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“It was an accident.” Otto says, his hands trembling.
The body is still warm. Awsten knows this because he’s touching it, holding his fingers to the pulse point in its neck. He’s feeling for a heartbeat, like there will be one considering the bloody torn mass that used to be its chest. If there was a heart pumping in there before, there certainly isn’t now.
“How do you stab someone that many times by accident?” Geoff asks. He has his hands pressed to either side of his head, pacing around the clearing anxiously. “Seriously, dude, how do you accidentally walk out into the woods and stab someone to death?”
“It- it was an accident.” Otto says, his voice high and desperate. He needs the others to believe him, no matter how unbelievable this all is.
Awsten moves his hands to the body’s wrist. Still, no pulse. He considers putting his ear to their mouth to see if it's breathing, but the face is a mess of stab wounds, so he doesn’t see much point. He looks down at his hands. Blood covers the tips of two of his fingers.
“We need to get out of here.” Awsten mutters, standing up so fast he makes himself dizzy. “I don’t care what happened. We just have to go.”
“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Geoff asks, gesturing wildly.
“Do you want him to go to prison?” Awsten asks. Geoff stares at him like his answer might be yes. “Whatever, let’s just go back to the hotel and deal with this there.”
Awsten storms off into the trees, then turns back around when neither of them follow him. Geoff is now staring down the body, worrying his bottom lip in his teeth like he does when he’s considering something. Otto is staring at Awsten, though.
“You’re going the wrong way.” Otto says. His shirt and shorts are covered in streaks of blood, glistening in the moonlight.
“Shut up.” Awsten grumbles.
They walk back to the hotel, Geoff trailing behind like he wants plausible deniability that he’s with them. Awsten gives Otto his jacket to cover his bloody shirt, but the hotel staff don’t pay them any mind regardless. No one notices them, until they get to their floor and Awsten is fumbling with the keycard to their hotel room.
Lucas opens the door to their other room across the hall. He looks the three of them up and down, sees the blood on Awsten and Otto, then shoves them into the hotel room.
“What the hell have you done now?” Lucas asks.
“Ask Otto.” Geoff slumps onto one of the beds, head in his hands.
“It’s not a big deal.” Otto shrugs off Awsten’s jacket, only giving Lucas a split second to see his blood-covered shirt before he takes that off too.
“Is all of that yours?” Lucas points to the blood.
“No. Just a bit.” Otto holds up his hand, which has a nasty gash on the palm. “Knife slipped.”
Awsten doesn’t know why Otto is being so candid with Lucas. Or why Lucas is being so fine about Otto being covered in blood. Of course, Lucas has always been the level-headed one, the one they can trust with everything, but this is insane.
“Alright. Geoff, can you bandage that and get him cleaned up?” Lucas asks. Geoff doesn’t move, so Lucas snaps his fingers in front of him until he looks up. “Stay with me, dude, I don’t have time for you to shut down.”
“Um, okay. Yeah.” Geoff gets up shakily and goes into the bathroom to find their first aid kit. They’re all very clumsy, so they keep one on hand. A few moments later, Otto follows him.
“Awsten, do you remember where the body is?” Lucas asks.
“Uh, maybe?” Awsten guesses. He could probably retrace his steps and get back there if he really wanted to.
“Alright, come on.” Lucas gestures for him to follow him. “We gotta get rid of it.”
“What?” Awsten asks. He’s so confused. How does he even know there’s a body out there? “No way, I’m not helping you with that.”
Lucas sighs. He puts his hands on Awsten’s shoulders and makes him hold eye contact with him. “Look. Normally I would do this on my own, but I could really do with your help this time, okay?”
“This time…?” Awsten asks. Has this happened before? He thinks he would know if his best friend was going around killing people while they were on tour.
“I’d ask Geoff, but he’s better at first aid, and I don’t want Otto to have to go to the hospital.” Lucas squeezes Awsten’s shoulders. “You don’t want him to go to the hospital, right?”
“Right.” Awsten nods slowly. Of course he doesn’t. “I’ll help.”
“Thank you.” Lucas starts walking towards the door, but Awsten doesn’t follow him at first.
“How many?” He asks. Lucas raises his eyebrows at him, unsure what he means. “How many times has this happened?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t want to.” Lucas says as he opens the hotel room door. “And neither do you.”
Awsten doesn’t know which possibility is worse - that Lucas thinks there are incidents he doesn’t know about, or that this has happened so many times that Lucas has lost count.
Either way, Awsten follows him out.