Condemned by Christopher Renna (iphone ebook reader txt) 📕

front seats. "I heard the water running. The door wasn't closed all the way. I almost walked in, but I saw him standing in front of the mirror. Just staring at himself. And he had blood smeared on his face."

Trevor exclaimed, "What!"

"Yeah. He had blood all around his mouth. He looked like a deranged person with smeared lipstick all over. And he was just staring at the mirror. The look in his eyes freaked me out, so I sneaked back to the kitchen and yelled that I was going home because my mom texted me for something."

Conner listened to the hum of the engine and then asked, "He didn't see you?"

"No."

"Didn't say anything?" Trevor asked.

"He was totally zoned out. And he'd already been acting kinda weird. Well, not weird. He was irritated. So, I didn't wanna say or ask anything. He seemed really out of it. I didn't wanna hear anything he had to say about it. I was already too freaked out."

Trevor shifted his position, ran his hand along the steering wheel, and then cleared his throat. "That would have freaked me out too."

Conner agreed. He took a deep breath and forcefully exhaled. "Um, I have a freaky story."

He proceeded to tell them about his interaction with Jared in the boys' restroom. When he was finished, he stared at the dashboard, waiting for Trevor and Adam to speak. But neither uttered a word.

Conner's eyes swept from Trevor to Adam. "No comment?"

Finally, Trevor said, "Maybe he was schizophrenic or bipolar or something like that. Maybe this demon crap is stupid talk because Jared was having like a mental breakdown or something."

"You think?" Adam asked.

Trevor shrugged. "It's possible."

"Wait a sec," Conner said. "So, you never had a freaky thing happen while you were with Jared? Only me and Adam did?"

"I never said that."

"Then you do have a story."

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

"We just told you ours. But you don't want to tell us yours?"

"Yeah, c'mon," Adam said. "Lay it on us."

Trevor shifted the car then pulled away from the curb. He drove to the end of the block before speaking. "Okay. Jared totally creeped me out once. And I didn't tell you guys because we weren't really hanging out with him anymore. I figured, what's the point, you know? You guys thought the same thing after your experience."

Conner and Adam responded with a unified "uh, huh."

"For a while, I thought maybe I imagined it, but now I'm pretty sure that I didn't."

"Imagined what?" Conner asked.

"I think it was like a week or so after Adam's experience. Jared and I were shooting hoops at my house. Then we hung out a while on the patio. I don't remember who started it, but we started wrestling around. You know, trying to one-up the other. Anyway, he pinned me to the ground. His hands were cold as ice."

He quickly glanced at his friends before directing his sight back to the road. "Like seriously freezing. I mean, it actually hurt a little bit because his grip felt so cold on my arms. So, I was like yelling 'stop, get off me,' and when I . . . I swear to God, his irises were all black. Like totally blacked out. Scared the hell outta me, and I yelled 'Jesus!' Then his hands were suddenly warm again and his eyes were normal."

Conner raised his shoulders with a twitch. "That sounds demonic. And you're the one who suggested schizophrenia or something."

"Yeah," Adam said. "I mean, mine and Conner's story could have passed for a mental thing. But yours is creepy as hell. Black eyes?"

"It still kinda scares me." Perhaps absentmindedly, Trevor rubbed his forearm. "Just the look in his eyes. There was like nothing there. Just blackness."

"I feel bad," Conner said. "We turned our backs on him."

"I know."

Adam finally relaxed in the back seat again. "It wasn't our fault."

Turning toward Adam, Conner said, "It wasn't his fault either. We knew something was going on with him. And instead of trying to help him and talk to him and figure it out, we just stopped being his friend. We wouldn't do that to each other. You guys would make me tell you what was wrong, right?"

"We're brothers," Trevor said.

"But we didn't do that for Jared. Maybe if we'd talked to him instead of avoiding him, he'd still be alive."

In his gut, Conner believed that they had failed Jared. Their friend had experienced something drastic and unhealthy. And the three had simply walked away.

"What could we do?" Adam asked.

"I don't know. Maybe we could have told his parents something was going on. If it was all mental, maybe they could have taken him to a therapist. Or maybe just a doctor. Since he died of cardiac arrest, maybe everything was physical."

"What if he was possessed? Then what? We could have borrowed some holy water from a priest?"

Trevor slowed the car to a stop in front of Conner's house. "We could talk about this all night long. But tomorrow we're going to have to deal with the kids at school. People are going to be talking."

Lifting his backpack from the floor, Conner pulled out his cell phone. "I have nine missed text messages."

"I have seven," Adam said.

Sighing, Trevor fumbled for his phone in the console. His screen lit up. "I have twelve."

"I'm not responding," Conner said. "And I'm not telling anyone my story or yours."

Adam and Trevor agreed to remain silent as well.

Standing on the curb, Conner and Adam watched Trevor drive away. They glanced about the neighborhood, then to each other. The look in Adam's eyes seemed so innocent—as if he were a young boy unsure of the world around him. For a moment, their silence hovered in the air, merging with the moisture of the chilly November evening.

Conner pulled Adam into a one-armed hug. "We let Jared down," he said. "But nothing like that's going to happen between you, me, and Trevor. You know that, right?"

Nodding, Adam muttered, "Uh, huh."

"I'm serious. This is a