from its neck. The heat of the small flame licked at Ronan’s knuckles. He looked out at the scene before him. 

Hundreds of figures milled about, a haze of smoke rising above and behind the graveyard of mechanical remains that surrounded them. The world smelled of pot, and burnt plastic, and gasoline. Music from a dozen distant stereos clashed discordantly, weaving in and out of the shrieks of laughter and yells. The field was lit only by fire and the stars above. 

Beneath his fingers, Ronan became acutely aware of the smoothness of the bottle, the rocking weight as the dark liquid within it sloshed against the sides, the heat on his knuckles-

“Holy shit, throw it, Lynch!” someone yelled, and Ronan picked his victim: a gold, rusted Camry twenty feet away.

He hurled the bottle with all his strength. It arced gorgeously across the night sky and smashed through the cracked window of the sedan. Immediately, angry flames spread through the car’s interior and curled out the window. The deafening cry that erupted from the onlookers was frenzied and primal, and within moments, half a dozen Molotov cocktails were flying through the air, smashing into cars, igniting leather interiors and metal exteriors alike. 

One misguided missive crashed dangerously close to a group of teens who scattered like jackrabbits as the flames spread, eating up hay and bark.

Ronan watched it all like a movie spectator, completely removed, entranced by the flames and heat and people- so many people, pressing in on all sides- he snapped his eyes open (when had he closed them?) but it was just Kavinsky next to him, lighting the torn fabric of Ronan’s tank top that jutted out from the neck of his own Molotov. He tossed the bottle, and thirty feet away a dark SUV went up in flames. 

Kavinsky turned to Ronan then, the lines of his collar bones sharp and elegant in the flickering firelight, his expression rapturous as he held Ronan's gaze, and Ronan did not look away.

Time passed, and Ronan couldn’t keep track of it.

He was throwing another Molotov, he was sharing a cigarette with Jiang (which was weird, he hated Jiang, yet he felt no desire to fight him), he was surrounded by people he recognized, he was surrounded by people he didn’t. Someone was talking to him- about tattoos, maybe- and then he was alone.

Someone pressed a beer into Ronan’s hand, and he drank deeply, marveling at the sensation of the alcohol on his tongue, gushing down his throat like a waterfall. Someone jostled him, knocking his shoulder, and anger flared briefly, then dissipated.

And then Kavinsky was there, watching him, cackling wildly.

“You are tripping balls, man.”

“And whose fault is that,” Ronan demanded, but he couldn’t summon the vitriol necessary to stay angry. 

“Come on,” Kavinsky said, putting a hand on the back of Ronan’s neck, igniting every nerve ending there and engulfing Ronan in a sickening wave of euphoria. He shivered despite the fact that he was sweating and crossed his arms, surprised at the sensation of skin on skin, the sharp prickle of forearm hairs against his bare chest.

He looked up, and the burning cars were behind him- had they been walking this whole time? A feeling of dread filled Ronan. What the hell kind of drug had Kavinsky given him? 

Kavinsky offered a cigarette and Ronan accepted, coughing as he took a drag. Kavinsky cracked up, his hoarse voice reverbing through Ronan’s mind like the bass of a stereo, and he slapped Ronan on the back, sending another wave of bliss cartwheeling across Ronan’s skin.

Above, fireworks erupted, a dizzying display of color and light and sound that rocketed through Ronan’s mind like a bodily assault.

They were back at the Evo now, and Ronan became uncomfortably aware of his heartbeat- too rapid, he thought, or was it always this fast, and he had just never noticed before? He pressed his hand to his heart as his chest tightened, then rested both hands on the hood of the Evo (the metal incredibly cool and smooth to the touch) and reminded himself to breathe.

A strange pressure materialized on the small of his back, eliciting another burst of pure pleasure that crawled across his skin and radiated outwards. He turned. It was just Kavinsky, one hand hovering near but not touching Ronan. Resting on the hood was a Molotov cocktail Kavinsky must have carried back from the field.

“Cut it out,” Ronan snapped, the world around him spinning nauseatingly. He closed his eyes and sank beneath the surface, losing himself. Distantly, the pressure on his back spread, sending a shiver of pleasure down his spine as a sense of wrongness intensified. 

“What I don’t get-“ Kavinsky’s voice was sandpaper in Ronan’s ears, “-is why you bothered with Trailer Trash in the first place. The guy’s a fucking bore. I wanted to shoot him, he was so goddamn boring. Maybe I still will.”

“Why do you even care,” Ronan asked, genuinely curious, fighting another wave of dizziness. 

“It was always you and me, man.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Ronan said, his voice loud and discordant in his own head.

“You sure about that?”

Ronan forced his eyes to open. He was still hunched over the hood of the Evo, Kavinsky perched next to him, shockingly close, the end of his cigarette casting his face in a dim, orange glow. One hand was outstretched, dancing down Ronan’s spine, and Ronan felt a surge of anger. He pushed Kavinsky’s arm away before grabbing the Evo to steady himself. 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Ronan growled. And then he began to chuckle, a raspy, deafening sound that echoed in his own skill.

“What?” Kavinsky demanded, and Ronan laughed harder.

“I just realized…” Ronan lost the thread of his thought, then recaptured it. “… how fucking pathetic you are.”

Kavinsky’s face was carved from stone for a moment, the cigarette ember highlighting his hollow cheeks. Then, he opened his mouth, allowing the smoke to unfurl.

Ronan plowed onwards. “Texting me all the damn time, pulling a gun on Adam, forcing me to hang out with you- you realize how fucking sad that is? I wouldn’t be here right now if I actually had a choice. You know that, right?”

“Don’t lie to yourself. This is where you belong.”

“I don’t even hate you, man,” Ronan said, wondering at the truth of his words. “I just feel bad for-“

A blow cracked across Ronan’s face, rocking him off balance. His elbow knocked into something- there was the sound of breaking glass, the sharp scent of gasoline- and suddenly he was on the ground, wondering why Kavinsky had just punched him.

“Now, I know you didn’t mean that,” Kavinsky seethed, towering over Ronan. “I’m gonna forgive it, because you’re rolling pretty hard right now-“

“You’re so fucking deluded,” Ronan muttered as a thousand individual blades of grass stabbed him in the back. 

Suddenly, Kavinsky was close, his knee crushing Ronan’s chest, his sunglasses crooked on his face.

“Stop talking.”

Ronan reached up and pulled away the sunglasses, to break them, or maybe put them on himself, when he became aware of a stinging pain radiating from his torso. 

Kavinsky’s face was feral- his eyes hollow and livid, his teeth bared- as he pressed his lit cigarette to Ronan’s chest.

“Hey,” Ronan said sharply, the sense of wrongness returning with full force. He raised a fist and swung wildly. Kavinsky leaned back to avoid the punch and responded with a savage blow that rocked Ronan’s head to the side.

Above, a second, brilliant display of fireworks exploded across the night sky.

Pressure cut off Ronan’s breath- Kavinsky’s hands were wrapped around his neck- Ronan couldn’t think, couldn’t move- every synapse in his body was on fire, euphoria warring with panic as darkness overtook his vision. 

“You think I wouldn’t?” Kavinsky snarled, slamming Ronan’s head against the ground. “I did dear dad and didn’t feel a thing, you know that? But I’m figuring out… it’s gotta be up close. Personal. Because- this?” The pressure around Ronan’s neck increased exponentially. “This, I feel.”

Kavinsky encompassed Ronan’s world, the hooded eyes and cadaverous features a mask of rage and loathing that Ronan couldn’t find fault with.

And as Ronan’s lungs screamed for air that was no longer forthcoming, as Kavinsky’s gaunt visage clouded and faded before him, Ronan’s last, despairing thought was an unhappy one, colored with weary acceptance. 

I probably deserve this.

Chapter Text

A

It took Adam over an hour to find the BMW.

On his second lap around the enormous field, he spotted Ronan amidst the fire and smoke, and paused, his search for the beemer momentarily forgotten.

Ronan was shirtless, his tattoo a cacophony of claws and wings and symbols Adam didn't know the meaning of stark and savage against his pale skin. His face shone with sweat in the firelight and a cigarette was clenched firmly between his lips. Someone handed him a bottle with a bit of fabric poking out of the end and Ronan approached an already-flaming car. He lit the end of the rag with the butt of his cigarette and smashed the bottle against the side of the vehicle. 

Fire flared up, but Ronan stood motionless until someone dragged him back a few feet. Ronan didn’t seem to mind the stranger grabbing his arm, which struck Adam as unusual. Then Kavinsky was there, beer in hand, throwing an arm casually around Ronan’s shoulders, and Ronan didn’t seem to mind that, either.

Adam looked away, a bitter taste in his mouth. He started walking again, hitting the car alarm button on the key fob continuously, though he doubted he’d be able to hear the alarm over the riot of music, shouts and, moments later, firecrackers.

He found a dirt path that led to a real, asphalt road lined with cars. People called out to him as he passed, mistaking him for a fellow reveler.

“How’s the party in there?”

“Cops show up yet?”

Adam did not respond. His side throbbed painfully. 

Ronan’s made his choice, he reminded himself repeatedly. He wants to be there.

But it didn’t feel right, and it wasn’t until he’d spotted the BMW, parked haphazardly on the edge of the dark road, the rear end hanging out into the middle of the street (when just a little more time and care would have parked the beloved vehicle safely out of harm’s way) and the driver’s side door still partially ajar that Adam thought he understood.

He wearily sat down in the driver’s seat, his feet still on the pavement.

He should have known the moment Ronan pushed the BMW’s keys away.

Ronan was fiercely possessive of his father’s car. He didn’t even let Noah inside it, half the time. That he should hand the keys over to anyone else was unthinkable; and yet, he had, and Adam had been too angry to parse apart the implications.

He placed his head in his hands and rubbed his forehead, his elbows resting on his knees. He was so fucking tired. He’d really thought Kavinsky was going to kill him, earlier- the slight pressure on the trigger, a deafening shot, and bang, no more Adam Parrish- and the fear was still there, prickling the back of his neck and pressing on his chest.

He wanted to leave. With any luck, his father would have been asleep for hours, and so long as Adam didn’t wake the man on his way in, he wouldn’t have to face the music until the following afternoon.

But he understood something, now. Ronan- in the rudest, most offensive way imaginable- had somehow gotten Adam out of a truly dangerous situation. Had valued Adam more than his precious car.

And here was Adam, about to leave Ronan with that psychopath Kavinsky, to save his own skin.

Because Ronan was abrasive. Ronan was rude, and biting, and harsh. He was angry, and imperfect, and a tornado of fists and emotions.

He had been Adam’s first real friend.

Decision made, Adam swung his feet inside the vehicle and shut the door. He would find the other road, the one Kavinsky had used to enter the field. He’d find Ronan and… figure out the rest once he got there. 

He put the key in the ignition and looked down at the gear shaft.

“Damn,” he whispered, his heart plummeting.

Because the youngest mechanic at Boyd’s Autobody, someone who could take apart the BMW and put it together, piece by piece, if he wanted to- could not drive stick shift. Had never had a reason to learn.

He stalled the car six times- inexpertly pulling the throttle, gears grinding in protest- before he gave up.

He exited the car, the pain of every bruise and cut reminding him that he could turn around, beg a ride off a stranger, do whatever it took to get away and go home.

Instead, he returned to the party.

Adam might have been walking through a dream, so awash was the forest in hazy smoke and the scent of burnt wood. Before he entered the field, he could feel, rather than hear, the music pounding on the other side of the trees.

Fireworks erupted overhead. He pocketed the keys and began to walk faster, towards the orange glow on the other side of the veil of brush. He jogged past the tailgaters and approached the center of the enormous field, where the dozen junker cars were engulfed in flames.

He became aware that people were yelling, and running, and a car roared past Adam, and he realized the fire was no longer confined to the cars, that flames had leapt to the trees lining one end of the field, and patches of the ground were smoldering and burning as the brittle hay lit up.

Most people partied on, setting off firecrackers and cracking open beers, unconcerned by (or unaware of) the uncontained fire rapidly expanding from the center of the field. A pickup truck roared by, and a bearded, wild-eyed man leaned out the window.

“Get out while you can!” He shrieked at Adam as the truck barreled towards the exit road. Adam realized, retroactively, the man had been Clash, Kavinsky’s paid security.

Adam did not see Ronan among the burning cars, and his unease turned to panic. Another burst of fireworks erupted overhead, illuminating the dark patch of trees on the edge of the field, and Adam saw the Evo, and a figure kneeling in front of it, hunched over something- someone-

Adam was sprinting, leaping over burning grass and hay without a second thought, smoke burning his eyes as flames licked at his calves.

Kavinsky was crouched over Ronan’s unmoving body, one knee digging into the other boy’s solar plexus, clawed hands wrapped tightly around the pale throat-

Adam half-tackled, half-dragged Kavinsky off Ronan, their bodies colliding with a jarring mesh of elbows and knees as they crashed to the dirt with a painful thud. Before the other teen could react, Adam brought his hand back in a fist (closing his thumb outside his fingers, just like Ronan had shown him a million years ago) and slammed his fist into Kavinsky’s jaw. The Bulgarian teen’s head rocked backwards.

Pain radiated from Adam’s wrist and arm but he didn’t stop. 

He scrambled to Ronan, and Ronan- thank God- was moving, had rolled over and was pushing himself up doggedly, his breathing loud and ragged. Adam caught the taller teen as he lilted to one side. 

“Kavinsky! We gotta split!” Proko, Skov and a few others were leaping into sports cars and peeling away. Jiang’s Supra rocketed forwards into an oak tree with a deafening smash of metal. The smoke was thicker, now, and Adam began to cough. Behind them, the fire had spread rapidly as hundreds of panicked people fled the ravaged landscape. 

It was only then that Adam became aware of the smell of gasoline, realizing the slick liquid coating Ronan’s arm was not sweat.

“The world is burning,” Kavinsky said hoarsely, enraptured by the hellish scene before them. Pinpricks of firelight danced in his dark, hooded eyes. He looked insane.

As if in a trance, Kavinsky pulled out the gun.

“K,” Ronan croaked.

Kavinsky got slowly to his feet, gun at his side, still staring at the flaming wreckage before them.

“K,” Ronan rasped again. Pleading.

“It’s what we always wanted, Lynch.”

“No,” Ronan said, his voice breaking. 

“Come on,” Adam hissed desperately, scrambling backwards, towards the safety of the trees. He grabbed Ronan’s wrist and tried to pull the other boy with him, but his hand slipped uselessly on the oil covering Ronan’s skin.

“You said it yourself, Lynch. And you don’t lie.” In the distance, sirens wailed.

“That’s not what I want anymore,” Ronan said. “There’s more to life than we thought. I’ll show you, K.”

“You’re either with me, or against me. And you’ve made your choice clear.”

Kavinsky’s face was utterly blank as he turned to the two teens and aimed the gun at Ronan’s forehead.

The world stopped, and Adam could only gape in horror.

And then, Kavinsky was raising the gun to his own temple, a stark silhouette against the raging fire behind him, his hooded eyes boring viciously into Ronan’s.

BANG

The force of the bullet emitted a spark that ignited the gasoline coating Kavinsky’s hand and shirt, and for a moment, he was a blazing pillar of fire; then, he crumpled, a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“NO,” Ronan shrieked- a terrible, inhuman sound- and lunged forward. Adam tackled the taller boy, bear hugging him from behind and dragging him backwards, away from the inferno.

“RONAN,” he roared, digging his heels into the ground. “You’re covered in gasoline! Stop!”

Ronan struggled but Adam did not relent, his grip vice-like. “It’s over! We can’t do anything! It’s over. It’s over.” He was speaking incoherently, grunting with the effort of restraining Ronan.

“Ronan. Ronan. It’s over. It’s over.”

Ronan suddenly sagged forward, the fight leaving him.

After a moment, Adam unlocked his arms and got shakily to his feet, dragging a lifeless Ronan with him. Ronan was shivering violently, staring at the horrendous scene before them.

“Look at me,” Adam commanded, and was too numb to feel surprise when Ronan obeyed, dark eyes meeting Adam’s own, equally horrified expression. “We have to go.” 

*

The walk to the car was nightmarish, the woods filled with smoke and shell-shocked teens and the glow of flashing red and blue lights and wailing sirens and-

Adam tuned it all out.

They found the BMW and Adam guided Ronan inside and shut the door before gingerly settling himself in the driver’s seat. Outside, a fire truck roared past, missing the rear of the Beemer by an inch. Ronan, hunched over and shaking, did not notice.

How long they sat in silence, Adam did not know. Minutes? Hours?

“Someone needs to tell his mom,” Ronan rasped, arms wrapped around himself, fingernails digging into his upper arms. 

“The police will,” Adam said quietly. His eyes drifted shut for a moment, and black fire danced nauseatingly behind his eyelids. He tried not to close his eyes again.

Silence lapsed. Another fire engine roared past, sirens blaring, followed closely by a police car that stopped next to the BMW. Adam started the car and rolled down the window.

“You kids all right?”

“Yes, sir,” Adam lied.

“You been drinking?”

“No, sir.”

“Head on home, then. Fire isn’t under control yet.”

“Yes, sir.”

The cop pulled away, and Adam looked at Ronan, who was still staring, wide-eyed, at his knees.

“Ronan? I know this is probably the worst possible time, but. I need you to teach me how to drive manual.”

Ronan looked to Adam, a flicker of life stirring behind his eyes.

“You fucking serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Some mechanic.”

*

Under Ronan’s even, lifeless instruction, Adam picked up driving stick quickly enough, but the car still stalled twice on their ride back as he inexpertly shifted between gears. Ronan didn’t respond either time, just gave more orders in a low, distant tone.

The digital clock in the BMW read 2:48 as Adam cut the engine in the parking lot of Monmouth Manufacturing.

He and Ronan entered the warehouse. Ronan disappeared into the bathroom immediately, the sound of the shower echoing a moment later.

Adam collapsed horizontally on the leather couch. Someone had left the big screen TV on, a video game home screen casting the expansive room in a dull, greenish glow. Adam stared unseeingly at the screen, wondering if he’d ever sleep again.

Ronan disappeared into his room and emerged a minute later in a black t-shirt and torn jeans. In one hand, he held a bottle of whisky; in the other, a six-pack of beers. He went outside.

Adam supposed he couldn’t blame Ronan for wanted to drink himself into a stupor after what they’d just witnessed, but it made him feel desperately alone, for some reason.

The sound of breaking glass was enough to drive him reluctantly to his feet.

Outside, Ronan stood on the curb at the edge of the street. A broken beer bottle lay at his bare feet.

“Did you cut yourself?” Adam asked, approaching carefully.

“No. Here. I’m shaking too much,” Ronan muttered.

Adam accepted the bottle opener and the beer Ronan offered him. He popped the cap and handed the beer back to Ronan, who turned it upside down over the storm drain at their feet. The alcohol gurgled and splashed, amber droplets hitting their shoes.

“Are you cold?” Adam asked as Ronan accepted another bottle, still shivering.

“No. It’s whatever that shit K gave me was. Still wearing off.”

“You don’t know what drugs you took?”

Ronan stared at the storm drain below, his eyes wide and glassy. A strip of blood had congealed on his cheek.

“He was gonna lock you in one of the torched cars if I didn’t party with him. I didn’t ask too many questions.” Ronan’s voice was flat. “Was trying to stay clean. Guess that’s gone to shit, now.”

Adam was silent for a long moment.

“Sorry,” he finally said, handing the whisky bottle to Ronan, who upended it over the storm drain below.

The taller teen scowled. “Not your fault, Parrish.”

“It’s not yours, either.”

Ronan did not respond, and Adam’s brow furrowed. “Ronan? You didn’t tell him to pull a gun on me, or-“

“I knew what he was when I started hanging out with him,” Ronan interrupted. “And I acted like that wouldn’t have any fucking consequences. I chose this, Parrish. You- you didn’t.” Emotion had thickened in his voice and Adam realized with a jolt that tears were sliding silently down the angular cheekbones.

Ronan tossed the empty bottle aside with a dull thunk and sat on the curb, burying his head in his palms, his shoulders quaking.

Adam sat too, blinking hard against the sting in his eyes. Haltingly, he brought a hand to Ronan’s shoulder and rested it lightly on the dark fabric, sure he was about to be rebuffed. But Ronan did not move to shake his hand away, so he left it, marveling that the other boy would allow Adam to comfort him in this way.

The full moon cast the world around them in a faint, bluish light. Dark, crumbling brick warehouses loomed on all sides and none of the street lamps worked, but the desolation that was Monmouth Manufacturing’s hallmark had never been frightening to Adam.

A firefly meandered past the teens, the only sign of its progression a bright flash of yellow every few seconds.

“I don’t blame you,” Adam murmured, finally. “So you shouldn’t, either.”

Ronan swallowed audibly but did not respond.

R 

That was how Gansey found them- hunched over on the curb, Adam’s hand resting lightly on the dark fabric of Ronan’s shoulder- thirty minutes later, as he emerged from a taxi, puffy eyed from the late flight he’d caught back to Virginia. Adam gave him a brief summary of events and, aghast, Gansey insisted they go to the hospital- Adam for his ribs (cracked, but nothing the doctors could do for him) and wrist (sprained but not broken) and Ronan for the cigarette burn (“The fuck they gonna do? Put a band aid on it?”) and the cut where Kavinsky had hit him (four stitches, which Gansey, who was trying for levity, said looked “rather badass”).

Gansey managed to blame himself for the whole ordeal (“If I’d been there, you and I could have worked out some other solution, Ronan. We could have called the police, and the family lawyer, or…”). It annoyed Ronan enough that he actually overlooked his own guilt for awhile, so focused was he in viciously demanding Gansey forget his own.

Dropping off Adam at his double-wide in the morning had felt like betrayal, but at Ronan’s scathing look, Adam insisted everything would be “fine”.

Ronan followed Adam out of the Camaro and slammed the door while a bemused Gansey waited patiently behind the wheel.

“Thought we’d be past the point of lying to each other’s faces,” Ronan snarled, his head throbbing. “Guess not.”

“I’ll live,” Adam said. The circles under his eyes were dark enough to match the bruises on his jaw and neck. “Let me handle this my own way.”

“What, avoid the problem until it kills you?”

“Ronan,” Adam said, and Ronan found he could not deny Adam when he sounded so plaintive and looked so desperately tired.

Adam disappeared into the trailer and Ronan waited, leaning against the passenger door, cell phone in hand, for almost ten minutes, his eyes trained on the front door.

His phone buzzed. He answered immediately.

“Well?”

“He didn’t notice I never came home,” Adam said quietly. “He must have gone to bed early.”

“See you tomorrow at eight,” Ronan said.

“For-? You don’t have to.”

“What, you’re gonna walk to Boyd’s? Idiot.” Ronan snapped his phone closed and threw himself into the Camaro, wincing as his stomach protested and his head pounded thunderously at the sudden movement.

“May I ask what that was about?” Gansey asked.

“It’s his business.”

“All right. Are you sure you don’t want painkillers? Even just some ibuprofen-“

“No,” Ronan said sharply, his insides recoiling at the suggestion of taking another pill. “Thanks.”

Gansey started and looked to Ronan, his eyebrows raised. Ronan looked straight ahead.

“If you’re gonna make a big deal of it-“ he started.

“I just- I didn’t know ‘thanks’ was even in your vocabulary-”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Ah, there you are. You had me concerned, for a moment.”

A

The Henrietta Gazette’s headline the following week screamed: JULY 4^TH PARTY GONE WRONG: 1 DEAD, 4 INJURED.

Adam did not read the article when he saw the newspaper resting on Patricia’s desk. He did not need to endure yet another retelling of the worst evening of his life- it was already a story he relived every night.

Sometimes Kavinsky pressed the gun to Adam’s head and shot him, and those dreams were a relief because, once murdered, Adam would wake and remind himself that Kavinsky was the one who was dead.

Other nights, it was Ronan, or Gansey, or his mother who Kavinsky (or, occasionally, Adam’s father) shot with a bullet made from fire, and those were the dreams that had him kneeling over the toilet, dry-heaving in the middle of the night, dripping with cold sweat in the muggy heat.

July marched sluggishly onwards. The mass of bruises on Adam’s torso slowly faded, only to be replaced with a new set towards the end of the month.

Ronan, somehow, knew- he always sensed when Adam was lying- and the same old argument erupted, and Ronan threatened to "beat the hell" out of Adam's dad, and then to tell Gansey what was going on, and so Adam refused any rides from Ronan for days-- even when it rained and he had to walk to the factory clear across town.

On that evening, Ronan showed up at the end of Adam’s shift and handed him a stack of computer-printed paper before driving him to the trailer. They didn’t discuss it, but Adam read every page that night, words like “emancipation” and “restraining order” and “legal adult” leaping off the page. The last page was a photocopy of a business card (Carol Wilder, Attorney at Law) and, scribbled next to it in cramped, spikey handwriting: she helped figure our shit out after mom went to hillcrest.

Adam didn’t call the lawyer, but he didn’t throw out her information, either. He hid everything in a drawer at Boyd’s, where his parents would never see it, and tried to forget about it.

A week later, after Adam’s father punched his son for something stupid- something Adam had done, or hadn’t done (Adam couldn’t follow the drunken logic)- and Adam looked in the mirror despairingly, realizing he would, once again, have to miss work to avoid any awkward questions- he grimly made a decision.

It took him hours in punishing heat to reach the pleasant office building in neighboring Wentworth. Caroline Wilder turned out to be a middle-aged New York transplant with short, tightly curled hair and glasses that dangled from a jeweled chain around her neck.

“Sit down, sit down. Who are you-? Oh yeah, Ronan Lynch’s friend. How that kid has friends, I don’t know. He’s about as friendly as a pitbull- I’ve got nothing against pitbulls, okay, my neighbor owns one, he’s very well-trained- but, Lord above does he have an attitude. Ronan, not the pitbull. Okay, let me look at my notes here- yes, Ronan told me about your situation. It’s a doozy.”

Adam didn’t have enough time for resentment to build before Carol was speaking again.

“So what we need to do is get you out of that living situation and into a better one. You could be placed with a different guardian, probably a relative, you’ve got the foster system- okay, I know it gets a bad rep, but there’s a great group home in-“

“I want to be emancipated,” Adam said, placing a stack of research from the Henrietta library on Carol’s desk. “I don’t have other family. I just turned 17, and I can support myself. Will it be possible?”

“I love a client who comes prepared,” Carol said, pulling on her glasses and rifling through the papers. “It’s possible. Oh, and yes, I’m taking your case.”

“Thank you,” Adam said. Then- “How much...?”

“All my work for victims of domestic violence is pro bono. That means I won’t charge.”

“I know what pro bono means.”

“Well, there you go, then.” She looked up, then, and lowered the sheaf of paper.

“Adam, I can tell you’re a good kid. Not that it matters, but I didn’t know what to expect, you coming to me through Ronan. Okay, shame on me for being quick to judge. Point is, you’ve been through something terrible, okay, and you’ve survived. You’re a survivor. I say that to all my clients in situations like yours. You’re a survivor. You should be proud of yourself. It took a lot of courage to come see me today.”

An hour later, Adam left Carol Wilder’s office, his head swimming with information about court hearings and restraining orders and halfway houses- all options he could choose from, and he felt a spark ignite in his chest, and for once, he did not trample this light flicker of hope, but instead carried it with him all the way back to Henrietta and into his parent’s trailer.

The first thing Adam did when he got home was find his father’s pistol and carefully dismantle it, the scratched silver of the barrel cool and deadly to the touch. He wrapped each part of the weapon in a T-shirt and stowed the pieces safely away in his school backpack.

The next time he visited Monmouth, he set about burying each part separately in the factory’s expansive back yard.

Ronan joined him, the scar below his eye an angry red line, the scab from the cigarette burn peeking over the neck of his tank top. Without a word, he helped Adam dig a series of holes, the back of his pale neck reddening in the midday sun.

“I went to that lawyer,” Adam said quietly. “I’m leaving.”

Ronan grunted. “About time.”

“She thinks I should live at the Aglionby dorms, but my scholarship doesn't cover it."

“You could stay here.”

Adam shook his head, and Ronan didn’t push the subject.

“Then where?”

“I got a raise at Boyd’s. I could get my own place.”

“There’s a spare room above St. Agnes',” Ronan said, suddenly. “I can talk to Father Anthony.”

Adam glanced up, and realized that Ronan was watching Adam. Waiting for his permission. Adam considered the offer, debating whether it was something he could accept.

“Okay.”

Ronan nodded sharply, his chin jutting forward, and resumed stabbing at the cracked earth with a stick, loosening the dirt.

“You were right,” Ronan said suddenly.

“I usually am.”

“What you said. Before the fourth. About how I treat my friends like shit.”

Like a scab torn prematurely, pain welled in Adam’s chest, shocking and immediate.

You thought we were friends?

Fucking pathetic, man. 

Adam withdrew his hand from the hole they had been digging, the piercing anger of that vitriolic argument returning with full force.

Adam had meticulously catalogued Ronan’s actions over the past weeks- the rides to work, the lawyer referral, the offer to speak to Father Anthony- and quietly accepted them as the apology they were. Ronan, as Noah had once said, was not good with words.

No one wants you around, Parrish.

Adam had done his best to forget those particular words- well, no. Adam could never forget them. But he could push them aside, refuse to dwell on them, write them off as utterances borne of agony, not to be taken personally, not truly meant, even though Ronan had not, as far as Adam knew, ever lied to him before.

There had been moments- in the dead of night, or after a fight with his father- when a quiet, fearful part of him believed those vicious words to be true: that Adam was as alone as he had always been, and he was, like Ronan had accused him of doing, once again ignoring a problem until it killed him.

Because it would kill him, Adam was certain. Now that he knew what it meant to have a friend- to be a friend- to go back to a solitary existence was… unfathomable.

Adam stilled, tension locking his limbs in place. Ronan glowered at the stick in his hand and continued, the furious urgency in his voice the only thing preventing Adam from standing and walking away.

“I lied to you. And I was a giant fucking dipshit, Parrish. I’m trying not to be. Okay? I’ll probably still be a dick most of the time, though.” Ronan’s scowl had deepened and his brow was furrowed, and Adam suddenly realized that the other boy’s anger was not directed at Adam, but instead was rooted in how damn uncomfortable Ronan was.

Something in Adam’s chest loosened, and he exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He began digging again.

He said, “You’re not Dick-“

“-that’s Richard Gansey, really fucking funny.” Ronan snapped, clearly annoyed to have one of his oft-used Dick jokes echoed back to him. He, too, began stabbing ineffectively at the dirt again.

“You should go put some sunscreen on,” Adam suggested practically.

Ronan scowled. “The Irish Lynch clan was never meant to endure this shitty American weather. There’s a reason we’re nocturnal.”

“Bunch of vampires.”

“Only Declan.”

Adam felt the corner of his lips twitch upwards, and, surprisingly, so did Ronan’s. 

*

A court date was set and papers were served to Adam’s parents by an officer of the court, and Adam imagined his father’s fury must have been terrible but Adam did not witness it because he was in the Camaro on his way to his new apartment, all his worldly possessions (which had easily fit into one battered suitcase and backpack) announcing their presence in the trunk with a thud every time the car turned. 

And it was only as he lay down on the air mattress Gansey had insisted on lending him, in an otherwise barren apartment, that a grim pride settled within Adam. He hadn’t done it alone: he was still sort of pissed at Ronan for butting in where he didn’t belong, and Gansey kept finding annoying ways to give him things he didn’t need, but… maybe that was all right. 

Maybe the truth was no one accomplished anything important completely on their own.

He stared at the wooden ceiling for a long time, thoughts chasing each other in lazy circles.

He’d gone to the library, the day before, to research colleges, and he’d really liked the look of Harvard. Of course, he didn’t know what he wanted to study, but it was good to make a list, keep his options open, like Gansey was always saying…

At some point, Adam drifted off to sleep.

It was the best sleep of his life.

R

On the eve of September 3^rd, a week after Adam’s court hearing and the day before the start of the school year, Ronan pulled into the empty St. Agnes parking lot and leaned on the horn.

He killed the engine and got out of the BMW. The crisp air and yellowing leaves announced autumn’s long-awaited arrival. He eyed the wrought iron gates behind the church and, after a moment of deliberation, he walked towards them. He had not entered the St. Agnes cemetery in eight months.

He hopped the fence with ease and walked among the gravestones, the path to the one he sought seared into his memory, despite the fact he had only been once.

A dark stone shone glossily amidst its smaller, crumbling neighbors. Fresh flowers lay at its base. Matthew’s doing, probably. The day’s last rays of sunlight highlighted the words etched in marble:

NIALL DESMOND LYNCH

Loving Husband and Father

It was his first time seeing it; the headstone hadn’t been ready in time for the funeral, as was often the case when someone died unexpectedly (or so his mother’s friend had informed Ronan), and it was larger than Ronan thought it would be.

Leaves crunched behind him, then stopped, but Ronan did not turn. They remained like that for a long moment: Ronan standing in front of his father’s grave, his head bowed, Adam a respectful distance away, expression somber.

Ronan pushed up the sleeve of his leather jacket. He began to peel the thick leather bands off his wrist, placing them, one by one, on top of the headstone. He knew that left his scars on full display, but he didn’t care. He was done hiding them.

He felt Adam’s heavy gaze on his wrist, but neither of them spoke. There was nothing to say.

After a time, he looked to Adam.

“To Nino’s?” Adam asked, and Ronan nodded.

There was a fresh grave closer to the entrance, and here, Ronan paused.

There was no gravestone; someone had died unexpectedly. Nor were there flowers or tokens like the ones that adorned other graves. It was just a mound of dirt, tamped down and covered in fine, infantile blades of grass that wouldn’t survive the chilly autumn air much longer.

A few half-buried cigarettes were the grave’s only marker, and they might have been someone’s litter, but Ronan didn’t think so.

He pulled a pair of cracked white sunglasses from his jacket pocket.

On the night of Kavinsky’s death, it wasn’t until he reached Monmouth that he’d realized he had been holding the sunglasses, clutching them so tightly they’d warped in his hand. He wasn’t sure how or when he’d gotten them that night, but he’d been carrying them in his pocket ever since, a silent vigil for a death no one mourned.

He wondered if Kavinsky was at peace, wherever he was. Whether that was something the other boy had even wanted.

“We’ve never talked about him,” Adam murmured, fabric rustling as he placed chapped hands in his jacket pockets. “I’m sorry. I know he was your friend.”

“He pulled a gun on you,” Ronan pointed out.

“Yes, well. Nobody’s perfect.” 

“I should be glad he’s dead.” The admission felt like weakness.

Adam tilted his head, huffing so the air blew out his cheeks and created a puff of mist. “There are times… I miss the trailer.” 

“Your mom.”

“My dad, too.”

Ronan frowned. “You’re not thinking about going back.”

Adam did not hesitate. “No. Never.”

Ronan placed the sunglasses on the mound of dirt. “Good.”

He stood, but did not move to leave. Adam looked at the white, cracked frames silently, his delicate cheeks red in the cold, his hair rustling in the slight wind.

“You’re nothing like him, you know.”

Adam’s words hurt, somehow, but Ronan wasn’t sure if that was because he believed them to be true, or because he knew they were a lie. Ronan closed his eyes.

“I’ve done a lot of bad shit, Parrish.”

Adam was silent for a moment.

“‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat.’”

Ronan raised his eyebrows and looked to Adam, who half-grinned sheepishly. “I can hear Father Anthony’s sermons from my room. But. I was talking about that time at Boyd’s. With the Chinese food.”

“Yeah.”

“I can’t imagine Kavinsky doing anything like that.”

“Yeah, yeah, you made your point, Parrish. I’m a fucking saint.”

Adam snorted in laughter, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Saint Ronan. Oh, God.”

“It’s not that funny, fuck’s sake,” Ronan groused, hunching his shoulders and crossing his arms as Adam’s chuckles quieted.

“I don’t know if I ever said thank you. When you brought me dinner. I can’t remember.”

“It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing.”  

Adam was looking at Ronan, then, his eyes bright. Ronan’s gaze darted away. “Whatever,” Ronan muttered. “Come on.”

But the noxious whirlwind of anger that had defined him for so long was dissipating, and so Ronan’s spirit was still and quiet as he and Adam walked to the BMW, side by side.

*

Gansey and Noah were in their usual booth in the back, and Noah was beside himself with excitement because the waitress he never shut up about was apparently their server.

“Her name is Blue,” Noah informed them excitedly. “Like the color. But her favorite color is actually green. I asked.”

“Do keep us posted,” Ronan said sarcastically as he crash-landed into the booth, Adam sliding in after him with a lot less fanfare.

“It’s gonna be so cool going to Aglionby with you tomorrow,” Noah told Adam, bouncing excitedly.

Adam grimaced bravely, and Ronan snorted. Adam would figure out soon enough that Aglionby, for all its pomp and circumstance, was a fucking joke.

The evening passed in a blur of Glendower and inside jokes and plans for the weekend. Noah and Ronan made a bet and Noah successfully made the waitress laugh (“A pity laugh is still a laugh, Ronan, so suck it”) and Gansey paid for everyone except Adam, who paid for himself, and they were in the parking lot debating whether to get ice cream (“It’s our last night of freedom!” Noah cried) or turn in early (“We have to be at school by 7:30 in the morning,” Gansey reminded him) when Declan and Matthew showed up.

Adam and Gansey’s eyes flickered uncertainly to Ronan simultaneously.

“I invited Matthew,” Ronan said. “We getting ice cream or what.”

Matthew hugged everyone (Adam looked a little caught off-guard at the gesture) and excitedly fell into step beside Noah as they approached the cars. Declan nodded to Adam, and then to Ronan, and Ronan nodded back, deciding that although his brother’s face was the most punchable in the history of mankind- even great wars called a ceasefire for special occasions.

There was also a very, very small part of Ronan that wondered if his hatred for his older brother (who bossed Ronan around and tried to fill the impossible role their father had left and did his very best to control Ronan- as if such a thing were even possible) was entirely justified. So, he gritted his teeth and, for once, didn't pick a fight. 

Matthew wanted to take the BMW, so everyone except Declan piled in.

“I’m meeting Ashley,” the oldest Lynch brother explained as Ronan sat in the driver’s seat. Ronan supposed Ashley was his brother’s girlfriend-of-the-week. “Also- not that you’ll go, but Matthew wants to visit mom on Sunday.”

“Fine,” Ronan said. “I’ll meet you there before church.”

“Wait- really?”

Ronan shrugged and slammed the car door in his brother’s face.

Ronan hadn’t slept through the night in ages. Hardly ever since his dad died, and certainly not since he saw his- friend? Enemy? –blow his brains out in a hellish blaze of ash and smoke. But Gansey never slept well, either, and they’d spent long hours at Monmouth together, pouring over maps and history books, trying to find their next lead in the search for Gansey's dead Welsh king.

Ronan wanted a drink, and he wanted to get high- all the damn time, really, but especially when the nights were long and it felt like dawn would never come.

He had confided in Gansey, a few nights previous. About the drinking, the racing, the pills. About how the night Ronan had turned a razor blade to his wrists was one Ronan couldn’t remember, he’d been so wasted.

How a voice that sounded like Kavinsky’s was still in his head, whispering lies every time Ronan thought he might be getting better.

The painful confession was an exorcism long overdue, and although Gansey looked a little pale at Ronan’s admissions, his response was even, and pragmatic, and so very Gansey-like that Ronan knew his oldest friend’s opinion of him had, somehow, remained untarnished.

“You aren’t alone, you know,” Gansey had said. "Substance abuse is actually quite common; my father's best man was an alcoholic but he's been sober for 20 years, and actually one of the Senators my mother knows is in a group. There are meetings for people with addiction problems, I'm sure there are some nearby..."

The suggestion had really ticked Ronan off, but that Sunday he’d seen a notice in the church bulletin for an addict’s support group that met at St. Agenes' directly below Adam’s new apartment, and suddenly the idea had not seemed quite so terrible.

Adam settled into the beemer beside him, and Ronan turned in time to catch the quiet boy looking at him. Not speaking. Just looking, a softness to his features that Ronan couldn’t identify.

Noah yanked open the passenger side door, demanding to ride shotgun, and Adam (the pushover) graciously agreed to sit in the back next to Matthew.

“Gansey, your phone,” Ronan ordered, and Gansey passed it forward. Big mistake, but then again, Gansey had always been too trusting.

Ronan plugged in the auxiliary cable and scrolled until he found the song he wanted.

The desire to forget himself was faint but undeniably still present, lurking just beneath the surface of his skin. The peripheral knowledge that the liquor mart was open until 11pm, that Skov was probably still dealing and wouldn’t be hard to seek out once they’d started school, that any one of the old gang would gladly hurt him if Ronan started a fight.

But this: the people piling into his car around him, who annoyed the shit out of him and reminded him that the life he had lived up to this point did not have to be the only one he would ever lead; that he could do better, that they all could- he wanted this more than that.

Ronan had nearly lost these people, had nearly lost himself. He would not squander this second chance.

As the Murder Squash song blasted through the BMW’s speakers, everyone groaned except for Matthew (“I like this song!”) and Ronan peeled out of the lot with an unnecessary squeal of tires that had Noah hollering in glee and Gansey tutting in disapproval. Adam’s laugh was brief but unmistakable in the rearview mirror. Ronan grinned.

Tomorrow was a new day.