Chapter 37

Asher

Jennifer Ashby asks for the three of us by name.

Not church. Not the whole pack. Just Dom, Blake, and me, in Ray’s kitchen on a Tuesday night, with the curtains drawn and a pot of coffee nobody drinks.

I haven’t been inside this house in eight years. It looks exactly the same. The same yellow walls, the same scarred oak table, the same row of mismatched mugs hanging from hooks over the sink. There’s a drawing taped to the side of the fridge, faded almost white, of four stick figures under a sun with a face. Three big ones and a little one with long yellow hair. MY FAMILY across the top, in crayon.

I have to look away from it.

Dom sits across from me, his jaw still purple where Ray hit him. Blake is at the end of the table, his arms folded tight across his chest, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on earth. Ray leans against the counter by the sink with his arms crossed, watching all three of us.

Jennifer sits at the head