The heat didn't break even after sunset. It just shifted — like the world decided to sweat through the night instead. The pavement still radiated warmth, and the air above Madison hummed with cicadas that didn't seem to stop for anything, not even death.
It had been a week since Derek Holloway's body was found. The news said "foul play suspected," but everyone already knew it was murder. They just didn't call it that out loud.
Marlo sat on the hood of Clayne's truck, parked outside the old Sonic on Main. The sign buzzed, flickering red. The smell of fried grease and cheap perfume hung in the air. Rayanne was tossing pebbles into the parking lot light, counting how many times they bounced. Abud sat cross-legged on the curb, cigarette balanced carefully between his fingers. Clayne leaned against the truck bed, drinking a warm beer he swore was "still fine."
For a while, no one said anything. Just the sound of the night, and cars passing by like lazy ghosts.
"Man," Clayne finally muttered, "I keep thinking Derek's gonna walk outta that locker room and call us losers again."
Rayanne gave a humorless laugh. "Yeah, or ask for five bucks he'll never pay back."
Marlo smiled faintly, but didn't add anything. He couldn't. Every time someone mentioned Derek, his brain replayed the police tape — the image of the field cordoned off, and Coach Turner standing there, red-eyed, pretending to hold himself together.
Abud flicked ash into an empty soda cup. "People at school are saying the cops found tire tracks near the body. Some think it's outsiders. Drifters."
"Yeah, right," Clayne said. "Outsiders don't hang out behind the bleachers. This was someone local."
No one answered him, but they all felt it. That quiet agreement that settled like dust on their skin.
A truck pulled into the lot — Jarvis and Lucca in the front, music blasting from the open windows. Lucca was laughing about something, his arm hanging out, tapping the door rhythmically. He looked alive in a way none of them had lately.
"Yo!" Lucca shouted, hopping out with two milkshakes. "For the corpses formerly known as Madison High."
Clayne caught one midair. "Finally, someone who respects the dead."
They all laughed, the kind that comes out too loud just to drown the quiet underneath, but not so much because of the "joke", but because of how Lucca looked, all messy, and smelled like he had been smoking. The group gathered around, talking about nothing — summer homework, movies, a rumor about a teacher getting fired. It was normal, almost comforting.
Marlo's eyes drifted toward the far edge of the lot, where Chlaire sat with two of the cheer girls near the picnic tables. Her hair glowed faintly under the neon light, moving when the breeze caught it. She looked up — just once — and their eyes met.
It wasn't long. But it was enough.
Something passed between them, wordless. The kind of look that remembers what it's supposed to forget. Then she turned away, and Marlo looked down at his drink as if that could undo it.
Abud noticed, of course. He always did. "You gonna keep pretending that doesn't mess with your head?" he asked quietly.
"Shut up," Marlo said, not looking up.
The conversation shifted again when Lucca suggested they drive out to the lake — "just to chill." Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but they all needed to get away from town, from the lights, from the eyes of everyone pretending to be fine.
By the time they reached the outskirts, it was almost ten. The road turned from asphalt to dirt, lined with whispering pines that seemed to close in the deeper they went. They parked near the old bridge, the one that sagged in the middle like it was tired of holding up.
The water beyond glimmered faintly under the moonlight, still as glass. Fireflies blinked in the dark like dying stars.
Abud and Marlo wandered a little ahead, the gravel crunching beneath their sneakers. "You ever been out here before?" Marlo asked.
"Once," Abud said. "When I was a kid. My uncle said the lake was bottomless." He smiled thinly. "Didn't say it like a story. Said it like a warning."
Marlo nodded, eyes scanning the far shore. There was something there — a pale outline, just barely visible. A roof maybe, or a wall. He squinted, trying to make sense of it.
"What's that?" he asked.
Abud followed his gaze. "Looks like a house."
But there was no road leading to it. No driveway, no lights. Just the trees and the water separating it from the world.
A faint breeze rippled across the lake's surface, distorting the reflection of the moon — bending it, breaking it. For a second, it looked like the shape in the water was moving, like something had brushed just below the surface.
Abud shifted uncomfortably. "Alright, now it's creepy."
Marlo didn't respond. He just stood there, watching the house until the clouds slid over the moon and the pale outline vanished.
Behind them, laughter echoed — Clayne and Lucca trying to outdrink each other, Rayanne telling a story too loud, Jarvis pretending not to care. It was friendship the way it always was: reckless, messy, alive.
But as Marlo turned back toward the water, the feeling wouldn't leave. That sense that the lake wasn't just still — it was waiting