JACQUARIOUS

It didn't seem possible that the frigid air had become even frostier in the few moments that it took me and Grey to trek back to our cars. But the angry lashes of the icy wind battered against us all the same.

"Hey, Jac, mind if I come back by your place? I was...wondering how TaKylar's holding up."

What? I shifted away from him. "I don't know, man."

His eyes fell. "Look—I'm not trying to overstep or anything. But, you know, this is getting pretty crazy. I wanna make sure she's okay."

"She'll be fine." I sighed. "Just go home, Grey. She literally got shot at; what she needs right now is rest."

He scowled. "Yeah? Well, I got shot at too, you know? And I've got the scars to show for it." He pointed at the gauzed bandage secured to the side of his neck.

"I...that's not..." I stepped back. "I didn't mean it like that. I just think maybe we should dial it down—"

"Dude, there's already been like two bodies! And one of my best friends might be a murderer—there's no dialing that down!" Grey's breathing surged. "Are you seriously telling me you're not freaked out about this?"

I lowered my head. "You don't understand." Another sigh shuddered from my chest. "Of course I'm freaked, man. Almost everyone I know lives in Browning Heights; and every time I hear there's been another shooting, I feel it—the fear, the terror, wondering if it was someone I love." My eyes rose to meet his once again. "Bet you heard about those kids on the news, the ones at Screamin' Cream when Devon Cartrell was murdered."

Grey tilted forward. "Yeah?"

"Well, their names were Jacquarious and TaKylar."

His jaw dropped wide.

"I barely made it out alive, couldn't sleep at all, dragged my feet at school the entire next day. I was terrified, just like you, man. But if I let myself fall apart every time something like this happens in Browning, I wouldn't be able to function."

It was Grey's turn to take a pair of tentative steps backward. "Well, I'm...I'm not like you, okay?"

"Maybe you're not. And that's okay." I blinked, shutting my eyes in frigid pause. "But driving all the way out to Mrs. Georgia's pharmacy just to get video footage of—"

"Dude," Grey gasped, lifting both hands in an instant. "Don't move."

The clamorous hiss of a high-pitched rattle sputtered out from behind me—no, from beneath me.

I glanced downward, peered into a pair of slit eyes chromed in hazel...eyes adorning the pointed head of a rattlesnake.

Extending its tongue, the snake slithered through the grass, passing between my legs, a deadly pedestrian flanked by the arches of a trembling human bridge.

I gulped once, gulped twice, liquid ice searing through my veins as that reptilian glare seemed never to leave me, even as the beast slinked past my shoes and onto the sidewalk.

Backing away, I reached for the handle of my car's front door, wincing as it clicked loudly open at the grasp of my shuddering fingers.

"G-go home, Grey," the words faltered out. "Just...just go, man. L-let's get out of here."

He didn't argue, nodding where he stood as though marbled in stone.

I swung my car door wide, the snake's forbidden hiss rattling out once more as it slid flush to the curb—as I slammed myself inside my vehicle and rent the gear shift in reverse...as a final whisper of serpentine terror feathered along my spine in time with the whistling breeze that screeched beyond the window.