Chapter 456

• The dirt road that leads to Erik’s rundown shack is even darker in the night. A few of the sad little houses lining the strip have a light or two gleaming inside, but for the most part, the desert is silent and black as midnight.
• Kian leaves the road for a patch of sparse grass next to a seemingly unoccupied house—considering its door is hanging off the hinges—and the rest of us park beside him. Instead of riding our bikes down the r oad and announcing our presence like we did earlier in the day, we walk the rest of the way.
• Intense heat from the day is fading as we walk down the dirt road, and the strange chill of night is settling in. The weather here is so extreme—one moment, sunburn, the next hypothermia. But I can imagine the allure of living somewhere so secluded. So isolated.