Thea Wrick's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Thea Wrick stood outside the boarded-up apartment where her friend Cole had lived. He had vanished the night of the Copperburn Massacre. Six of them survived that night. Now only Thea remained free. She had come here to find him. But the night itself was a hole in her head, and without those missing hours she couldn't trace where Cole had gone. She pressed her palm to the rough wooden boards nailed across the door. The wood was warm from the sun. She waited for it to open something inside her. Nothing came. The scar along her jaw ached the way it always did when she pushed too hard. A dog watched her from the alley mouth. It was a rough brown mutt with one eye and a face full of old scars. It didn't bark. It just stared, still as a nail. Thea knew that dog. The knowing hit her fast and made her sick. Cole had fed a stray on these steps. She could see it now: Cole crouched here, tearing bread, the dog's single eye fixed on him. She had been beside him. That was the last place she remembered before the dark. "Hey," she said. Her voice cracked. "You know me." The mutt turned and trotted along the wall. It stopped at the far corner and looked back. Waiting. She followed. The dog led her down the side of the building to a low window. The boards there hung loose, one nail pulled free. Someone had pried them. The dog sat and scratched at the sill. Thea gripped the boards and pulled. The wood groaned and came away in her hands. Behind it the glass was gone. She stared into the dark gap, and the smell reached her first, dust and old smoke. Then the memory broke open. She saw it whole now. The gunfire outside. Cole shoving her through this window while he stayed. His hand on her back. His voice: "Go. I'll hold the door." She had crawled out. She had run. She had left him inside. Her knees buckled. She caught the sill and held on. For a year she'd believed Cole disappeared into the night. He hadn't. He'd stayed here, in this apartment, to buy her time. Whatever happened to him happened behind these walls. The mutt pushed its scarred head against her leg. Thea wiped her face and looked at the black opening. The memory gave her a place. It also gave her a truth she'd hidden from herself. She hadn't lost Cole in the chaos. She'd left him. "Okay," she told the dog. Her hand shook on the wood. "He's in there. Or he was." She swung her backpack down and pulled the taped bat loose. Then she set her boot on the sill and climbed into the dark where she had last seen him alive.