Faintly smiling, Adam squeezed Conner close and then nudged him in the stomach. "Yeah. We're solid steel."
"That's right. Always will be."
After watching Adam race up his porch steps and through the door, Conner turned toward his own house. Inside, it was quiet. He headed to the kitchen, where he found a note from his mother on the counter. She'd left her car keys for him and reminded him that Mason's Evening of Arts and Music ended at nine o'clock.
* * *
Adam tossed his backpack to his bed and then kicked his shoes across the room. He slumped onto his desk chair and scrolled through his text messages. Seven friends, all asking about the rumor that Jared had been possessed by the devil. He wanted to avoid the inevitable onslaught of questions and comments regarding Jared. Confronted on his own, he'd become easily flustered. But with Trevor and Conner at his side, he could follow their lead without fearing that he'd veer off course and say something without thinking first. He may have been the school's star basketball player, but in their trio, he wasn't the alpha leader.
The year prior, Adam had been on the receiving end of rumors that had painted him as a party boy with an alcohol problem. A video of him drunkenly wandering around in his underwear at a friend's house until he passed out in his own vomit had made the rounds. Aside from his peers, the clip had been seen by his parents, the basketball coach, and several teachers. The ordeal had a lasting effect that took weeks for Adam to completely shake off.
Now, he dreaded being associated with strange, creepy stories.
As much as he wanted to defend Jared's memory, he didn't have a clue how to accomplish that once confronted with talk of demons and exorcisms. The only course of action that came to mind: deny, deny, deny.
* * *
Trevor placed a plate with two microwaved burritos onto the counter. As he walked to the refrigerator, his father entered the kitchen.
"Hey, son. How was practice?"
"It was good. Coach put us through hell. Really pushed me with defensive rebounding."
"Think you guys are ready for the game tomorrow?"
"Yeah. I think we'll kick their asses easy."
"I'll be there. I think your mom can make it too. Not sure about your sister, though."
"Eh." He shrugged as he set his plate and a glass of juice onto the small table of the breakfast nook. Sitting on the upholstered bench, he said, "Kinsley's too young to care about basketball."
"She's twelve, not seven."
Trevor grinned. "I mean, I don't expect her to be there. She hasn't been to a lot of my games anyway."
His father sat and looked him in the eye. They shared the same light blue eyes, narrow nose, and muscular physique, standing over six-feet tall. Trevor had inherited his mother's full lips and high cheek bones. His skin tone was a bronzed mix of his Caucasian father and African American mother.
"Got a call from school," his dad said. "You need to work hard on bringing your Algebra and History grades back up."
Hoping to avoid a lecture, he replied with confidence. "I know, I know. I'm working on it."
"Work a little harder. This is your senior year. Don't be lazy about your grades with Princeton on the horizon."
Chewing, Trevor nodded. "Uh, huh."
"All right. Well, I'm not going to harp on about it. But if you don't raise those grades soon, I'll be riding your ass about hitting the books."
"Loud and clear, Dad."
His father scratched his slightly salt-and-peppered head and then eyed his son. It was the look Trevor recognized as his father's not so sly way of studying him before speaking again.
"Anything else going on with you?" his dad asked.
"No. All good. Why?"
"Well, with Jared's death and—"
"And what?"
"I was going to say school and basketball."
"Adam, Conner, and I are going to the funeral Friday morning."
His father lowered his gaze. "Late this afternoon, Jared's parents were questioned by the police."
"What? Why?"
"The medical examiner filed a report that stated Jared had injuries to his body."
"He died of cardiac arrest."
"Yes. But he also showed signs of possible abuse."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know all the details. Obviously, since your mother works in the county attorney's office, she told me and—"
"The police think Jared's parents killed him?"
"I'm letting you know because Newman is a small suburb, not a big metro city. People talk."
Trevor couldn't help but chuckle. "That's crazy, Dad. And you know it. You and Mom know his parents. They didn't abuse him."
"You don't know what goes on behind closed doors."
"Dad. Seriously! Me and Adam and Conner were friends with him forever. His parents weren't abusive. They didn't kill him."
"I don't know what the injuries were. I guess it's possible that he abused himself."
Trevor thought of Jared with blood smeared on his face and then the way Conner described him in the boys' restroom. "I don't know what to think anymore."
"What do you mean?"
"Just what you said, Dad. People talk. Someone's going to say something about the police talking to his parents. And other stuff."
"Such as?"
For a moment, Trevor stared at the crumbs on his plate. He licked a spot of salsa from his finger. Then he calmly said, "Well, apparently, he was possessed by the devil."
His father anchored his sight on him and then cracked a smile. "Um. Possessed by the devil, huh?"
Trevor wanted to smile in return at his dad's slightly amused but bewildered expression. However, his mind convinced him to respond with the sense of seriousness his father had presented minutes earlier. "Yeah. Of course, we don't know if—"
"Who's we?"
"Me, Conner, and Adam. Plus, now the kids at school are talking about it. It's all starting to get—"
"Wait a second. You're being serious?"
Now embarrassed, Trevor said, "I don't know if it's true."
"I don't think those things really happen to people."
"Possessed by demons or whatever?"
"Yeah. That's not real."
"How do you know?"
"Well, my rational mind tells me so."
"But you don't know for sure."
His father shook his
