Author's Note

I'm a nerd, but the song "Everyone Wants to Rule the World" reminds me so much of this book. And I'm not even talking the cool, modernized version Lorde released, but the old school original from Tears and Fears. It sounds like such a teenage song in the way it's sung and then you listen to the words and you're just like... well... that's a lil fucked up. 

"Your name, full name, Mattie," the request came from a man Mattie knew since birth. Officer Andre sat across from her with his hands folded together and his full attention resting on the two teenagers in the tiny room. Asher sat beside her, a request that had morphed into a demand when she realized she didn't want to be left alone. 

It was only an interview, not an interrogation. No malice could be found in the young officer's voice, and there were no lies slipping off of Mattie's lips. 

"Matilda Viviann LeCruz," she replied coolly, placing her gaze anywhere but the camera lens that pointed at her, recording footage of her interview to help find the thing responsible for this entire mess. 

"Are you seventeen, Misses LeCruz?" Officer Andre asked, and she almost shot out a sarcastic 'yeah, remember? You were there at my seventeenth birthday, you arrested half of my friends'. 

"Yes sir," Mattie replied, and she felt Asher scoot closer to her on the cold metal chairs they sat in. He had told her before they entered Andre would be strictly professional and he'd use seemingly useless questions to help ease the interview into her comfort zone. 

"And I see Mister Bravermen is present, is there a reason behind that?" Andre continued, glancing down at the clipboard that lay flat on the wooden table before he made eye contact once more. 

"It's a voluntary interview; ain't mandatory, I figured I'd give the truest version of the story with someone like Ash beside me. I don't expect, y'know, for you or Aunt- I mean, Sheriff Bravermen, to understand or even- look at me, like I'm sane, but... this kid, he might think I'm not just all empty air up here," she folded her hands over her face before letting her fingers creep to her temples, where she rubbed them to chase away the foreboding headache. 

"People... like Mister Bravermen?" He paused, his dark umber eyes carefully watching the two teenagers as he let the question hang alone in the quiet room. 

"Yeah, I mean- he's one of the few that experienced July Night just as-"

"Does this regard July Night, Misses LeCruz?" Andre's voice dropped, as though the camera didn't matter- or as if it did, and he didn't want it to be on the record. 

Asher's eyes widened, clearly new information to the younger teenager too, and Mattie felt almost guilty for a hot second. "Yes, I'm afraid-"

The officer stood up almost instantaneously, pausing to scoop up all of his belongings- his clipboard, a few lined papers with scribbles of unreadable words, and his coffee- which looked cold, considering no wisps of steam crawled out of the mug. 

"I'm- let me get... your mother... Sheriff," Officer Andre sent them one quick glance, enough evidence in his eyes to tell the two teenagers this had become deadly serious. 

When they were left alone, Asher stared at the reflection of the one-sided mirror to their left. His mother, if she was at the station, probably stood with her feet apart and her arms crossed staring at her son and niece through the window. 

"So, July Night," he whistled lowly, didn't think about the gentle thrum in his veins that whispered hymns of giddy adrenaline jacked up from the unconscious fear that came with the words: July Night. 

"Shut up," Mattie whispered to her cousin, peaking at him through her folded hands; her breath hitched when she saw the look on Asher's face.  

He seemed utterly tired. The teenager's expression was nothing compared to last year's finals- and that had been stressful for him. Mattie remembered her cousin coming to school half asleep leaning on Tommy's shoulder just to keep him standing. He wore all three pairs of sweatpants he owned for two weeks straight along with any threadbare t-shirt; he had held seemingly endless cups of coffee in one hand and his textbooks/study guides/notes in his other. 

Now, he sat with his hands wrapped around either shoulder, as if he was holding himself together, like the pale fingers that pushed on his skin kept him from collapsing. Framed with an angry pink, his dark eyes blinked warily at the wooden table in front of him, at the offered cups of water. Mattie had already chugged her own, his remained untouched inches from him. 

His top teeth gnawed on his pale lips, lost in thought- Asher usually was- but this time, it felt different. Looked it, too. Mattie wanted to wrap her arms around her cousin and scream at him to say something- smile that smile he always did. Asher always had a grin, even when it was justifiably inappropriate. 

"Y'know," Asher finally whispered; the words shocked Mattie, she expected silence after her sneer for quietude. "This is all fucked up." 

She nodded, because it was. And what more actually had to be said? What else could possibly describe this entire situation? How could someone possibly put in words what was going through Mattie's mind or Asher's mind? 

"And I thought-" He cut himself off, one hand escaped from his own induced self-hug to tap a light fist on the wooden table in front of them. His eyebrows scrunched up, a sign that he was desperately trying to keep his emotions from getting the best of him. "Thought this was over," the words cracked and scratched out of his throat like something inside of the boy broke, but he continued. "It has to be... I mean, we... we're teenagers. We're kids. We're fucking kids." 

"I..." Mattie's mouth feels like she stuffed cotton down her throat, the words drying on her tongue every time she parted her lips to speak. 

"Tommy is gone. Someone tried to take you. Who the hell is next?" His voice trembled, his lips stretching into a wide thin line- a warning that things were two seconds from hitting the fan. "Shit like this doesn't happen to other people. Shit like this shouldn't happen, and, and-"

Before he can continue, before his first hiccup of a sob can escape his mouth, the sheriff steps in with her pressed khakis and soaked parka. She probably came in from the ongoing search party looking for Tommy. 

"Good evening, Mattie and-" the sheriff stopped speaking when she glanced at her youngest son. His teeth were digging deep into his lips, trying to keep himself from crying and his nose flared with red and snot. 

"Sweetie?" Her police persona disappeared as she leaned down to Asher and wrapped a sure hand around the nape of his neck. "What's wrong?" 

"Nothing ma," he sniffed up whatever he was going to say before she entered the room and gave her a quivering smile. "I just, nerves is all. Everything's catching up with me, y'know." 

"You need to leave the room, sugar?" She asked, using her 'mom voice' and giving him a sturdy look that meant she wouldn't judge him if he did. After a few seconds, Asher shook his head and sat back in his seat, giving his mother a nod to go on. 

"Anyway," the Sheriff still gave her son a long glance before turning to sit on the metal chair that Andre had once occupied. "I heard my little niece was attacked, you okay?" she turned her attention to Mattie, who still stared at Asher, quietly studying him, before she jumped at the sudden question. 

"Uh, yeah, Aunt Ashlynn, I'm fine," she gave what she hoped could be described as a believable grin. According to the sheriff, it was less than believable. 

"Officer Andre all but pulled me outta my car in the lot to tell me that this attack has something to do with the unsolved case of July Night," Asher's mother turns the chair around as she replies to Mattie. Like second nature, she leans her forearms on the back railing of the metal after she shrugs off her sopping coat and sets her feet apart, ready for an explanation. 

"Yes ma'am, that's right," Mattie blinks up at her, folding her hands in front of her to keep them tapping like mad on the table. 

Ashlynn closes her startling blue eyes, as if she is taking a moment to gain composure, in anticipation of pressing forward. "Can you start from the beginning, sugar?"

Mattie risks a glance to her cousin, who is staring with flared nostrils and trembling hands, but clearly ready for answers. The teenager nods to the officer, swallowing back something that felt too close to a scream before continuing with words she could wrap her tongue around. "Yeah, yeah okay." 

*

First hour, for anyone but specifically Mattie, was a sacred fifty-five minutes of talking over their poor Drama teacher's soft voice and stuffing the room full of obnoxious laughs and crude jokes. Which could be funny, considering that Mattie harbored a very naughty mouth and a much more wicked smile, but it tired quickly and once the amusement disappeared, so did the teenager. 

She stood up, tugging her purse over her shoulder and walked to the front of the classroom, where her classmates seldom stole a glance towards their elected overlord. They already were well-versed with her skipping habits, so they didn't blink up at her with eyes as wide as owls asking 'where? Where?' instead of 'who, who'. 

"Mrs. Blanchoski," Mattie let her palms rest on the teacher's desk, who looked utterly hopeless with controlling her students. Seconds before Mattie had approached, Mrs. Blanchoski had been soul deep into a game of Save the Sheriff. 

"Yes, Matilda?" 

She cringed at the use of her full name, but smiled with as much charm she could stuff into one pearly-white grin. "May I use the restroom?"

For a second, Mrs. Blanchoski almost looked as if she wasn't going to allow her to leave the classroom- and with Mattie's record, she would not have blamed her, after all, as a first hour it ranked as the most skipped class due to teenagers simply not getting up until 8:30.

"Promise to hurry back?" Her teacher questioned. 

"Of course," Mattie lied easily, turning around the soles of her converse before Blanchoski could give her a hall pass. Hall passes at Hollow High were thick plastic things which must be returned or one faces detention. Girls like Mattie didn't have time for such fickle activities. 

She glanced at the class she was leaving. Her friends were grinning at her, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes as her boyfriend Derek had the audacity to actually look betrayed at her abrupt fleeing. Though Derek's GPA average would drop below 3.0 without the help of his daddy's money, he was intelligent enough to know that Mattie was leaving because she had grown tired. 

Which meant he hadn't been enough of a spectacle to entertain her. She would have felt bad if... well, if she had felt bad. 

Mattie let the door open a sliver when she went to close it, because she had to at least convince Mrs. Blanchoski she might actually return. 

While she made her descent down the hallway to the back doors of the parking lot, she lazily went through her smartphone's notifications. People were tagging her in photos, short video clips of her speaking about her experience in the football field, each of her social media accounts had a sudden spike of activity and she gained followers by the tens; even a few DMs had been sent to her by verified accounts from news stations.

She opened the door without bothering to glance up. The cold wasn't unexpected, and she tugged her purse closer to her chest, guarding her from the threatening wind while she both rummaged in her bag to find her keys and glanced around for her vehicle- which had been parked at the end of the small lot beside Tyler's secondhand truck. 

Mattie peeked around for any reporters- the police car parked on the other side of the road told her they were probably all ran out somewhere between the first warning bell and the forty minutes class has been in session. 

The teenager's converse hit the gravel of the lot; as her search for her keys continued, she didn't bother to glance up- the lot was easy enough to wander around, considering its tiny size. 

"Oh God!" She screamed, her voice breaking apart the silence of the chilly morning as she took out her trembling hand from her purse to find it covered in the remnants of something gelatin and sticky. "Mother fucking peach rings!" Mattie cursed, because the candy had always been her weakness- and now, if she doesn't take it to be properly cleaned, her expensive purse was good as worthless if the interior spoiled. 

She paused to wipe her fingers on her leggings, and with a final and long sigh, she straightened herself up to begin her walk again. With every step, she came closer to her car and halfheartedly pressed on her clothing to keep her image of pristine. 

And then, she was on the ground. 

There hadn't been a warning, nothing foreboding in the near future to have her hackles risen. She simply had been upright, and suddenly her legs had been swept underneath her in an unexpected assail. 

Mattie clutched her purse as her phone flew out of left hand's grasp and she searched for her attacker. Around her, the air grew still- paralyzed in the perfect way a winter day could- but something violent ripped the peace apart. 

Before she could process what happened, her thigh felt like it was being pulled apart. Literally. She screamed desperately, and high, and loud; eyes wide as she turned to see something that resembled too much of everything bad, everything she wanted to forget, everything she had pushed her memory to forget. 

The honest truth about those news stories, those anchors pressing a microphone into her lips and asking her the same question like mantras, was that there had been nothing honest about them. Whatever Mattie said had been passed down, secondhand encounters that she never experienced. Friday night she had been screaming at her father, throwing anything breakable at his office door like it would make up for the fact that it had been a one-sided argument. That he didn't hear anything because he hadn't been on the other side of the door- and if he did hear her, it was through the security system. 

She didn't believe it when her friends had pulled her aside, called her the morning after, or showed her half-assed pictures of blurry blurbs that resembled something like an overgrown dog perched on the football goals. A stunt, she thought.

But now. 

Now she screamed for her life. She screamed for everything, for anything, that could escape from her throat. 

Whatever she leveled her eyes with didn't match with the image of some blurry picture captured in the zenith of fear, but something much crueler. 

A man- no, not a man, humankind is not capable of that true and rabid evil in their eyes, she thought- latched onto her thigh with inextricable fingers, nails that felt like talons anchored into the meat of her leg as she screamed and focused on composing herself. 

It felt like July Night. If she looked down at her hands, she wondered if she'd see the chubby version of an eight year-old's fingers stained with her own blood; if she touched her neck, would the scar there still be gaping and shredded through what specialists said resembled a wolf's canines. 

Despite her screaming, no one heard- or if they did, they simply didn't care enough to come to her aid. Mattie cried out as the man above her, who echoed in her shouting like every single unshakable nightmares she had ever experienced, began to drag her. 

One hand still clutched her purse as the other desperately searched for any kind of grasp on the gravel. When she kicked too violently or landed a hit to his chest or arm, he'd yank, sending her bare face flying to the ground. 

When her nail finally snapped in half-- it wasn't the fact that real talons were an inch deep in her skin or that her nose wouldn't stop bleeding- but her acrylic tip splitting apart that woke up her senses- her flight or fight.

Obviously, she only had one choice considering that she was practically being dragged around like a weightless pile of screaming girl by some type of maniac. 

"You dick!" She shouted somewhere between her bleeding fingernail to give the man a shocked expression. When her stomach stopped dragging over the gravel painfully, it was being rubbed into dewy grass, which led to the beginning of the miles of endless forest. 

She couldn't let him drag her into there. Not again. 

Mattie took her purse, searching for her taser and easily finding it. It had been a cheap buy over the internet, half flashlight- half taser. All hopefully capable of lighting this asshole's ass up.

She didn't think about it, because that's not what people have the time to do when they're in the middle of an attack with their childhood demons. She pushed down the button, dug down deep with the meat of her thumb, and stuck it into the nearest piece of flesh she could touch. 

His arm sizzled with the shock before he slapped it away and the aftershock licked her already wounded thigh. She screamed out of surprise, but thankfully the taser had been sufficient enough to loosen the man's grasp on her leg. 

She rolled feet away, taser tight in her hand and purse still tucked over her shoulder, as the man stumbled and stared at the teenager for a few moments before advancing once again. 

Mattie laid still, hoping that it appeared she had been stupid enough to knock herself out. The man seemed to fall for it, because he gingerly touched her chin, lifting it up with the nail of his finger, before she dug the taser as deep into his neck as her strength would allow her. 

The man did fall this time. She climbed on top of his chest, heavy breathing causing her to gasp raggedly as she gritted her teeth and tightened her grasp on her flashlight taser when the shock fizzled out after four seconds. 

Wordlessly, she hit him across the face with the heavy torch and tried to memorize anything that could help identify him if he did escape her grasp. 

And then she realized it wasn't a he. 

"Holy fuck, you bitch!" She shouted, taken by surprise that the woman in front of her appeared masculine at first glance- with her broad shoulders and short, dark hair. Bare faced- but hairy. Mattie wasn't stupid, all women had facial hair, today's beauty standards shunned them into waxing products and laser hair removal- in a perfect world, they wouldn't... but this woman took rebelling it to another level. 

The woman blinked up at her with a dazed expression before Mattie brought her flashlight back down to her cheek. The blow abruptly stopped, ceased by the woman catching her by the wrist.

Mattie stared down at the woman's eyes, fear seeping into her as something mirrored in her glassy amber stare. 

Suddenly, the body beneath the teenager moved and squirmed and struggled out from beneath her; the woman, despite being tasered to hell and back, grinned with a smile that resembled a snarl. Without Mattie's consent, her assailant ripped away from her grasp and fled, turning around on her feet and disappearing as quickly as she came. 

Mattie stared, had half a mind to simply sprint after her until the searing pain in her leg reminded her she wouldn't be going anywhere, when the low and pathetic sound of a police siren drove into the parking lot. The police vehicle rolled down their window as an officer peered into the field beside the lot. 

"Any trouble, Ms. LeCruz?" The officer asked; she raised a bloody eyebrow- she was practically on a first name basis with Hollow Grove's PD.

She didn't reply, but simply stood up, clutching her tattered bag and pressing all of her weight into her uninjured leg. Mattie checked her nails, painted a red that matched her own blood seamlessly, and glanced up to the officer- smiling ruefully as she honestly tried her hardest not to simply fall apart and sob uncontrollably. 

"I," she began slowly before blinking away a tear. "I need a doctor."

*

Asher stared at Mattie with an expression not even his mother could place. 

"Are you... are you fuckin' kidding me?!" Asher screamed, suddenly something he didn't know had lurked inside of his chest let lose as he looked on with bewilderment at his cousin. "A bearded lady? Do you honestly expect us to believe... any of that?" 

"I'm willing to believe it," The sheriff replied; Asher's mouth fell open in betrayal. She was his mother, for God's sake, by nature she should take his side. It came from the same rule book that demanded that all parents believe their children are beautiful, sinless things. 

"What the- mom?!" He stood up and shot a glare at the two women of the room, honestly tired and a bit fed up. "There aren't any wolves in Louisiana-"

"We both know that what attacked Tommy, what attacked me- wasn't a wolf. Or a man. Just like it wasn't July Night either," Mattie shot back, voice dripping with venom because she went through a hell of a lot of trauma in the past few hours. She didn't need Asher's theatricals. 

Asher gaped in surprise at her, to put something so dangerous and taboo on the table, to be so very blunt about it, could have been refreshing if it didn't strike endless amounts of fear into his body. 

"And what about the shit at the football field, Aunt Ashlynn? All three of us know it wasn't just some rabid mutt. Especially Asher, he probably stuck by Tommy's side the entire night- don't tell me he didn't get a good look at it," Mattie turned her eyes to her cousin. "Cause you did, and the only reason why you're having this meltdown is because you know it's coming back."

"I always knew it would, Mattie!" Asher whispered through gritted teeth and clenched his jaw. 

"No you didn't," Mattie leaned into him, stuffed up his space with the scent of the antiseptic that clogged up his pores and made him nauseated- for a fleeting second, he wondered what the scent was doing to her. "Our psychologists make us forget, reflect maybe, think about how it wasn't our fault- cause it wasn't," she places an unsure hand on his leather-covered shoulder. "We were just kids, but now we're peeking adulthood, and that wall I built, that you built, is already crumbling."  

Asher swallowed, doe eyes wide and dark as he tried to seem like he wasn't slowly falling apart at every word she spoke. 

"And that look in your eyes, Asher, that tells me I'm not the only one in this room who has encountered these monsters," Mattie stops, composes herself while glances at Ashlynn and back to her cousin. "I might've cried wolf for the fun of it, but we've both seen the wolf, haven't we?"

*

Asher caught a ride with his brother back home, silent in the car after he begrudgingly gave his cousin a hug and a kiss to her cheek- because who knew if they'd see each other in one piece again? He didn't think about anything from today. 

He blocked out all thoughts- everything that pressed into him the wrong way and banished himself to his bedroom, letting Bowser in- and after a call on the house's landline, Rina had found herself sitting in his shirt and sweatpants while cuddling up to the extra blankets on his bed. 

They sat in silence, aside from Bowser's heavy and obnoxious breathing, and went through old photo albums they found buried in his antique desk. All of them were full of pictures aside from the two years after July Night. Recovery could be a beautiful thing documented, but it could be awfully sad too- and his parents didn't have the heart to take Polaroids of him crying underneath fluorescent lights blaming himself for Ms. Angelo. 

He folded down the photo album when he caught a picture of her, capturing her lively spirit- the contrast so very different from the police photographs taken at the murder scene. She wore thrifted pastel blue-overalls, folded down to reveal her faded ZZ Top shirt and topped off with the worn Doc Martens she always wore. On top of her shoulders, Asher sat with wide eyes and his hands tight in her blue hair. 

That felt far away. 

It was far away. 

"I miss her too," Rina whispered, leaning her chin on her friend's shoulder and glancing up to him to check on his expression. He tried not to give anything away, that the weight he felt in his chest hadn't hurt this much in a long, long time, or that his throat tightened because he wanted to reply to her words- find a way to describe how he missed her with every breath he took. 

"That's enough for tonight," she finished when Rina saw the other teenager wasn't going to move, fingers frozen over the picture. 

"Rina," his words broke as he covered one hand over his mouth. "Why'd you want me to wear the leather jacket this mornin'?"

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Yeah. Sorry. This was a weird one. BUT I LOVE MATTIE. (Tbh, Ms. Angelo reminds me of Clarisse from F451)

And I love my lil Asher, it's like he's slowly breaking more and more each chapter and I L O V E it. 

Tell me whatcha think, if this was boring or not. I miss my old writing style.  

(More Thane next chapter (:<)