Page 20 of Gather the Storm

“I don’t want you to live somewhere else.” Ruth suddenly looked like exactly what she was — a kid.

I sat next to her. “I know, but you can come visit anytime you want. It’s not that far.”

“Not close enough to walk,” she grumbled. She was desperate to get her driver’s license and counting down the months to her sixteenth birthday.

“I’ll come pick you up whenever you want,” I said. “You can spend the night.”

She tossed the red skirt aside and flopped back on my bed. “I can’t believe you’re going to live in that creepy old house all alone.”

I hesitated, not wanting to open the Pandora’s box that was Blake’s friends and alleged murderers, but there was no point keeping the details from Ruth. She’d find out anyway when she came to visit.

“I won’t be alone,” I said. “Jace, Wolf, and Otis are going to help me.”

She sat up fast, like a vampire rising from a coffin. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I know it sounds crazy, but trust me, I know what I’m doing.”

That wasn’t entirely true. I had no idea how I was going to figure out what had really happened the night Blake was killed. What I did know was that I wasn’t going to find out staying at home while the Beasts did their own thing, or worse, decided to leave town altogether.

Keeping them close was the first step. I’d figure the rest out as I went.

“You’re going to live with Blake’s murderers?” Ruth asked.

She’d been close to Blake, but she’d been too young to know him — to see him — the way I had. She’d idolized him, followed him everywhere like a little puppy, her face shining when he ruffled her hair and called herkid.

I wasn’t sure how much to tell her. Was this one of those cases where the more she knew, the more danger she was in?

I was really in uncharted territory.

“I’m just… I’m just not sure that’s true,” I said.

Ruth’s eyes widened. “They confessed!” She jumped up from the bed and spun to face me. “They confessed to killing him!”

“I know.” I forced my voice steady. “But I just… I don’t know.”

She folded her arms over her chest and I had a flash of Blake doing the same thing when he was pissed, his eyes the same stormy gray. They were both like my dad, all anger and fire.

My mom had been quieter, more of a dreamer than a fighter. I knew my dad had thought she was weak, that he thought she’d drifted through life without a plan, that he feared the same thing for me, but he was wrong. She’d just known there were more important things than money. I think that was why she’d named me Daisy, a reminder not to take it all too seriously, to take time to enjoy the simple things.

My dad had named Ruth. A strong name, he always said, the implication clear:not like that flighty name your mother gave your sister.

“What don’t you know, Daisy? Theyconfessed!” Ruth was practically shouting now, and I was glad the house was so big. I didn’t need my dad getting wind of my decision to move in with Blake’s best friends before I could explain it to him.

“I know,” I said. “But don’t you want to know? Like,reallyknow?”

“I already know,” she said.

I envied her certainty. “They were hisbest friends, Ruth.”

If she’d been older when Blake was murdered, if she’d been me, she would know how crazy it was to think Jace, Wolf, and Otis had killed Blake.

And how possible it seemed at the same time.

She would know that they were best friends, sure, but there were times when they disagreed, times when they fought. Just a week before Blake died they’d come to blows at school in one of those hallway brawls I’d once thought only happened in movies.

Like full-on punching and tackling each other.

I hadn’t seen it, but I’d heard about it, had seen the bruises on Blake’s face, seen the videos on social media.

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