Joel’s arms were starting to burn. He’d gotten sick of this man. Hoping to jostle him, perhaps play on some of the frustration he had caught earlier between Boone and the coach, Joel said, “Is that the same comfort you offered Clark’s family?”

“Troy was—”

“What about Corwin Broadlock’s parents?”

The name had a much stronger effect than Joel had intended. Coach Parter seemed to fly across the trailer—for such a big man he could certainly move—one thick arm pulled back to throw a punch. Joel felt a distant pain in his temple as his mind went dark again.

LUKE

Luke couldn’t pull the smile from his face: even in his most lubricated fantasies he could never have imagined a place as perfect as this. Mitchell wandered around the Bright Lands like it bored him, nodding at one boy, cupping another’s nuts with a brazen little smile that suggested more to come later. Luke, clutching his clothes in one hand, trailed naked behind him, doing his best to hold on to all that Mitchell was saying while his mind threatened to flit away into the sky, giddy as helium.

“If you need to tidy up we got the Water House there.” Mitchell pointed at a long blue trailer that sat at one end of the circle, opposite the massive elevated triple-wide that Luke had seen when the blindfold was removed.

He noticed a steady line of boys filing into a brilliant red trailer that rested up the circle from the Water House, all of the boys grinning and chugging from red Solo cups.

“We’ll get you into Glory Days over there later. You’ve stopped bleeding, yeah?”

Luke touched the wound on the back of his thigh. It would leave a scar. His smile wavered. “For now.”

“Let’s get you changed then.”

As they started across the circle, Luke heard two boys cackling at something. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to spot a man who looked an awful lot like Joel Whitley appear in the window of a black camper trailer that stood next to the tall triple-wide.

Luke felt his first pulse of misgiving. What was Whitley doing here? And why did he look so terrified? Luke recalled Garrett Mason, in the truck last night, saying of Joel, “He’s on the list for tomorrow.”

“Word of advice.” Mitchell put a hand on Luke’s shoulder. Joel’s face disappeared behind a black shutter. “That black one’s Mr. Boone’s special trailer. It’s the only one that locks. You steer clear of Boone, you hear? He’s short a favorite right now.”

Mitchell guided Luke toward a double-wide trailer painted Bison green and chuckled as he pointed out the tall words painted above the trailer’s door: HELLO DARLIN’.

“Don’t mind the names,” Mitchell said with a bemused little shake of his head. “The old guys have a boner for the faggy details.”

A handful of boys stood inside the trailer, sipping from more red plastic cups. They went silent the moment Luke stepped through the front door.