Ronan sat in the passenger seat of the Pig, a light sheen of sweat already forming on his forehead from the arid Henrietta summer air. The leather stuck to his back like a second skin from where his t-shirt had ridden up and the scent of gasoline was thick in his nostrils as the air around the two seemed to gelatinise. Words wafted into Ronan’s mind like the lazy breeze currently aerating Henrietta.. Kavinsky. Mom. Adam. Each was an afterthought from a week earlier when serious shit had gone down; ashes after an arson; some painful and choking, others soft and grounding. His mom was the comforting ash, newly made and grateful. Her arrival was long overdue. Kavinsky was the painful ash; leaving a burn from where it touched Ronan. And Adam. Ronan involuntarily pushed the name out of his head and turned to Gansey.
Gansey sat in the driver’s seat, also looking slightly wilted from the heat. The hair on the back of his neck clung to his skin with moisture and his palms left damp marks on the Camaro’s steering wheel after shifting with uncomfortable clamminess. Breaking out of thought Ronan began talking. “You need to get the fucking piece of shit A.C to work. If I have to spend another summer driving around in this fucking oven I am going to burn up.” The car slowed down and pulled into an abandoned factory; Monmouth.
“We’re here.” Gansey murmured. The boy had been far too busy with Blue and being with her as her mother had disappeared to really focus on Ronan. It was a strange sensation not always being with Gansey. Ronan didn’t mind it. Freedom tasted nice as long as it wasn’t permanent. Summer was in full blaze, Mom was back and everything was…bearable. His dreaming was more domesticated as if his feat with the giant Night Terror had tranquilized Cabeswater. Kavinsky. The word used to pulse in him with equal fear and elation, now it was a dull ache: an irritating sore muscle after a workout. It would have never worked out; they were two faces of the same coin. Kavinsky was the Ronan without a Gansey to guide him, and without Gansey, Ronan was nothing.
Shaking himself out of thought, he jumped out of the car. Gansey remained. Muttering something about Blue, he slowly pulled out of the battered and pothole ridden driveway and drove away. Turning towards the factory Ronan laced his fingered and rubbed them over his shaved head. The stubble was growing too long and his dark hair threw a shadow over his head. Glancing at a window, he caught a flicker of movement. Noah.
The dead boy had been sluggish, mirroring the ley line and this, Ronan thought, made it fun to test the deadness of him. He has already stabbed him twice with a ballpoint pen and punched him once in the stomach. The results had been inconclusive as he would just roll his eyes and walk away immediately after.
Letting himself in felt natural, as if some part of him lived within Monmouth. Shortly after his mother woke up, Ronan went back to live in his family house, although, admittedly, he missed the banged up factory and it’s small, turned around, family of teenage boys who lived there.
Ronan didn’t shout “hello” into the dark but instead made his way into his old room. Pushing the door open he immediately took a step back.
“Parrish…?” He ventured. The figure on the bare mattress murmured something like fuck off. “What the hell are you doing in my room?” Ronan asked with more than a hint of anger in his voice.
“First, it isn’t yours anymore so that ‘No Trespassing’ rule is expired. Second, if you haven’t noticed, your room is the only cold place in this boiling town.” Ronan, still slightly shaken at the fact Adam was laying on his bed looked down at him with an incredulous face.
