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Back Atlanta Burns Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PART ONE: SHOTGUN GRAVY
  6. Sometimes she wakes…
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. PART TWO: BAIT DOG
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. PART THREE: THE FARM
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. PART FOUR: KISSING FIRE
  38. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  43. PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. EPILOGUE: THE MESSAGE
  49. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  50. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“I’m kinda freaked out by all this.” He flops his head back on the couch. “I’m scared.”

She lies and tells him, “Me too.” But she’s not scared. Not right now, at least. The Adderall smooths over all the sharp edges. It wears the mountain of fear down to a smooth, comfortable hill.

“I don’t want to die,” he says.

“We’re not gonna die.” Another lie. She doesn’t know.

“I got to touch a girl’s boob.”

“At least you got to do that before you died.”

“At least.”

He stares up at the ceiling for a while and eventually falls asleep.

For Atlanta, sleep is just a dream.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Four o’clock in the morning, Atlanta hears it. She’s not asleep. She’s been in the dark, sitting across from Shane the whole time, staring not so much at him as through him. Her mind wandered onto the subject of Steven and of their kiss and if she could ever really see him as more than a friend, more than just a sad boy with big teeth, and here her thoughts hovered like a mosquito over a barrel of brackish water.

But she’s ripped free from those thoughts as she hears the creak of a board upstairs.

He’s here.

He’s in her room.

The message they wrote and then printed on the gun club printer was this:

ALL YOUR AUDIO FILES ARE BELONG TO US.

YOU’VE GOT ONE WEEK.

MEET ME AT THE WATER TOWER, SATURDAY, MIDNIGHT.

BRING TEN GRAND OR I SEND THE FILES TO EVERYBODY.

—AB

Shane assured her that there was a joke in there somewhere and that it was a good one. She didn’t get it and didn’t much care to.

That was the message. An upgraded version of when they lured the Nazis to the graveyard by throwing a note through the broken car window. That worked. Sort of.

This message, like that one, is a lie. They don’t have the audio files. And they never intended to meet him at the water tower. They knew he’d come before then. To get the files back on his own. To handle the problem.

And now here he is.

Upstairs.

She’s surprised that he’s here so soon, though. They only set the letter to print six hours before. Somebody must’ve gone to the gun club and seen it. Orly, probably. Late-night meeting.

Doesn’t matter now.

Atlanta hurries to Shane, shakes him awake, and at the same time clamps a hand over his mouth so he doesn’t cry out. She hiss-whispers: “He’s here. Closet. Go.”

He whimpers, then rolls off the couch—and bangs his knee on the coffee table.

Upstairs, the creaking stops suddenly.