Page 25 of Forged in Rain

I left Cyn’s borrowed phone on my bed should he get any bright ideas about checking in, although half the time, it feels like he can find me no matter what. Thoughts of which make me shudder because I’m sure he’d have something to say about this.

“Hey,” Iris says when I approach.

She looks terrible, but it makes sense. Having your abuse thrown in your face by your own mother is serious shit. How could Pam even consider that it was consensual is beyond me, and I wonder why Pam can’t see beyond Iris’ behavior to John’s misdeeds.

Unless I’m missing something. Visions of Iris having sex with John surface at the thought, and I wonder about the circumstances. She wasn’t resisting, and it disturbed me because he so cowed her that she didn’t bother to fight back.

But now, I stare at her skeptically, wondering if I’m missing parts of the story.

“Hey,” I say, sliding onto the hood of her car, beside her.

For a while, we look up at the stars until she says, “John had pictures. I’ve looked all over for them, and I don’t think they’re at the house.”

“Pictures? Really, Iris? I asked you about this weeks ago!”

“Oh? Sorry, I guess I was worried about making my creepy fucking stepdad disappear,” she says, waving her arms in the air.

“Iris, you have to stop lying about everything,” I mutter, and she pauses. The silence is awkward before she says quietly. “Anyway, if Mom found the pictures, it’s not because they were lying around.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, shivering when a gust of wind buffets the car.

“Someone must have given them to her,” she says with a sigh.

“What? Who?”

“I don’t know, but we have to figure it out before something else happens.”

“Like what?”

“Like whoever gave them to her reveals our little scheme,” she says, slamming her hand against the hood.

“You don’t know who did it, do you?” I accuse, my stomach clenching when she frowns and looks away.

“No. I thought it was Saul, but he laughed in my face when I asked him about it,” she says quietly.

“Oh, Iris,” I whisper. “Who else could it be? Not Jagger?

“No, I never asked him. He’s dangerous,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest.

If Iris is worried about Jagger, I should be terrified because she hangs out with these guys like they’re pussy cats most of the time.

“Did John have enemies?” I ask.

“If he did, I don’t know about them.”

“It has to be someone we know. It’s too coincidental that he’d disappear right when we expected him to,” I say, rubbing my forehead.

“Yeah, but whoever it is isn’t asking for payment, which is bad fucking news.”

“So, what do we do now?” I drop my head back to the hood and wish myself a million miles away.

Where are my parents? And Joey? Are they looking at the same night sky?

“We find out where John is.”

“How?” I’m not super confident in our ability to search out a dead man who may be alive, much less the rest of this mess. We’re teenagers, for fuck’s sake.

“I don’t know. Process of elimination? If we can pin down where everyone was, someone should shake loose.”

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