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#23: ᴇᴀʀᴛʜ ᴀɴɢᴇʟ (ᴡɪʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴇ ᴍɪɴᴇ)

What do people even do when they're on death row?

It sounds so fucking boring, but I decided to make the most of it. Tomorrow night, at the Halloween dance that I was being blackmailed into going to, I'd be beaten the shit out of. Or killed.

I always managed to make peace with the facts, though. Henry wasn't always a man of his word. He's threatened me this bad before, and I'm still here. I knew that much, but I also knew what he was capable of. He would kill me if he had the chance. And now he had that chance.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" Eddie asked anxiously, sitting on top of a dark speaker that resided in my garage. He was drinking a juice box rather quickly, and I could hear the bubbles at the bottom of the straw.

"What else is there to do? We have to go, Eds. It would be worse if we didn't," I found a paddle ball bat in a pile of old shit my dad keeps around for no reason. "He's too much of a psycho to be stopped."

"We should tell someone."

"Like who?" I looked up from bouncing the paddle in one hand. "No one here cares about us. I found out recently that a teacher I've had since second grade doesn't even know my last name. Your mom would take you out of the school, my dad would tell me to beat his ass, the principal is a creep, and the teachers here are afraid of Henry. He'd have more of a reason to beat us up if we snitch."

Eddie picked at his fingers more and set the juice box aside, leaning down to drop the needle on a record player that was on a desk above him. The Penguins were a band that my mom was obsessed with. She hadn't taken the vinyl off the record player in weeks because of how much she replays the album.

Intro music started up, and the soulful voices of the singers began to play. Eddie seemed like he needed some sort of distraction as he walked to my mini fridge and got himself a cheese string. "That kinda makes sense. But I'm not ready to die at thirteen."

"Neither am I," I leaned down and took a gleeful sip of Eddie's vacant apple juice box. He didn't stop me. "But we might as well make the most of it. Since we're being forced to go to the dance against our will, wanna go together?"

This was a simple gesture, and I didn't really mean it as a date, but Eddie paused in his tracks. He unwrapped one corner of the cheese and sat back on the speaker, keeping his gaze on the light drizzling rainfall that trickled outside the window. "I guess."

"Not like that, Richie."

"No, Richie."

"I'm not a queer like you."

There was silence except for the rainpour outside. I inhaled, continuing to ram the paddle around. "Sweet. You can dance, can't you, Eds? I don't want shit to get embarrassing for you, because I will leave if you start doing the robot, you know I will."

Eddie rolled his eyes, watching two raindrops that were chasing each other down the glass. "You do realize we don't actually have to dance, right? We're being blackmailed into going by a mega douche."

"I'll take that as a no," I stood up from where I was and hummed along to the song that was finishing and coming to an end, clicking a button that gently slid the garage open, revealing the wet and gray Derry afternoon, where thunder blared over the sky. "C'mere."

"We're going to catch a cold," Eddie pointed out, clutching his elbows as the room immediately got chillier. Subtle raindrops surfaced at the edge line of the garage, and he held his hand out to feel the water that fell.

"We're going to catch a fucking boogie, that's what we're going to do," I held my hand out like a valiant prince, and Eddie studied it as if it was going to detonate or something. "Follow my lead."