Broken Kids (Book #1)

Ch. 3: To Kill a Mocking Girl

The quiet of the forest was interrupted by Asriel squealing and complaining while his three friends pointedly ignored him. After the first half an hour they realized that it was useless to try to convince him that the bugs couldn't hurt him so they let him complain. Not that there would be anyone there that would mind, the forests of Hurricane were almost always deserted. The only time they were lively was during the Halloween season when Evilyn threw her legendary parties at her family's cottage. Why it was in the middle of the woods, Frisk had no idea, but it was by far the least odd thing about the Azrael family.

"Why are we risking mosquito bites and muddy shoes because your mom told us to bond?" Asriel whined, swatting away another bug.

"The trip was my idea, my mom just said we should do something together." Frisk said. Although the longer their trip to the cottage went on, the more she doubted the idea was actually good.

"Couldn't we have done something without mosquitoes?" Asriel asked, frowning at the sight of her muddy shoes "Like, I don't know, go to her favorite hair salon or something?"

"They're not mosquitoes, they're gnats." Chris spoke up.

"Whatever, they're all over the place, they're annoying, and they keep flying in my nose!" Asriel kept waving his arms.

"They're attracted to your cologne. And your fur product. And your horns." Elizabeth chuckled.

"So what are you saying, I attract flies?"

"Gnats." Chris corrected again.

"Why do I think this isn't the right place?" Frisk stopped to look around them.

"No, it's the right place. I remember that tree. It's the halfway point, there's 136 steps to the shed." Elizabeth said.

"Have you been out here since Evilyn?" Chris asked.

"Me? No, no way."

"Oh come on, it's not like we don't know that Elizabeth has a freaky memory. Besides, we came here pretty much every day in eighth grade." Asriel said.

They started walking again, this time in complete silence. Even Asriel stopped complaining once they realized just how close they were to the cottage. Frisk felt her heartbeat speed up at the familiar path before them. What were they going to do in there anyway?

"I think this is the wrong place to do this, whatever you call it... shrine." Elizabeth suddenly spoke up.

"It's not a shrine, it's just a place to remember Evilyn, what's wrong with that?" Frisk said defensively.

"Doing it out here makes it look like we have something to hide!" Elizabeth retorted.

"You're worried about what other people think?" Frisk stopped.

"Well aren't you?" Elizabeth raised her voice "Do you really wanna give that creepy detective more reasons to question us?"

Frisk opened her mouth to respond but Asriel rushed past her and down the path.

"Asriel, what are you doing?" Frisk asked in exasperation.

"I don't think it's the right idea to talk about that here." she mumbled.

"Why not?"

Asriel glanced at them awkwardly before quickly swatting his hand in front of his face, "Well I'm trying to keep the bugs in my nose and out of my mouth, so can we just move along and have this conversation at the cottage?"

He turned around to keep walking but Frisk stopped him again.

"You're allowed to have an opinion on this you know."