Chapters (79)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Praise for Destroy All Monsters
- Books by Sam J. Miller
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
Nineteen
Ash
By the time I got there, all the excitement was over. The cop cars had driven off. The hauling company had brought the dumpster, and it was full of ruined carpets, curtains, books, furniture.
Jewel Gomez’s house, flooded out. Someone broke in while they were away for the weekend, stopped up the sinks and tubs and both her toilets, started the water.
“No sign of forced entry,” I overheard a neighbor say.
Jewel wasn’t home, and she didn’t answer when I called her. I sent a text—Hope you’re doing okay, let me know if you need anything—complete with a GIF of a corgi puppy cuddle pile.
She sent me a thank you–themed GIF. We giffed back and forth for a while.
Next morning, the high school hallway was all grief and anger and betrayal. When I looked through the lens, everything was green and brown. Great slimy bubbles hung in the air around Jewel, splattering and popping. She stood beside her locker, pretending to look at something on her phone. I kept my camera aimed at her, but I did not take a picture. Her unhappiness was palpable, so much so that snapping the shutter would have felt exploitative. The stink of garbage filled the high school hallway.
“Hey,” I said, stepping closer.
“Ash, hey,” she said. She was dressed all in shades of blue, the better to blend in with the walls of Hudson High. The better to make herself invisible.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“You feeling okay? If you want to skip school, go up to Crossgates Mall or something, I got you.”
She laughed.
It was a joke, after all. Super-religious Jewel never broke a rule.
“Well, let me know if there’s anything I can do. I can’t imagine how scary it must be, to have something like that happen.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“I wouldn’t be,” I said. “It’s okay to not be fine.”
She nodded. “I feel . . .” And she took a long time but I didn’t try to nudge her along. “I feel like I’ll never feel safe in that house again.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I get that.”
Betrayal, I thought. That’s what I was seeing in the air around her. How did I know? How could I tell the difference between guilt and betrayal? I wasn’t sure. But since that day along the tracks with Solomon, when I’d held his trained penny in my hand, my understanding of the things I could see had gotten sharper. Stronger. Like I could read them now in a way I couldn’t before.
“Do the cops have any theories about who did it?”
She rolled her eyes. “No,” she said. “And they don’t care.”
Betrayal. Jewel feels betrayed by someone—maybe someone here. “And you? Do you have any theories?”