“There, there are your results. Now, get out of here.”

“Not so fast,” I said, the paper hot on my skin.

“Look,” Cal said as she heaved open a window with her shoulder. “If your sleuthing has given you such a Hardy Boy, come with me. Otherwise, go home, Pey. This isn’t your problem.”

And with a shriek of rust, she pulled herself from one darkness into the next.

MICKEY

“I DARE YOU TO go skinny-dipping,” Josh said.

Mickey almost choked. “Excuse me?”

“Nope,” Sean interjected. “That’s not happening.”

“Oh, grow up, Sean,” Ruth said as she reached for Mickey’s empty cup with a wink and walked back toward the minifridge.

“Being grown up has zero impact on whether or not I want to watch my sister skinny-dip. Always going to be a strong no.”

“Ew, watch?” Mickey yelped.

The drink Ruth went to replace had been her third, and Mickey could feel the alcohol blossom in her stomach, turning her veins into flowering vines that unfurled one after another until every inch of her glowed.

“I definitely don’t want anyone to watch.”

Cody’s hand went to the enormous sequined horn strapped to his head.

“Then you have to wear this!”

Ruth rummaged by the minifridge and then walked back toward the couch, careful to keep the drink from spilling on the carpet.

“Not so fast,” she said, handing Mickey’s cup back, replenished. “She didn’t say she wouldn’t do the dare; she just said she didn’t want anyone to watch.”

“That’s bullshit,” Cody whined. He looked like a child, and not only because he was wearing a child’s unicorn costume. It felt to Mickey like his adult persona could last only so long; two hours and it was almost rubbed clean off. “This thing is getting itchy.”

“You should’ve thought about that before refusing your dare,” Josh said. “But I have to agree with Cody on this one; if no one can watch, there’s no way to prove she did it. There needs to be a witness.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously, I would go with her.”

Mickey watched the conversation about her future nudity bounce around the room and found that she didn’t mind. She leaned back and took a sip.

“That works for me,” Sean said. “Do that.”

“That is a lame dare,” Cody huffed.

“Well, I didn’t finish,” Ruth said, her words lingering like fingertips in the dark. “She has to go skinny-dipping where Sarah died.”

PEYOTE

CALAMITY GANON WAS TRYING to protect me.