The crew member drives them away while Wyatt and Nate check out my photograph, nodding approval.
Wyatt points to his brothers pocket. “What’s with the lighter? You take up smoking? Because I will kill you.”
Under his breath and with full confidence, Nate chuckles, “I’m bigger than you now.”
“You fucking are not!”
“I am.”
“Are not!”
“Am.”
“Look at these muscles next to yours!” They compare, and Wyatt frowns. “What the fuck?”
“Told you,” Nathan smirks.
“When did that happen?”
“Training. I’ve been bulking up and you haven’t noticed because you still see me as the twelve year old twerp you grew up teasing.”
“You razzed me just as much as I did you, so don’t shove that delusional history at me. But I’ll hand it to you—you’re slightly bigger than me. Now back to my fucking questions. Why do you have a lighter, because if you’ve also been hiding a smoking habit—”
“I wasn’t hiding these muscles. You just couldn’t see them!”
“Are you implying that I’m oblivious to your dumb smoking habit, too? Did I mysteriously overlook a cancer stick hanging out of your mouth at any point?”
“Of course not. With all the fires we put out, you think I’m going to purposefully breathe in more smoke?”
I’m curious, too, so I interject into their sibling banter, “Then why do you have one, Nate?”
He pulls the lighter out and his somber gaze drops to inspect the shiny, silver case. It’s not some cheapy you’d find at a gas station. That’s why it’s so perplexing. It was an investment. And I don’t see Nate as a pothead. None of the Cockers have ever really needed drugs to aid their adventures.
Nate pushes a button that ignites a sharp blue flame. He stares at it. “This is to remind me when it gets scary out there that fire can be controlled by man. It may take time, but we can conquer even this.” He flicks the case closed and raises his sober gaze to hold mine. “You get the witch’s number?”
I’m moved by the profoundness of what I just heard. Nathan Cocker has always seemed like a kid to me, especially since his older brother Nicholas was my friend first, and is my age. But ever since that fire hit my childhood home, where Nicholas saved that dog and my future, something happened to Nathan.
It’s time to stop underestimating him.
It takes me a beat before I can answer, “I just got her name and where she works.” Looking between the brothers I ask, “Guys, seriously, how creepy should I be?”
Wyatt heads for the door. “I don’t know, Billy. It is Halloween.”
CHAPTER 10
HAVEN
M y editor summons me to his office. “Someone already blogged about your lead story and it went viral. I can’t print your piece.”
We don’t have a physical newspaper anymore. That went away years ago when the profit margin skyrocketed for online publications, but we still use the old jargon because we’re slightly nostalgic about the good old days when a newspaper was flung on a sidewalk by a boy out to make a buck.
“Why can’t you print it?” I grumble, walking over to look at the screen Tom points at. A few quick scans tell me some chick raked Billy over the coals for scaring her so badly she peed her costume, and she was dressed as a banana. The only thing she was thankful for was that it was yellow.
The number of comments calling Billy a monster, sadist and thief, and variations thereof, reach the hundreds. “How did it get this huge so quickly? And how is Billy a thief, Tom? I don’t get it.”
“Apparently she’s upset about the money she lost paying the ticket and going home so early. She found out it was a prank, but by that time she was already soiled and home. And because her blog got so much attention, she made a video. Went viral since she called it Halloween Prank in Atlanta and enough people searched for the holiday here.”
“And then told their friends,” I finish as I’m reading the comments. They’re so mean-spirited I can’t wrap my brain around them. I stammer, pointing at the screen, “These people don’t know Billy at all! I met him. He’s a good guy. All he was trying to do was give a great show! He’s friends with the Cockers! Everyone knows the Cockers are good people!”
“Nevertheless, the story is now this, and there’s no changing it.”
“What?!?”
“You have this many people believing something, then that’s what it is.”
I glare at Tom. “That’s not good enough.”
He meets my stare with an even dryness, eyes hooded with forced patience. “Haven—”
“—No! Just because it’s easy to sit back and do nothing doesn’t mean it’s right. I’m going to send out a reply article, calling her out!”
“Not with my newspaper you’re not.”
I glare a few beats more, trying damned hard to control my temper. “You’re going to just let—”
“—What I’m going to do, is not poke the hungry tiger. The last thing I need is my server crashing because we’re attacked by a commenting mob empowered by anonymity.” Tom leans forward. “This woman figured out she can control people by their discomfort, and she’s twisted the story to suit her ego. And you know what? It doesn’t matter that the trigger wasn’t based in truth. They don’t care anymore. All they think is one thing, join the mob to stay safe.”
“That’s crazy!”
“Yes, it is.”
My teeth grit together. “You’re not going to let me write the truth?”
“No. Drop it. Walk away.”
I turn on my heel. “Guess I’m starting a blog today.”
He calls after me, “Not on my clock, Haven, your name is associated with my paper! You write this article and you’re not welcome back, hear me?!”
I walk to my desk, collect my things, and sigh, looking around the place and meeting the eyes of some confused co-workers.
On my way out, I pause in front
