I own nothing but the story.

Ronin sat to the right of his officer with his hand upon his chin, his stare lost to the world as the other man read aloud from his clipboard. The officer spoke slowly, his voice gruff but soft, as he pointed out and explained what lay on the sheet to my parents. On one of the sheets was a body diagram marked with several red x's. I stared not at it, but between Ronin and a clock on the office wall. Originally they wanted me to wait outside, but I refused. Now, as I listened to the man describe my dead friend with incredible detail, I wished I'd stayed with the rest of my friends.

"We estimated the time of death to be at around 4:30 in the morning," said the officer.

Seven hours, then.

"The cause of death, as of now, is undetermined."

My father and mother glanced at each other, squeezing each other's palms white. Ronin blinked for the first time in what felt like ten minutes.

"He has lacerations on his hands," he pointed to several red marks, concentrated on the knuckles.

I swallowed.

"He's been bitten on his forearm—happened when he was alive," the officer moved his finger to a circle on the diagram's left, "We've been unable to identify the animal, but we know it had fangs. Our best guess is a mountain lion, or possibly a graze by a bear—"

I sucked the air in through my teeth, wishing now I stayed out in the waiting room. Noticing my discomfort, Mom placed her hand on my knee and squeezed it. She'd been so quiet over the last few days.

"His hyoid is also fractured," the officer said, "It was the only bone damaged."

At my questioning gaze, Ronin tapped the top of his neck, near the spot where his jaw met his throat. For a second I could feel again as bewilderment coursed through me.

Several things had happened in the days following Cole's...discovery. The coroner, reporters, and grief counselors alike came to our little motel room—or we would go to them—and they wouldn't leave until they, and ourselves, consequently, knew every detail of what happened in the woods, backwards and forwards:

A teenager arrived from out of town got lost after coming into contact with a vicious mountain lion, and he turned up dead miles away three days after.

That wasn't the truth I knew, but by now I was afraid to say anything more, afraid to think that if perhaps I'd told Ronin back when he visited that his story was not correct, that something else had taken Cole away, that things now would be different. I told myself they wouldn't be, but still those terrifying thoughts remained, looming like a shadow over my roaring river of grief.

"He's got bruising in the neck and head; we've found traces of some sorts of markings on his skin, but there's nothing conclusive," he pulled forward another sheet, gesturing to bizarre, thin, snake like patterns printed in copper on a sheet of paper. I eyed the door my friends lay behind.

Since Cole had been found we've hardly spoken. Kai tried to, more than once, but not even Nya would oblige, instead crying tears that never seemed to quell. Zane had shut down completely, losing more than words. In the hours since he was torn from Cole's wrist, he lost all expression, losing speech and tears as his mind traveled miles away from him. As for me, I stayed with my parents, trying to clean up a mess I couldn't even hope to fix.

"We haven't found his shoes or his sock."

There were so many haven'ts.

"Is his father on his way down here for identification?"

"I'm his father." My father spoke immediately following the statement, but his voice contained no malice, no bitterness, just emptiness, and sorrow.

"His real father."

Mom answered next, "He'll be here Friday."

My fists clenched and unclenched themselves in my lap. His real father. His "real" father hadn't even the decency to let Mom and Dad hang up first, hadn't the decency to wail and cry upon hearing the news. Cole's real father hadn't even the decency to come down here when we first called, to search for his son like the rest of his family was. Real father. Real father. Dad was Cole's real father. More real than Lou could ever hope to be.

Ronin was looking at me. Looking at me with that lone eye of his. I wondered if the dead one was looking, too.

"We'll continue to look over the body, but you need to start making arrangements for a—"

I stood. I wanted to go; I needed to see my friends. It was the first time we were in one place since they came here. No one protested when I walked out, no one said a word.

The secretary said my friends were crowding the receptionist; in chairs between filing cabinets and her large desk they sat hunched and downturned, heads bent like sunflowers towards the earth.

Wu was there, not hugging anyone—because he couldn't defile school rules—but speaking to Kai in a soft whisper. Misako had her arm around Nya's shoulders, holding her close as she cried. I don't know why this woman was here; she didn't know Cole. I noticed Lloyd wasn't with her, but I wasn't upset. If he did show his face in here, with us, I'd surely claw it right off, because I know he knew something about the woods and that he didn't tell us and that might have changed things and everything or nothing would be different and and and and and.

I sat next to Zane, because he was alone, he was alone with Cole first, which meant he needed me most. He stared at the ceiling, still as stone, his eyes like Ronin's, like Cole's: dead. With the way he sat, immune to his father's touch and unaware of anyone within his proximity, one could be forgiven for thinking he was dead too, but I knew, unlike with Cole, if I held a mirror beneath Zane's nostrils the glass would fog.

Wu looked at me, older than I'd ever seen him, "How are you feeling?"

A silly question. How was I feeling? Getting skewered with a pitchfork would hurt less than this. But he meant well, I'm sure, I hope. He was doing his job.

I let my silence answer for me. He sighed.

"If you need anything," Misako spoke in a lullaby voice, "My door is always open."

From her? The thought of going back into that restaurant sickened me, though I wasn't sure why. Was it Lloyd? The woods? The memories attached? I no longer felt as suspicious of this family as I was angry.

"Thanks, but—" I whispered, "They're already making arrangements for sending Cole back home."

Home. He'd be coming home in a box, his empty eyes facing the top. I shivered. Slowly, Zane turned and stared at me. I gazed back at him, trying to figure out what was on his mind.

"Did they tell you how he died?" asked Kai, his voice coming off as too loud for this quiet place. He received a vicious kick in the shins from Nya.

"They're not sure," it was becoming easier to talk now that my friends were speaking to me, "There's several possibilities, 'cause he'd moved around so much: exposure; dehydration; infection," outward trauma had been on the sheet, too.

Misako looked away, breath hitching once. I looked at her but then the door opened and Ronin walked in, offering a thin lipped grimace of a smile before approaching and leaning against the cabinet next to me.

"If you weren't so young I'd offer you a drink," he said.

Misako's nostrils flared, and I noticed Wu eyed him with disdain, as well. Interesting.

Though even I couldn't deny the strange feeling that coursed through me as I tried to comprehend how Ronin could say what he did.

He's just trying to help, I decided.

Zane's eyes went empty as he turned back to the ceiling.

Kai spoke next, "Do you know how he died?"

Ronin appeared to deflate as he ran a hand through his stringy hair and sagged against the filing cabinet, "Nature is my guess. The way things are lookin', he just dropped dead. We couldn't find any tracks or nothing around him."

With each word I felt like I was getting socked in the stomach, "Oh."

"I know there isn't a bright side to this," he continued in spite of the glowering looks coming from all sides but mine, "At least we found him now, rather than later. We didn't find the last kid until nine months after we noticed he was gone. By then he was just a pile of bones in a sack of muddied clothes."

Lloyd's voice rang through my head, "This is what happened last time."

Last time.

Misako's breathing hitched again. Nya had quieted now, staring at Ronin with wide eyes.

"We couldn't figure out what killed him, either," said Ronin, rambling once again, "Though from what I remember his neck bones were mussed, too. And so were his legs, and his skull was—"

"Ronin!" Wu spoke using his special teacher voice for extra intimidation, "Do you have any tact? We don't want to hear about this!"

Ronin held up his hands, "Look, I'm just—"

"Babbling," said Wu, his tone full of bite.

I shot glances at Zane and the rest of my friends, finding them shocked as well that our principal was speaking as he was. I guessed that Ronin had been as much a character when Wu resided here as he was now.

Ronin's stare dirtied for a moment before, whether by his own awareness or by the atmosphere around him, he melted into a more somber expression. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out his flask and gulped a swallow. The room was quiet save for the sound of breathing, the sounds of life. It occurred to me how quiet the inside of the other room had been.

While I understood why Wu wanted Ronin to stop his disgusting ramblings, I'd be lying if I said they shouldn't continue. I too had this urge to fill silence with unneeded words when presented with it. As for now, although it still hurt to talk out loud, I couldn't bear to listen to the silence, the overwhelming sense of absence.

"There was another kid?" I blurted. I noticed Zane had begun to quiver.

"Yeah," Ronin said without looking up, "Little homeless kid named Morro."

Wu made a noise that forced all eyes upon him. He sat backwards and shifted closer to Misako, who stared at the floor. "He—he's dead?"

"You knew him?"

"Knew him?" Wu released a funny little huff and didn't answer the question.

Ronin eventually went on, "Yeah, found him lying in a creek. Sadly, he's one of many who've turned up dead out there."

Zane was shaking now. I put a hand on his arm. "How'd they all do that?" I asked. I was feeling nauseous again, but I couldn't stop myself.

"Same as your friend," said Ronin, "His eyes turned high towards the ceiling, "It's the forest. People wander too far."

I blinked. That was what Lloyd had said. I looked around, but only I understood this revelation. Before anything more could be spoken, the door opened once more, and my parents entered the room. Misako stood first, oddly, but my parents looked to me.

I approached, feeling shaky. Clutching Mom's hand offered a great comfort to me, even with her own shakiness.

"We're—" she said, "We're going to have him examined for a few more days."

I nodded once.

"Then we can either send him to the city, or take him home to be" her eyes shone and she struggled to say the next word, "buried."

Dad steadied her shoulder and said, "We're thinking of taking him home. Is that alright with you?"

Why they were asking me this question eluded me, but I nodded again anyway. At once I could feel Zane's eyes boring into my back, but when I looked at him, he'd already turned away. My parents nodded themselves and raised their heads to give an announcement.

"Come Sunday, we'll be sending him home. Any one of you are welcome to return earlier. Thank you for all of your help."

I wish it had been any good, but I was thankful for the presence of my friends. I wasn't sure how well I or even Zane would have fared alone. We were barely staying afloat now.

I kept thinking of Cole's half-lidded stare, forever etched onto his face; the last part of him I ever saw. There was nothing I hated more about that.

We returned to the motel soon after, driving away one by one. As we turned onto the road I saw Misako and Wu speaking out in front of the police station: he bent forward but still; she shiny as strange tears leaked over her face. I could also see Ronin through the window he pulled open. Sitting in Zane's vacated seat, he dirtied the heavens with cigarette smoke as he took a puff, then a swig from his flask, eyes returned to dead and unblinking. I thought of Cole again. I was always thinking of Cole.

As the rest of the town's little buildings crowded my vision I sat back in my seat, pressing into the cushion and pouting. Why were they so upset, these random people? They didn't know Cole. They couldn't possibly experience the pain we did.

At night I stared at my flying contraption, thinking, thinking, thinking so hard I couldn't sleep; not that I would, ever again. I wondered what Cyrus Borg was doing right now, wondered if he felt upset when we didn't arrive.

Ninjago City. We should have been there. It was funny to think that now, only Cole had the chance to make it there. That was a funny feeling, the kind that made you sick. This should have been the greatest week of my life, of Zane and I's life, and yet, here we were.

I wanted to cry again, but I also wanted to take my science fair project and burn it out back by the dumpsters. For a moment I entertained the idea, imagining that I could sneak out with relative ease. Then I remembered all the times Cole and I failed to sneak out when we were younger, and I turned away from the machine, eyeing instead my parents' forms.

Their arms were wrapped around each other, pulling each other close.

Best week of my life. This should have been the best week of my life. Cole was going home on Sunday, alone in a box with his eyes closed and facing the ceiling. And to think that Cole wasn't the only one to die out in the woods.

But I couldn't think of that any longer. My eyes were tired, and they closed, but I knew I wouldn't sleep, for long, at least. As I drifted off, I saw Cole's empty eyes, staring at me and at the ceiling, like Zane's, like Ronin's, like, I'm sure, that Morro kid and everyone else who died all alone and forgotten in the middle of the woods.

And still there was that howl.

Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day!