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Heart gestures for Spade to come inside with him. I watch as they sneak through the window and stalk around, searching. Heart picks up a nude magazine open on the bedside table and wiggles his eyebrows at me. I roll mine and gesture for him to hurry up. His giggle is so soft, it doesn’t wake the kid. No, what wakes him up is Spade pressing a cloth against his mouth. It takes three seconds of struggling before he passes out. Heart lifts him and roughly tosses him out the window, uncaring how he lands. He’ll probably have bruises from it, but that’s the least of his worries.
We repeat the process at Alan’s house and again at Veronica’s. None of them get the chance to scream, and none of them struggle for long. We shove them all in the trunk of the car and drive back out to the graveyard. How poetic that they’ll find themselves in the same spot they left Melvin in. Melvin seems tickled pink by the idea, smiling despite his injuries and inability to hold himself up. He’s currently slumped on a gravestone, watching as Heart ties the three kids up in the mausoleum with their backs together.
Diamond kicks their feet to wake them up. When that doesn’t work, Club tosses a bucket of water on them, and they come to, sputtering.
I sit beside Melvin, watching. Melvin is leaning against me, needing support, but this position still gives him the ability to look cool, something I know a kid his age would be worried about.
“Welcome to the game, little shits,” Heart declares as they look around and start panicking. Veronica starts to scream, so Heart slams his baseball bat into the ground right beside her leg. “I suggest you stop that, girlie, or I’ll have to take your tongue.”
She immediately shuts up, whimpering and trying to press back against the other two boys. Weak. She’s only part of the group as eye candy. George tips up his chin and looks around before finding Melvin sitting against me. His eyes narrow in anger.
“What the fuck is going on, dweeb?” he snarls. “What are you doing?”
“How are you still alive?” Alan asks, staring at him. “You should be dead.”
“Oh, you tried,” Melvin croaks. “Almost succeeded too, but my friends arrived.” He gestures to us, and I smile behind my mask.
“Friends?” George spits. “Don’t be stupid, Melvin. We’re your friends.”
“Is that how you treat all your friends?” Diamond asks, kneeling. “Nearly beating them to death and locking them in a crypt?”
George’s face twists, but it’s a mask just as ours are. “That’s what he told you? He’s lying. The dweeb is always lying.”
“Shut up,” Melvin spits. “You can’t pretend your way out of this one, George. Daddy isn’t here to save you this time.”
George’s mask slips away. “You should have died.”
“Why?” Melvin asks. “Because you don’t like me?”
“Because you don’t deserve to live,” he spits. “Not a dweeb like you, wasting space and time. You’ve always been a freak. We took pity on you because of who your parents are, but I’m tired of you tagging along like a lost puppy.”
“A freak, huh?” I ask, tilting my head. “It’s a good thing we’re freaks too, isn’t it, Club?”
Club glances at me, and I can tell he’s smiling behind his mask. “That’s right, baby. We’re all freaks.”
“So I guess it’s a good thing Melvin called us,” I purr. I glance over at him. “You think you can stand?”
“For this, absolutely,” he says, but when he goes to stand, he grunts in pain, and I have to help him.
“Fast or slow?” Diamond asks Melvin.
Veronica begins to whimper again, fighting against her ties. Alan is struggling too, fear in his eyes. Only George sits still, his chin tipped up, unafraid of death.
Monsters make other monsters.
“Who’s your daddy?” I ask him, but he keeps his lips tightly shut.
“The mayor,” Melvin offers helpfully. “He’s an asshole.”
I nod. “Of course he is.” I hold out my knife. “The fast way.”
Heart holds his bat out. “The slow way.” He giggles.
Melvin reaches for the bat but hesitates. “I don’t know if I have the strength for the slow way,” he admits before grabbing my knife instead.
Smart. Melvin is a force they are not prepared for, and that was their mistake. They should have considered him an ally, but at least these monsters weren’t able to corrupt him.
“How did they get you into the mausoleum?” Spade asks Melvin.
