dark red- max mayfield

vii. the junkyard

☆★☆★→ ←☆★☆★

THE THREE boys approached the junkyard slowly, looking at all the abandoned cars and trucks that were littered around it. Steve, for whatever reason, was wearing sunglasses. Josh truly had no idea where he'd found them.

"Oh, yeah." grinned Steve. "Yeah, this'll do." He pulled the sunglasses off. "This'll do just fine. Good call, dude."

"What's the point of even bringing the sunglasses if you're gonna take them off right away?" Josh asked, kneeling down beside Steve as he poured the bait onto the ground.

"To look cool. Obviously."

They could hear the hum of an car's engine approaching up the hill, followed by the sound of three car doors slamming shut.

"Can Sinclair drive?" Steve turned to Josh, looking at him with a strange expression.

"If he could, he never told me about it." Josh ran a hand through his hair, just as confused as Steve was.

"I said medium-well!" someone yelled from a few dozen feet away. Lucas and Max had arrived, and now Lucas was waving his hands wildly over his head. There was a much older girl who looked about Steve's age, although Josh knew who she was— Cassandra Martin.

"Jesus," muttered Steve breathlessly, his eyes landing on Cassandra. Then he turned to look at Max. "Who's that?"

"That, Steve," whispered Josh, "is MadMax."

"Hi," said Cassandra, starting the greetings. "Oh, hey, Steve."

"He-Hello, Cassandra." murmured Steve, his sunglasses falling back down onto the bridge of his nose. He winced, putting his arms straight at his sides and staring awkwardly at Cassandra, who grimaced.

"Cassie." she told him. "You can call me Cassie."

"Hey." sighed Lucas exhaustedly. "I had to ride up past town when Cassandra came up to us and asked us for a ride. And what... what proof am I supposed to be explaining to Max?"

He looked at Josh, who grimaced. "I gotta talk to you guys."

After a few minutes of ducking behind a car, Josh successfully managed to tell Dustin and Lucas about how he'd told Max about the events of the previous year.

"You told her?" hissed Dustin.

"So what?" Josh shrugged.

"So what?" repeated Lucas in disbelief.

"You guys wanted to tell her, too."