No response.
Felix flashed his light around. “Um, does anyone else feel like this is turning into a really bad horror movie? You know, three kids go into the woods late at night, none of them come back . . .”
“Well, you can stay here . . . by yourself,” I said in a sweet voice. “Because nothing bad ever happens to the person who stays behind while the heroes go investigate the creepy woods.”
He swallowed and looked around again. “I’m just trying to avoid becoming a really bad cliché.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “This is much worse than a horror movie. We have real monsters around these parts, remember?”
“Way to reassure me,” Felix sniped.
But I drew my sword, just in case he was right. So did Devon.
We kept going, deeper and deeper into the woods. We didn’t speak, and the only sound was the rustle-rustle of our passage through the underbrush, along with the steady breeze.
The wind was probably the only reason I spotted it.
Something fluttered at the edge of my vision, something that wasn’t a shadow, a pile of leaves, or a branch dancing in the breeze.
“Hold up a second,” I called out.
Devon and Felix stopped, shining their lights in my direction. I went over, crouched down, and picked up something smooth and silky from the forest floor. Despite the darkness, I could tell exactly what it was—a white feather from a Sinclair cavalier hat.
So Vance had been back here after all. But the weird thing was that part of the feather was dark and wet as though it had been doused in something sticky. I frowned and stuck the feather out into the beam of Felix’s flashlight.
Blood glistened on it.
Felix cursed and almost dropped his flashlight. Devon whirled around, shining his own light back and forth, his sword up and ready in case a monster came charging out of the trees toward us. We all held our breath, but nothing happened.
And I realized that I hadn’t heard any natural sounds the whole time we’d been walking. No trolls chattering in the trees, no rockmunks scurrying through the bushes, not even some bullfrogs bellowing out a low, steady chorus.
The woods were quiet—too quiet.
My stomach twisted. I knew what we were going to find, and so did Devon and Felix, from the worried looks on their faces. I got to my feet, and they came over and shined their flashlights all around the area where I’d found the feather. About five feet away, I spotted another one, and then another one a few feet beyond that.
All of them were covered in blood.
I tightened my grip on my sword and followed the blood-and-feather trail. Fifty feet deeper into the woods, I rounded a tree and there he was.
Vance.
He was sitting up against the trunk of a blood persimmon tree, ripe fruit littering the ground around him, and a sweet, sticky scent filling the air. Vance’s legs were splayed out in front of him as if he’d had too much to drink and was sleeping it off out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Vance!” Devon called out, hurrying over to his side. “There you are! We were worried about you—”
His flashlight beam fell on Vance, and the words died on his lips. Vance’s blue eyes were wide open in pain and fear, and his hands were zip-tied together. His cavalier hat was clutched to his stomach, feathers and all, as if he’d used it to try and stop the blood loss from the deep, vicious cut visible through his white shirt.
And it wasn’t the only one.
Almost a dozen cuts marred Vance’s arms, chest, and legs, the red wounds looking almost like the black greasepaint a football player would swipe across his skin. A piece of duct tape had been slapped over his mouth to muffle his screams, and his eyes were already cold and glassy.
Dead—Vance was dead.
Murdered.
We all stared at Vance. It couldn’t have been more than a minute, but it felt like forever. Finally, Devon let out a vicious curse, got to his feet, and ran his hand through his dark hair.
“Who . . . who would do this?” he demanded. “And why? Vance might not have been the nicest guy, but he didn’t deserve this.”
Felix shook his head and clutched his stomach. He looked like he was going to be sick. Yeah. Me too.
I let out a tense breath. “Let me try something. We can’t help Vance now, but maybe we can at least figure out who did this to him.”
“How?” Devon asked.
I told him and Felix about what I’d seen and felt when I’d looked into the eyes of the murdered tree troll that we’d found beside the dumpster off the Midway.
Devon frowned. “And you think that has something to do with this?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s all I can do for Vance now.”
He nodded. “Do it.”