Dark Places

61 | we've had longer nights, melo

—UM, HELLO, AHHHHHH, DARK PLACES IS ON THE HOMEPAGE, BBS ❤️

❝go on and tell me
just what i'm supposed to say,
as if it could be any other way.
oh, it's getting louder...❞

☽

MY BLOOD RUNS COLD.

"Luuuuz," he singsongs. "Luz?" His brows furrow when I don't say anything. "Ay, hermanita, you look like you saw a ghost, ¿qué pasa? "

Jonah.

"I..."

"What's going on?" He frowns, pushing a cigarette into my limp palm, a smooth-rasp of paper rolling between my fingers. "What are you doing up so early? Did you go to a Living Sober meeting?"

"No, I—" I can't breathe. It can't. I can't... "¿Adónde vas, Jonah?"

Where were you, Jonah?

"I told you, I'm catching a bus off Congress," he says, and jerks his head (a lazy drag and a plume of smoke) before offering a lighter that I take numbly. Drake hovers, an aching presence Jonah hones in on, quirking a curious grin. "¿Qué haces con mi hermanita, D?"

"Where are you going?" I blurt again.

He pauses. His head ticks, an inch, in mild confusion. "I told you, I'm heading to Bull Moose. Why?"

What do you know?

"I can give you a ride," Drake offers, shrugging by to nod at Jonah. His bare hands sink into pockets, disappearing hastily.

My grip loosens.

Panic claws itself into my limbs when I find it again: a clean-cut curve of a crescent moon inked onto his left hand, connection to the cultish chaos in Portland. Jonah? What do they want from Jonah?

"Really?"

"Yeah, I'm heading in that direction anyw—"

"To Scarborough?"

"Sí." Drake averts his gaze, a seemingly distracted glance down Casco. Everything is dim, fading from its icy aurora sheen into a crisp, clear chill, as if awakening groggily.

My breathing is quickening

"D, it's cool, I—"

"No, no, it's good—"

Sophany. Nikki. Drake. Governor Lepage. Handfuls of students from a MECA assembly. Mayor Strimling. They flick beneath my eyelids in a cluttered collage, sorting off into jagged categories, to the best of my knowledge—Dead or Alive?

"Seriously, Jones." His hushed urgency, barely concealed, a stiffness in his expression. Drake saw it. "Vamos."

"I'll come, too," I say absentmindedly. Jonah. Jonah.

No.

It feels off. I could believe in Medina trying to hurt me (it's poetic, it's romantic, it's tragic) but Drake would never hurt—or threaten—Jonah.

"Shit, okay," Jonah snickers to himself, pausing to take another long drag, seemingly oblivious to a mental turbulence of violent connections. Sophany. Nikki. Delilah? Mayor Strimling. LePage. Drake. "Where you parked, D?"

"Yeah, yeah," I mumble, more to myself, in a distracted haste, hurrying past them. I barely remember it: double-parked, boxing in an Oldsmobile, a blanket caught in a door, a broken window, a vandalized Volvo. It happened. "Where are you parked, Medina?"