𝙇𝙊𝙊𝙆𝙎 𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏 𝙆𝙄𝙇𝙇! • 𝙧𝙖𝙛𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙤𝙣

five

CHAPTER FIVE
[5]
song: criminal by fiona apple

"This is fucking stupid." Celine says from the backseat. "We're gonna get ourselves killed."

"Then stay in the fucking car then." Topper snaps.

Emotions were high. Noah Holland was dead.

Less than an hour ago everyone got the call. And before that, Summer and Rafe watched as search and rescue dragged his body out of the marsh.

They said it was an attempted strangling, and a stab wound in the chest. They dumped his body into the swamp like he was nothing.

"Pull around here." Rafe says, gesturing towards the woods off the road.

Topper slows the car, pulling it off the road and down into a slight ditch, before turning the headlights off. Silence overtook the vehicle as they all studied the house ahead of them.

"They all hang here." Topper nods forward.

"What are we looking for, exactly?" Celine speaks up.

"Weapons, personal items, anything suspicious." Kelce lists off. "Anything that's gonna get these fuckers arrested."

Rafe turns slightly from the passenger seat, glancing slightly behind him to look at Summer. She'd been silent this entire time. She'd been silent since they found him.

Her eyes were stuck out the window, unmoving and lifeless. She hadn't cried. She hadn't really done anything.

"We need to be fast, who knows when they'll be home." Kelce says, nodding at everyone.

Topper was out of the car first, then everyone else followed after him. Summer was slower than the rest, hesitantly looking around at the dark trees that surrounded them. She'd never been this far south before. Certainly not to some Pogue's house, and certainly not at night.

Rafe glanced over at Topper, Celine and Kelce, who were already making their way to the house, then back over to Summer, who was still by the car.

"You want me to wait with you?" He asks quietly.

Summer glances up, like she'd been snapped out of some deep thought. She shakes her head. "No. Let's go."

Kelce ripped through the screen on the screen door with a pocket knife, reaching his hand through the newly formed hole to unlock it from the inside. He starts searching the porch, while everyone else floods inside with their phone flashlights out.

The house reeked of beer and weed, and it was apparent that a single teenager was living here by himself. Summer felt inclined to plug her nose as she searched, but that wouldn't do much to protect her from any of the diseases she was going to catch in here.

Topper tore the place apart, ripping everything from the shelves, slamming cabinets shut so hard the hinges fell off.

"You need to chill out." Celine snapped at him.

"Noah's fucking dead, Celine!" Topper got in her face, raising his voice.

"Yo, yo." Kelce says, pulling Topper away from Celine after rushing inside. "Come on guys, we gotta be smart about this."