Just then, she heard a rustle. When she looked up, Micah was standing a few feet away, a shovel in his hand. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“We have to call for help,” she stammered. Buddy whinnied from the stable.

“It’s too late. He’s gone.”

She choked back tears, laying her palm on August’s chest. “No.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Micah repeated, his voice cold. “Go back to the party. Tell them everything’s fine. I’ll be up in a minute.”

“What? We have to at least get Zoe. She deserves to know.”

“I’ll tell Zoe later.”

“What . . . what are you going to tell her?”

“The truth,” Micah said. “August wasn’t committed to our cause anymore. He stopped believing in what we’re trying to do here. Did this to himself. Relapse.”

She stood up slowly, shaking her head. “No.”

“You know she’ll believe me,” Micah said. “It’s better for everyone this way, trust me. Now, go back to the party.”

Something inside her boiled irrepressibly and the words erupted before she could stop herself. “You can’t do this, Micah. It’s . . . wrong.”

“Wrong?” A dark shadow passed over Micah’s face and he smirked. “Like growing marijuana without a license? I can’t take credit for that. That was all you, wasn’t it? You purchased that equipment, using your credit card. You nurtured those plants and harvested them. There are a dozen witnesses in the house right now who will attest to that.” Micah held his arms wide, the shovel dangling from one of his hands. “Hell, it was even you who shipped those first packages across state lines. Don’t forget that, Karina.” That name punctuated his statement, his warning clear. “Now. Go back to the fucking party before people start wondering where we are.” He stabbed the tip of the shovel into the dirt. “Tell them August and I went for a nice long walk.”

Sero looked down at August’s lifeless body one more time before making a wide circle around Micah and taking the trail back to the house. In darkness lit only by the moon, she picked her way carefully across the fields, not daring to look back toward the stables, where Buddy’s whinnying continued. Her mind ran through all the incidents he’d mentioned, forming a pattern. Micah had purchased the plants, but with a thick envelope of cash that left no trace. Her left arm ached with the angry gashes she’d made. She closed her eyes and felt them burning behind their lids, images of Micah’s hard expression and August’s lifeless body flashing across her mental screen. What had really happened to Justin, when he’d left all his belongings behind?

Loud music emanated from the house, and she could hear the voices and laughter of her friends inside. Quietly and deliberately, she moved along the side of the house to the front, carefully making her way around the broken driveway stones in her bare feet. Her heart beat out a syncopated rhythm in her chest as she reached the bottom of the driveway and turned onto the road, then made her way down to the end of the cul-de-sac. Not until the festive sounds of the Sanctuary could no longer be heard behind her, did she finally feel safe.