A black sky shatters down the middle, and with it, all the horrors of the world come sprawling down to meet the earth. Lightning claps and rain descends; wind moans, and a branch lashes against the window, drawing a deep, irreversible scratch into the glass. The tree in the backyard shakes, and its whole deadened tuft of winter wood pushes up against the side of the house, scraping up the paneling, and vibrating the wall so hard that Lacey jumps out of sleep and directly onto the floor. Thunder explodes at the same time her body collides with the ground - had she broken her neck, nobody would've heard, and they'd only realize once morning crawled out of the twilight that she'd ever fallen in the first place.

Thankfully, that's not the case. She pushes herself off the floor on groggy elbows, gasping with a dry mouth against the suddenness of it all and the bruises blooming along her entire right side. With a severe ache in her bones, she stands and hobbles over to the door, then the stairs. They creak underfoot but she can hardly hear them against the loud plunking of rain against the house. She can't hear the television in the living room, either, but she sees its ethereal blue glow against the back wall and across the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Sighing, she grabs hold of the corner of the wall and turns herself into the living room. Her father crouches in the middle of the room with his eyes trained intently on the weather channel. The time in the corner of the screen reads "4:27 AM CST." At the bottom, "FLOOD WARNING" sits stark against a red bar.

She rubs an eye with her palm. "What's going on?"

Jeremy's head snaps back to look at her. Half of his face is shrouded in shadow, the other illuminated blue. "You scared the shit outta me. Carrick's flooding down by the lake. Since you're up, c'mon," he grunts out of his crouch, "help me get some of this stuff upstairs just in case it's bad enough to get all the way up here."

"The radio earlier said we're not at risk up this way. Just down there."

"Yeah, well, they also said the storm looked to be about over after Stella's funeral, so that was bogus, too. Unplug everything and start carryin'. You should pack a bag too just in case we need to dip out of here once they give the word to evacuate our side of town."

The next few hours pass with creaky stairs and tired knees, carrying various items into a room they keep as storage upstairs and, afterwards, watching the television with something akin to road hypnosis. She does pack a bag, but it remains atop her bed. There it'll stay, because by nine in the morning, the rain tapers off into a drizzle, and the flooding by the lake poses no threat to their cold suburbs.

Nine in the morning is also when her phone rings with something other than the annoying squawk of repetitive flood warnings. In all honesty, she yawns and almost lets it keep ringing once she sees the Caller ID, but then she remembers where the guy lives and what's going on, and she couldn't press the pick up button fast enough. "Dude, are you-"

The one time she tries to be a concerned friend, she's cut off. "I'm going to the diner. You can come if you want or don't if you don't, but I need to see Isaac."

Usually, she would take Gideon's declarations with an eye roll and an exasperated sigh, but this time, there's an edge to his voice. Something sharp, something like agitation. It comes out deep, raw, firm. Much too low and dark for him. It sits uncomfortably with her. "Okay, first of all, back up about ten paces, because if you hadn't noticed, your part of town just flooded. Where the hell are you now?"

"I'm on my fucking way to stake-out Isaac! Are you even listening? I can't stay home and I can't- I can't stay here, so I need to go see him. I need to talk to him. He'll tell me where Erie is, and I-" His voice breaks off as the trembling ramps up, and Lacey steals the opportunity.

"No. If you let Isaac in on the fact that we suspect anything, you know what he's gonna do? He's gonna go back to Erie free as a bird because the cops can't do anything without probable cause - and trust me, the word of two nutcases like us aren't gonna give anyone probable cause - and you know what he'll do to him. You won't say shit. Understood?"

On the other end of the phone, silence. Then: "No. I'm getting Erie back today. Just stay home, I'll do it myself."

She tries to reply, but there's a click, like she's been hung up on, and she drops her jaw.

The phone winds up cannonballing into a pillow on the other end of the couch and she doesn't know what to do with her fists, clenching and unclenching. Eventually, she unclenches her legs from under her and paces towards the front door, angrily forcing her heel into a rainboot. This is when her father turns away from the window in the kitchen and steps over to her. "Uh. What are you doing?"

"I have to track down an idiot," she says, stomping into the rest of the boot.

He scoffs, and she's forced to glance at him. He doesn't scoff. It must be the coffee in his hands, the caffeine running alongside what are probably already frayed nerves. "I don't think so. Half of town is under lake water, there's a murderer on the loose somewhere, and you're alone." He flinches at his own assertiveness, but keeps the ball rolling, setting his mug down firmly on the dining table. He marches to a room at the side. "By the time I'm done, those boots better be off."

He disappears into the bathroom, and Lacey's nostrils flare as she lets her hand settle on the knob of the front door. She could easily let this all slide off - say her dad completely barred her from leaving the house, so she couldn't possibly help. She could easily climb right back into bed and let this all vanish for a day. She could make a decision here, so easily. He expects her to listen. Why would she break that default trust he has in her?

A sick feeling fills her stomach, but she makes a choice. In one swift motion, she sweeps a yellow windbreaker off the hook by the door and swings the door open. She closes it gently and, with a short second to whisper a brief apology to the house and its single inhabitant, she hops off the porch step and takes off down the sidewalk, struggling to pull the jacket on all the while.

While the flood waters can't make it up the steep climb from the Epling River, the roads still gush from curb to curb, rushing into sewer grates and running faster down the asphalt than she can. Granted, she's neither a fast runner nor is she exactly running. Drizzles dot her cheeks, poke her eyes, and a chill reddens her cheeks as she power-walks around the corner, up the road to the warehouse, through the pebbles and gravel. By the time she's traversing the diner's parking lot, she's got her hands tucked under her armpits and the strings of the hood tied up to protect her ears and chin.

The bell above the door tinkles as she pushes her way in - she shudders at last night's vision - and a wall of heat wriggles into her skin. Sweet, warm relief. It doesn't last long. The diner isn't entirely packed, and for good reason, but those who do sit around gossip with one another in their booths, phones pulled up to keep tabs on the news. It makes pinpointing Gideon entirely too easy because he does none of these things. He merely sits against a red cushion, hands folded over the table, gaze burning through the wooden blinds beside him. His lips are pursed, brows furrowed. She can't tell whether he's calm or barely holding it together. Somehow, that's worse than it being blatantly obvious.

She walks over, arms still crossed and hood still up, before slipping into the seat across from him. His attention flicks to her, and for a brief moment, the light returns to his eyes and he almost smiles. Then his eye twitches, and it's over, and he's back to watching the window. "I didn't think you'd come."

"I couldn't just sit back and let you fuck this up. Listen, we're already here, why don't we just order something to eat and leave, take a day off? You look like shit, Gideon."

He looks at her with a dead-pan expression, the circles and bags under his eyes stark against the pallor of his skin. "You flatter me. But no. We're running out of time. I can't keep going at this glacial pace, I need to do something now, I need to find him, now."

"No, you don't. You don't need to do anything. If we tip him off, this is all over. You're not being rational."

His brows raise and contort. One laugh bubbles out of his chest. "Rational. I'm not being rational." Hands rub his face and hair and ears. "Is any of this rational? I don't, I don't think you realize just the gravity of what's been happening. I-" He pauses to take a quick fuming breath. "I don't think anyone fully grasps the gravity of any of this and I'm left behind to try and hold all the pieces together that everyone's dismissing left and right and I'm running out of fucking hands, I'm running out of hands and I have to keep running through everything in my mind, over and over and over again because nobody else will and there's this crushing weight and I..."

"Did you sleep at all last night?" Lacey asks, finally tugging her hood down. "Have you eaten anything today?"

"No! I don't have any time to sleep or eat or even wash my face! I've been putting everything we need to do together and figuring out how to go about everything and I was up last night doing all of that again when the warning came in and we had to book it out of there. Now my mom is set up in a hotel room sobbing because our house is halfway under-fucking-water, I'm here trying to latch down on Isaac so I can keep my boyfriend from being murdered, and that's to say he's not already dead!" He splays an arm out and his eyes redden, glossy.

"Y'know, he's either out there, miserable and cold and hungry, or he's out there, laying in some wet ditch, dead, and nobody even knows. And I'm spending my entire college savings trying to figure it out which is okay because it's to save someone I love but I've been working at this for a year, I stayed back for this, I'm stuck in this rut in this town because of this and I'm gonna be stuck even longer because I have to balance that and this and rent with my mom and I'm barely finding the time to do any of this for Erie because I work three fucking jobs basically and I've already called off too much to put time into doing what nobody else wants to do because everyone else is just so, so, hngh- selfish!"

The dam seems to break within him, because now his face is wet and blotchy and scrunched. Lacey glances to the side to find a few pairs of eyes on them, peering out from behind newspapers and plates of food. With gritted teeth, she takes hold of one of Gideon's hands and leans forward. "You need to calm down. It's a lot, I know, but lashing out, especially on Isaac, won't make it any better."

He slips his hand out of hers, less angry than he is exhausted at this point, and grabs at a napkin to scrub his face free of tears. "It's too much."

She doesn't like seeing him like this. She hasn't known him long, but this can't be the healthiest version of himself. There's something she should say, isn't there? But she doesn't know what words would fit, what words won't set him off. So she sits there, staring. "I'm sorry."

He grunts, but seems to be done. All of a sudden he ducks his face away, covering one side with his hand. A shadow lingers across the table. Lacey looks up.

Sonia, donned in an apron and a nametag, stands before them, a coffee pot in one hand and a set of menus in the other. Her mouth curls into an "o" shape when she realizes it's Lacey sitting in front of her. She glances between the two of them, back and forth, forth and back. "So you two are, like, friends now?"

So you, like, work here now?

Lacey huffs. "I wouldn't say friends, exactly. He won't listen to m- Ow!" Gideon glares at her from across the table and she can hear his foot bounce back against the bottom of the booth as he retracts it from her shin. "Okay, now you're just being a dick."

She sighs and settles her face in her hands, elbows propped on the table. Gideon removes his hand from his face, too, but it does nothing but bring a wince onto his face when Sonia hmms to herself. "Hey, you okay? Was your house hit by the flood?"

He gives her a weary nod and Sonia sighs, reaching out to flip over the mugs that are placed on every table. She drags them forward and pours out steaming black liquid into them, shoving them either way. Lacey takes it up heartily, but Gideon nudges his away. "I can't afford the extra cup. Caffeine isn't great for me, anyways."

"On the house," Sonia adds, subtly shifting the second cup closer to Lacey anyways. The latter regards the former with an ounce of suspicion - she's being too nice, too okay. And she's lingering. It doesn't seem like she'll be leaving any time soon, either because she sets the menus down on the table to free a hand for Gideon's shoulder.

This seems to push him to his second (or fifth) breaking point of the day. "We think Isaac Boone killed Stella and he's getting away with it," he blurts.

Lacey's fist catches itself mid-air, suppressed beside her cheek. She badly wants to keep it going, to bop him right in his teeth, but he's already got his hands covered over his mouth with wide eyes, so he must be punishing himself for it without her to add to his misery. The world was right. Men are stupid.

Stupid enough to not consider how this might affect the dead girl's sister. Sonia's expression flattens and she slowly sets the coffee pot upon their table. Her words are slow, quiet, concise. "What are you saying?"

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "What I just said. And if we're right, that means he's got Erie, too, and I'm...I'm gonna ruin him, for all of us." His chest is heaving again with heavier breaths, and his hand, suspended in front of his face, trembles.

With a gentle pat, Sonia has him scoot over so she can slide herself into the booth next to him. She keeps close, a hand pressed to his back. How she keeps her composure for his sake, Lacey will probably never know. "Tell me everything you know."

It's not ideal, but with Gideon a blubbering mess, Lacey takes the lead. They can't exactly forget he said anything, so she sums it up: Clint's tip, Isaac's scratches, the map in his house, any of the other suspicious details. "It's not much, but he's our only lead, and it lines up. Plus, with the funeral donation, we uh, it could be a way to..."

"To make him seem like the kind donor instead of a dirty killer?"

A bell tinkles in the background.

Lacey nods, then purses her lips, searching Sonia's face. "You seem too relaxed about this information."

This statement seems to jarr her, and she readjusts in the seat. "I'm just trying to keep my cool. I'm still...bothered. I just can't blow up at work." Fair enough.

"Wait," Gideon says. Lacey's automatic response is to not wait, but for starters, she doesn't know what not to wait for, and secondly, he limited himself to one word, which means something's up. She nearly turns to follow his gaze, but his knuckles press against her pinky, a small gesture, but one she knows means don't look.

There's movement in her periphery, a dash of butterscotch and slim limbs. She looks anyways. Dolly's looking at them out of the corner of her eye, too, but upon making brief eye contact with Lacey, she shifts her gaze away, as if she'd never even noticed them in the first place. Nevermind the way her swaying gait picks up in speed as she passes their booth.

They've all noticed it. No sense in trying to be discreet anymore. Gideon clears his throat and straightens his back. "Dolly! Hi!"

She stops in her tracks and ducks her head for the slightest second before turning back. Her face is just as sharp and imposing as it's always been, but this time it's done up in make-up, so her features strike out at them. Her tongue moves behind purple lips, licking the color from her teeth. She smiles, but it's clearly strained; the corners of her eyes are tight and settled in what almost looks like a grimace. Still, she tilts her head, innocent. "You folks again. What is it, darlin'?"

He grins, as if he'd never cried in the first place, and waves her over with enthusiasm. "I know you're probably busy, but we could use five minutes of your time just to talk again." She makes a face - she wants to pull back, pull away - but Gideon adds, "That guy, Clint? He gave us a tip. About Stella. He said she came around the trailer park repeatedly, and that she saw her get into a man's car every time."

That gets her. She nears the table and settles her pointer finger against the table, bending it impressively. Her dark eyes flick from Lacey to Gideon to Sonia; they linger on the latter. She sighs. "If I'm gonna talk to y'all, I need this sweetpea to leave. I ain't ever seen her before and this doesn't seem like it ought to be everyone's business."

Sonia lifts her chin, not bothering to fix the short strand of black hair that's fallen out of the pompadour. "I'm Stella's sister. It's my business. I deserve to be here."

Dolly seems to reconsider. Gideon should've kept his mouth shut, Lacey thinks. This would've all been smoother if he'd said nothing to Sonia at all. Or not come here!

Fortunately, the woman deems them worth their time with an eye roll and an unsettled crook of the lip. She slides in on Lacey's side and sets her attention on a chipped nail. "Well," she starts, "you caught me. I'm not heartless, I did look into that girl a little more after you two came 'round, figured you might be back if you bothered to try the first time. Plus," she lays her hand flat on the table and peers up through her lashes at Gideon, "Clint started yapping like a pup after y'all left. I know what he told y'all. Anyways, he helps the neighbors with chores they gotta get done every now and then, so I asked him to put a word in about that girl whenever he decided to make his rounds. So he did, and he came back to me with everything he'd heard and more than one of them said the same thing about how..."

Dolly shifts her gaze over to Sonia and begins to steeple her fingers. "Sweetie, I really think you ought to get back to work. You know what they say, ignorance is bliss."

Sonia remains solid. She doesn't budge, merely sucks a cheek in between her teeth as she waits for Dolly to continue.

Dolly brings her hands together in a clasp and shrugs. "Well, they said they suspected Stella was carrying on a relationship with that man in the car, this Isaac you're talkin' about."

Lacey and Sonia reel back in unison, already shaking their heads and holding out a hand for Dolly to stop. "No, no," Lacey says, "that can't be true. I know Stella and that's not Stella. She wouldn't do anything like that." And yet, the disgust still crawls up and down her legs, leaving gooseflesh behind. Sonia doesn't seem to be faring any better.