Thornbird

Part 1 - Chapters 1 to 4

Part 1 - Chapters 1 to 4

Ryan presses her forehead against the window as the plane drops toward Tennessee, scanning forests and rural roads. The opening riff of "Sweet Home Alabama" plays through her head, even though this isn't Alabama. She fidgets with the pendant at her neck through the landing.

The flight from Allentown was uneventful. When she switches her phone back on, there are only a few messages: a text from Ms. Callan, the social worker, asking her to confirm she arrived safely; crying emojis from Jess; and a single red heart from Marco with a flat "Good luck down there." Ryan reflects bitterly that she barely had more friends than that at Liberty High. Nobody offered to take her in when Gran died, so she could finish her senior year. That's why she's here, destined for Starling, Tennessee, a place she privately calls the ninth circle of hell.

At baggage claim, passengers stare at a television near the arrivals board. A photograph appears: a man in an orange jumpsuit, gray-haired and bearded, hands cuffed, head bowed. Ryan knows the face he hides better than the news junkies who followed the case for ten years. The captions announce that Gabriel Thorn's most recent appeal was denied and his execution date has been set. Her stomach lurches. For a second, she is a toddler again, watching her parents dance barefoot on summer grass while she lies in the dirt with a grin on her face.

The caption continues: Gabriel Thorn refuses to divulge the locations of his victims' bodies. Around her, passengers mutter with disgust. "Let him die," a businessman murmurs. The accusations roll by: lowest of the low, scum of the earth, selfish bastard. The businessman mutters that they dragged the lake for months and dug up the forest, and six families still aren't getting any peace. Seven, Ryan thinks. Seven families. People always forget the last victim because she was supposed to stop him, and didn't. Her mother. That night she lost both parents.

She doesn't say any of it. That girl, Gabrielle Thorn, is not her anymore.

Ryan used to forget her own name constantly in the months after the murder, even though she chose it. At seven years old, her grandmother let her pick a new first name. Thorn became Mayfair, Gran's surname. Ryan picked "Ryan" because she loved the name of a character from a kids' show. Now, not even eighteen, Ryan has already been many girls: Gabrielle Thorn, the broken child who lost two parents in one night; Ryan Mayfair, who spent ten years piecing herself back together; and now Ryan Shipley, the shiny blank slate with no past and no closet skeletons, or so the story is supposed to go.

Outside, the September heat is thick. She spots a battered pickup truck and, in front of it, a short woman with curly brown hair, white cropped pants, pale freckled skin, and big blue eyes. Ryan feels a flash of déjà vu; the woman looks like a softer, shorter, older version of her mother. This is Aunt Maggie, her last living relative who isn't sitting on death row. Maggie greets her with a stiff hug, calls her "honey," and says she looks tired. Ryan is not chatty, and Maggie claps her hands together, telling her to throw her bag in the back. The two climb into the two-seater, and a country song Ryan has never heard blasts through the speakers.

Once they get off the interstate, Maggie lowers the volume and keeps glancing over. She tells Ryan she doesn't look much like Sarah or Gabriel, except for the eyes, which are Sarah's only darker, and Gabriel's hair, which is a lighter shade of auburn. Gran used to say the same thing. Ryan's heart clenches with missing her grandmother.

Maggie is not good with silence. She asks, gently, if Ryan remembers what they talked about on the phone: her name is Ryan Shipley. Ryan is curt in response, and Maggie apologizes for being pushy, insisting it's for Ryan's own good. When the Shipleys moved back to Starling seven years ago, they had no idea what vitriol they'd face. Their last name isn't even Thorn, and they aren't related to Gabriel, yet people in town still associated them with the monstrosity. Ryan tells her it's fine to say "monster"; she knows what Gabriel Thorn is.

Maggie explains the family history in fits and starts. Dan was offered a job in Chicago after they married, and they raised the twins there until Dan's mother remarried, moved to Florida, and left them the property in Starling. Ryan asks why they left originally. Maggie admits the truth is cliché: her mother disapproved of the boy she wanted to marry, Sarah sided with their mother, and vicious screaming matches put a permanent strain on the sisters. Envy and stubbornness kept Maggie away, even while Sarah and their mother spoke every day.

Ryan asks the question she has always wanted answered: did Gran like her father before? Maggie says yes, for the most part, though she didn't love that Gabriel whisked the family off to a cabin in the woods. But Sarah preferred the solitude after long hours of noise and patients at the hospital, so Gran came to accept it. Maggie's voice turns grim as she recounts the twins' early days in Starling, especially for Connor: gossip travels fast, and it didn't take long for everyone to know who their uncle was. The family has been climbing out from that shadow ever since. Better, she insists, to stick with the story.

She warns Ryan that Gabriel Thorn is still a regular topic of town conversation. Internet sleuths show up, nosing around for details, and it's gotten worse with the approach of the ten-year anniversary of Gabriel's arrest. Ryan points out she can use the word "father"; she is well aware of who spawned her. Then, testing Maggie, she calls her "Auntie Mags." To Ryan's surprise, Maggie throws back her head and laughs, saying the name sounds like a character from an awful British soap, and she loves it. Maybe living with the Shipleys won't be so bad.

Maggie's laughter fades into regret. She wishes she'd been more present in Ryan's life, and she blames herself for not reconciling with her mother before her death. After everything with Sarah, Maggie wanted to distance herself from it all. That wasn't fair to Ryan, she says. Sarah was a brave woman who wanted the best for her daughter, which is why she tried to leave when she did.

Ryan is gnawing her lower lip until she tastes blood, a taste she associates with that night, cowering under the bed and wishing to disappear. She says she knows. Turning toward the window doesn't help; across the distance she catches a swath of midnight blue nestled among the trees. Sturgeon Lake, the place where Gabriel supposedly dumped the bodies of all but one of his victims. Nausea rises, but Maggie reaches over and squeezes Ryan's knee. "It's good to have you here, darlin'," she says. She wants Ryan to be happy. Ryan swallows the doubt. She has never been happy in her life, and she cannot imagine how to start in the place where a monster once lived.

The Shipley house is a sprawling brick ranch on a ridiculous amount of land. The long, winding driveway passes through thick trees until the forest seems to part. It is clean and well-kept, with a decorative well spilling purple flowers and a lamppost bearing a sign that reads "THE SHIPLEYS." The public legend, Ryan reminds herself, is that she is the daughter of Uncle Dan's older brother, who lives overseas and is kind of a dick. She is here because her mother died and that brother didn't want to deal with her. She has to remember she is a Shipley now.

Maggie cuts the engine and prattles about renovations, but Ryan's mind is back in Gran's cramped attic row home in Allentown, where Gran died two weeks ago. Ryan came home from her first day of senior year and found her sitting in her recliner, pale and ice-cold. She tells Maggie the house is great. There will be fried chicken from Maryville for dinner, a treat Uncle Dan is picking up. Ryan nods even though her stomach is churning.

The screen door bangs open and out bounds Jasmine, a girl with dark brown hair in long, cascading waves, wearing tight jeans and a white crop top. A tall, leanly muscular boy in sweatpants and a black T-shirt follows more quietly. The resemblance between them is uncanny. These are the twins, Jasmine and Connor, sixteen years old.

Jasmine immediately asks Ryan how old she is and whether she has her full driver's license. When Ryan says she is seventeen but didn't have a car, Jasmine assumes she lived in Europe and bikes everywhere, and Connor jokes with a straight face that Ryan must have serious calves from biking the Alps. Jasmine links her arm through Ryan's and drags her inside, chattering about Germany, Paris, clubs, clothes, and whether she and Ryan wear the same size. Maggie calls for them to give her space, but Jasmine ignores her, pulling Ryan down a hallway lined with photographs of the twins at every stage, past a gourmet kitchen that smells like freshly baked cookies, and into a bedroom, slamming the door on Connor, whom she calls clingy.

The room is twice

Part 2 - Chapters 5 to 8

Part 2 - Chapters 5 to 8

Instead of heading straight home after school, Jasmine and Connor take Ryan into Starling so Jasmine can show her around. Jasmine has warned her not to get her hopes up: the town is so small she'll die of boredom. Downtown really is one street, with a few shops, restaurants, and a Starbucks, finished off by a white clock tower and a palatial redbrick building.

Connor spots a crowd gathered in the square near the clock tower, reporters lining up in front of a makeshift podium. Jasmine drags Ryan forward to investigate. As they get close, Jasmine realizes what this is: a press conference held by the families of Gabriel Thorn's victims. Ryan wants to run, but by now it would be too noticeable.

A police officer introduces Benjamin White, whose mother, Anabel, was Thorn's fifth victim. Benjamin is now a wealthy tech entrepreneur, but he looks exhausted and grief-stricken as he steps to the microphone. It has been twelve years since his mother was taken, he says, and the families still don't know where the remains are. He announces that the reward for information leading to the bodies is being raised to one million dollars. His voice breaks as he begs anyone who knows something to come forward.

Ryan feels sick and dizzy. Her hands shake, so she shoves them in her pockets. Once the cousins are safely away from the crowd, Jasmine is practically glowing with excitement at the reward money, while Connor shrugs it off. Jasmine declares they should find the bodies themselves. Ryan refuses. She knows the truth nobody else here knows: six women were slaughtered by her father, and she doesn't want to go anywhere near it. Jasmine calls them cowards, insisting the Shipleys have suffered enough from years of rumors and bullying to deserve that money. Even at Starbucks, Jasmine won't drop the idea.

Back at the house, Jasmine buries herself in research on her laptop. Connor and Ryan finish their homework in the dining room. After dinner, Ryan goes for a long walk alone. When she returns, she finds Jasmine with a friend named Nikki, who is Everett's sister. Nikki wastes no time sizing Ryan up. She warns Ryan about Everett's "golden boy" routine, claiming his constant charm and perfection are exhausting to live with. Ryan is defensive. Connor tells Ryan to ignore Nikki, that she's mostly harmless, but Ryan isn't convinced. It's becoming painfully clear she can't trust anyone in Starling.

The rest of that September week is quiet. Ryan catches up on her missed schoolwork easily, ignores Jasmine's constant pleas to join the "mission," and fights the urge to stare at Everett. She turns down Mar's invitation to take photographs by the railroad tracks. It's better this way. In less than ten months she'll graduate and leave Tennessee behind forever.

On Saturday morning, another nightmare jolts Ryan awake. She slips out of the house and follows the path through the woods. The dreams never came this often when she lived in Allentown. Being back here is stirring them up. Ryan hates this place. She wonders if she should help Jasmine find the bodies after all. Maybe she can't escape this place because they never did.

The victims were supposedly dumped in Sturgeon Lake, but no one ever found them. Her father refused to speak, pled guilty, and never said a single word at his sentencing. Ryan walks through the woods with this churning in her head, but she doesn't want to stay in these particular trees. Another place is calling her this morning.

She returns to the Shipley house, where Dan is already in the kitchen making coffee. Ryan asks if she can take Maggie's truck for a quick drive. On the empty Saturday roads, she drives out to an address she looked up online: her father's old property. She doesn't turn down the long dusty driveway, afraid of police patrols near Gabriel Thorn's house. Instead, she parks on the shoulder half a mile away and walks into the trees.

The path is familiar. Her body seems to know exactly where to go. Around her, hanging from the trees, are dozens of old birdhouses. Some are faded and broken, some are only strings of twine. They once made the woods look like a rainbow fairytale. Now they feel like a cemetery. Ryan remembers sitting at the kitchen table as a little girl while her father nailed birdhouses together and she painted them. He called her "my little sparrow."

The A-frame cabin comes into view, weathered, abandoned, with a hole in its boarded back window that stares at her like an eye. This was their "little slice of heaven," her father used to say. Beside the house, an old grill still slumps on three decayed legs, and Ryan remembers her father grilling burgers while her mother laughed. They were so happy back then.

Then Ryan hears music. Country music. Her father loved Alan Jackson, Johnny Cash, and Tim McGraw, but he's in prison now. She creeps to the front of the house and finds a yellow Jeep idling where her father used to park his red pickup. A boy around her age sits in the driver's seat, dark-rimmed glasses and narrow features. When he notices her, he startles badly.

Ryan claims she was just walking. Then she sees the graffiti sprayed across the front of the cabin in blood-red paint: ROT IN HELL THORN! The boy follows her gaze, wary now. He asks if she just stumbled onto this place. Ryan says yes. When he asks whether she's ever heard of Gabriel Thorn, she shakes her head.

He doesn't believe her for a second. "Girl. Stop lying."

The man claims he has combed every inch of the property, and if the bodies are buried anywhere, it is not on this land. He has studied the case for years, he says, knows everything there is to know. Ryan swallows her scorn and tests him. She brings up Sturgeon Lake; he waves it off, the lake was dragged multiple times. She asks whether Thorn was simply evil; the man has a theory, too: the killings were sexual, born of a bad home life with a wife who withheld sex, until the wife discovered what he was doing and died for it. Ryan knows he is wrong about the rape. Her father told her so, and Gran gave her the prison letters when she was fourteen, three letters addressed to Gabby that Ryan tore to shreds almost as soon as she finished reading them. Their contents stay etched in her memory. In the second letter, Thorn insisted he had not raped those women. He never said why he killed them, only that they mattered to him. He also never once claimed he was innocent of the murders. Even so, a small, foolish hope flickers inside Ryan that her father confessed to protect someone else, although she cannot imagine whom. Ryan knows because she saw it with her own eyes.

At last he climbs out of the Jeep, tall and lean in a faded Nirvana shirt and scuffed Converse, and he heads straight for the cabin door. Ryan's alarm bells go off. He intends to go inside, and he expects her to follow. Isn't that trespassing? she asks. He shrugs: no one around to care. Ryan cannot move. That floor is where her mother died. He presses her, asking if she wants to see where "the wife was offed," because there is still a bloodstain in the bedroom. The color drains out of her. She tells him she has to go.

He calls her back and introduces himself as Zed. Real name Logan Zellman. He is the man behind Free the Sparrows, the biggest Thorn podcast out there, five hundred thousand subscribers as of last night. His handle is the Rain King, from a Counting Crows song. Then he studies her and asks her age. She is seventeen. He remarks that Gabriel Thorn's daughter would be about her age now. Ryan's heart nearly stops. "Well, I'm not her," she says. Her dad lives in Europe, and she is ninety-nine point nine percent sure he has never killed anyone. Zed laughs; his old man is no killer either. "Lucky us."

Ryan makes it home on the verge of a panic attack. She slams the door behind her. Connor is in the kitchen eating Cheerios and teases her about being chased by a bear. It is Saturday. Aunt Maggie is showing houses, Jasmine is at cheerleading, and Dan will soon head to the Anders Home, where he counsels at-risk youth. Connor mentions that the new girl in town is big news at school. When he sees Ryan go pale, he assumes she is thinking about Ryan's mother, the one who died recently in a car accident while Ryan was in school in Switzerland. Ryan lets the assumption stand and lies that she wishes she could have saved her.

Connor's phone lights up with a call from Sam, a guy from the next town over whom he met at a party. Ryan comments that Sam is cute. Connor grins; his parents do not yet know about this relationship. They already know he is gay, but both parents have been wary about dating ever since Jasmine invited an online crush over and he turned out to be a forty-year-old man. Still, Connor has asked Sam to prom and plans to break the news to his parents slowly.

Once Dan heads out too, the house goes quiet. Ryan drops onto her bed and thinks about her childhood home, which used to feel warm and full of love and now sits like a cold shell of despair. She reaches under the bed and pulls out the one thing she never unpacked: a scrapbook Gran put together after her mother

Part 3 - Chapters 9 to 11

Ryan’s voice comes out tight and panicked. She asks Jasmine if she’s seen her necklace: a diamond heart locket, the one her grandmother gave her. As Ryan tears through the dresser and drawers, her pulse races. Jasmine immediately goes on the defensive, demanding to know if Ryan is accusing her of stealing it. Ryan insists she only thought Jasmine might have seen it somewhere, but the accusation hangs in the air. Jasmine tells her to search her things if she wants, and Ryan feels her eyes welling up. Aunt Maggie rushes in, interrupting the fight. Jasmine bitterly explains that Ryan thinks she took it. Ryan denies it, her face burning. Maggie asks about the necklace, then suggests maybe Ryan lost it. Jasmine points out the clasp was loose and says it probably fell off in the woods, where Ryan is always walking.

The thought of losing the only thing she has left of her mother makes Ryan want to throw up. She blinks back tears and rushes outside, running into the woods until she collapses against a tree trunk and sobs. Maggie finds her, crouches beside her, and comforts her. Choking through her tears, Ryan reveals the truth: it was a cremation diamond, made from her mother’s ashes. Maggie is shocked, then pulls her close and promises they’ll search every inch of the woods in the morning. Ryan admits that as long as she had the necklace, her mother didn’t feel completely gone. Maggie tells her that even if they don’t find it, her mother is always watching over her. Ryan knows Maggie is right, but it feels like losing her mother all over again.

The next morning, Maggie and Ryan wake at six to scour the trail. They find nothing but dirt, rocks, and a piece of silver Hershey’s Kiss foil that briefly gets Ryan’s hopes up. Maggie reminds her that her mother still has a gravestone in town, but it isn’t the same. Ryan vows to search again after school and every morning if she has to. A part of her still can’t help wondering if Jasmine took it, even though Jasmine had seemed genuinely sympathetic on the way to school, promising to help look later. Ryan stands frozen in the school courtyard, exhausted and overwhelmed. Everything swirls in her head: the necklace, her psychotic father, the press conference, the bodies, the reward.

Connor tells her about a Halloween party in Nashville he wants to attend with Sam. Ryan only half-listens. Then she spots Logan Zellman across the lawn, talking to Sofia, the cheerleading captain, who looks thoroughly annoyed. Sofia eventually flips her hair and leaves with her friends. Zed notices Ryan and calls out to her. Connor warns her not to indulge him, explaining that Zed and his true-crime followers are obsessive. He tells her about a summer when a group of them camped out on the family’s front yard, insisting the Shipleys knew more about the murders, until the sheriff made them leave and a police cruiser stayed parked in the driveway for a month. Ryan suddenly realizes how lucky she was to grow up anonymous in Pennsylvania, while the Shipleys had to live with the consequences of a crime committed by a man they weren’t even related to.

Zed comes over anyway, complaining about Sofia and the yearbook committee. When Ryan asks if he’s on the committee, Zed says it was the only extracurricular that didn’t make him want to kill himself. He lowers his voice and tells her they should talk about the case. He explains that he’s been in touch with the victims’ families, that his investigation has stalled, and that as an outsider with fresh eyes she might help. He wants to find the bodies and bring closure to the town, and he mentions the reward money. Ryan is disgusted. She tells him he’s talking about the victims like they owe him something, and that this isn’t a game. Zed insists he’s trying to find justice, then says he would have shared some of the reward with her. Ryan walks away, shaking, thankful that she isn’t part of it.

On her way to English, she passes Everett, who is surrounded by his usual entourage. He falls into step with her and calls her Everest. She tries to walk faster, but he keeps up. When she reaches her classroom, she points to the doorway. Everett nods at someone in the back of the room, and Ryan follows his gaze to Chase, the bad-boy friend with the golden hair and toned arms, perched on a desk in a black T-shirt. She wonders when he got into her English class. Everett asks if she’s busy this weekend, offering dinner this time. Ryan gives a noncommittal “Yeah, maybe” and goes inside just as the bell rings.

Chase slides into his chair, staring out the window. Ryan forces herself not to linger on him, but he has that effortless hotness she can’t ignore. He looks up suddenly, and his silver-gray eyes meet hers. Her pulse quickens, and she’s disgusted with herself. She knows he’s trouble, that he was suspended for drinking on school property. When she looks again, he’s watching her with a hint of amusement, then lowers his head to his phone. Mr. Morrison walks in and starts reciting Macbeth. Ryan tunes him out, staring out the window at the green trees and dreading the winter, when the branches will become twisted skeletons. She thinks about photographing the forest when the temperature drops, but Mr. Morrison interrupts: he calls out Ryan and Chase for staring out the window. Ryan admits she was admiring the trees. To her surprise, Mr. Morrison agrees it looks peaceful and moves the whole class outside for discussion.

In the courtyard, Mr. Morrison splits everyone into pairs and gives them a theme. Ryan is paired with Chase, which she suspects is punishment. They sit under an oak tree, and Ryan learns the theme is guilt. She comments on the universe’s sick sense of humor. She says the play shows how guilt can destroy a person, how Macbeth’s guilt eats at him and drives him to worse acts. Chase says Lady Macbeth becomes a shell of her former self. Then he surprises her by saying he never feels guilty about anything. Ryan calls bullshit. Chase says if he fucks up, he owns it and moves on. Ryan laughs and says she feels guilty for things she hasn’t even done, on other people’s behalf. Chase tells her she should probably stop doing that. Then they sit in silence until Mr. Morrison announces it’s time to share.

Before they can start, Ryan spots Maggie’s SUV pulling up in the distance. She interrupts the teacher and hurries toward her aunt. Maggie’s smile is forced when she says she came to get her. Ryan waits outside while Maggie signs her out. She suspects that whatever this is, it has to do with her father. Maggie reappears and leads her into the SUV. The smile fades completely. Maggie tells her that after Ryan left for school, she got a call from Aaron Berkley in Nashville, her father’s attorney. Ryan’s stomach drops. Maggie hesitates, then delivers the news: the attorney wanted to know if Ryan would be there for the execution.

Ryan gags audibly. She has to hold back vomit. She refuses immediately. Maggie says she told the lawyer as much, but she felt she had to pass it along, and the lawyers need an answer by noon to make arrangements. Ryan asks why they want her there. Maggie suspects it’s because the bodies were never found, and the authorities hope that with Ryan present, her father might finally reveal where he hid them. Ryan stares through the windshield, shell-shocked, and gives her answer: hell no. She asks if that’s all, says she has photography class, and closes the door on Maggie’s goodbye.

Every step Ryan takes echoes with the thought that she’s just been invited to her father’s execution. She signs back in at the office, where a teenage aide named Ty recognizes her from French class and teases her about being new. Ryan can barely focus. She keeps imagining walking down a bare hall, sitting behind a sheet of glass, watching her father die. She tries to find the art wing but takes the long way, then rushes into a restroom and throws up. After rinsing her mouth and digging out a mint, she studies her reflection, hoping she doesn’t look like a girl who was just invited to watch her dad die by lethal injection.

She makes it to photography class a few minutes early. Mr. Hicks passes out assignment sheets, but the words blur. Her friend Mar asks what she thinks of an idea for a photography series on reflections, mirrors, water, windows. Ryan blinks, realizing Mar has been talking to her.

In photography class, Mar is describing her new series on reflections: mirrors, water, windows, things like that. Ryan barely hears a word. Her mind is still in that SUV with her aunt, receiving the gruesome invitation, her heart racing, her stomach refusing to settle. Mar waits for a response, gets none, and frowns. She suggests Ryan could use the bird photo she showed her last week for her own project. Ryan knows she should answer, but no words come. When Mar asks if Ryan is even listening, hurt settles across her face. Ryan mumbles an apology, says she has a lot on her mind. Mar waits for her to elaborate, but Ryan can’t. She can’t tell Mar about the execution, about the murderer who spawned her, about the sick feeling in her gut. She can’t even manage

Part 4 - Chapters 12 to 15

Gabby wakes gasping, clawing at her neck—still trapped in a nightmare. In the dream, she ran barefoot through a forest of razor-sharp rocks, screaming for help. Her father caught her, tickled her, kissed her temple, and then the birdhouses became bodies: six women strung up by the neck. "Do you like my little sparrows, Gabby?" he asked as the twine tightened around her throat. Jasmine is at her side, offering awkward reassurances. Gabby swallows her panic, smiles, and says she's fine. But she can't fall back asleep.

Before dawn, she slips out to a rocky perch overlooking the valley. She tells herself she's there to take pictures—except she forgot her camera, and Everett catches her in the lie when he finds her. He invites her to breakfast: his dad is making pancakes. She protests, but he points out the bus doesn't come for two hours, and she could ride with him. The mention of his dogs seals it. She reluctantly agrees.

The trail gives way to the James property: a weathered gazebo, an old wishing well, a firepit, and a house with chipped white paint. Inside, dogs are everywhere. A shaggy German shepherd mix named Max leans into her. Rocket, a scrappy terrier, zips past. Bella, an older golden retriever, is the longest-tenured rescue. In the kitchen, JP is flipping pancakes and welcomes her warmly. A scruffy mutt named Steve bounds over for attention.

Just as Gabby begins to relax, Nikki strides in wearing a tiny skirt and tinier top, her face twisting in disgust. She makes a cutting remark about "Ev's girlfriends" being over before seven in the morning and sneers that at least Sofia had the decency to show up at eight. JP shoots her a warning look. The comment lingers, and Gabby feels out of place despite Everett and JP's efforts.

Over breakfast, JP offers her a part-time paying job at the shelter. Everett encourages her with a wink; Nikki scoffs that Everett just wants in her pants. Everett snaps at her, JP tells Nikki to leave, and Gabby scrapes back her chair, deciding she should go. Everett insists on walking her home.

On the trail, he tells her the truth: he's lived in Starling his entire life, knows literally everyone, and it's boring. He needs new blood—he needs her. She laughs it off, but internally she knows letting him get to know her is the worst possible decision. Still, she can't help asking about his family. His mother died when he was a kid, and his father raised them alone. He asks about her mom, and she feeds him the story Maggie concocted: a car accident. He offers his sympathy with real emotion, and she finds herself leaning into him.

He breaks the tension with a joke about taking his shirt off to sweeten the deal. She protests, laughing. They almost kiss—her heart races, he moves in—but reality crashes in, and she steps back. She can't get close to anyone in Starling. She shifts to small talk: his plans after graduation. A full ride to Alabama for football. She mentions traveling the country with her camera. He calls her a badass, says he wishes he were that brave. Then he challenges her: if she's truly brave, she'll go out with him tomorrow night. He promises to take her to the sickest place in town but won't say where. She hesitates and grudgingly agrees.

The next evening, Gabby stares at her reflection, feeling like an absolute fraud. She's not hiding a few secrets—she's concealing a whole life. Any relationship built on a lie is doomed. Jasmine, meanwhile, is thrilled, guessing Everett will take her to the lake, where everyone goes to hook up. Gabby denies it, but her nerves are frayed.

Then Jasmine mentions what she and Con are doing tonight: putting together a map of possible burial locations. The girls who disappeared. Gabby's stomach churns. Jasmine has been combing true-crime sites, watching videos, reading the confession, the sentencing transcript, even the prison letters Uncle Psycho wrote to his kid. She talks about a cousin she's never met, adopted away after Aunt Sarah died. Gabby feels like she's on the verge of throwing up. She desperately changes the subject to clothes, letting Jasmine talk her into unbuttoning her flannel to show a sliver of her midriff. When the doorbell rings, Jasmine races to answer it.

Everett is effortlessly charming with Maggie, Dan, and Jasmine, who all clearly adore him. He opens the truck door for Gabby, tells her she looks pretty. Country music plays on the radio, and it reminds her of her father—he always had it on at home. She nearly slips and says "Allentown" before catching herself. "In Europe," she corrects. He tells her about cowboys singing to cattle to keep them from stampeding. She manages a smile, thinking she wishes it had worked for her dad.

He won't tell her where they're going. The truck stops in a gravel lot at sunset. He takes her hand, and they walk through the trees until she sees it: a swinging bridge. A wooden sign reads PEDESTRIANS ONLY—FOUR AT A TIME. The bridge sways under Everett's step, and Gabby hesitates. He promises it's safe, takes her hand, and leads her across. When they reach the middle, he gently turns her around. The sun is setting over the river, turning the water to molten lava, the sky blushing in pinks, oranges, and lavender. It's the most beautiful sunset she's ever seen.

He puts his hand on her hip and presses his cheek to her temple. They stay like that until the sun melts behind the hills. Then she notices the padlocks attached to the chain-link fence. One is painted with a name in purple: SOFI. Sofia. Everett jokes about needing a crowbar. He never brought Sofia here, he explains—she always complained about the bugs. She put the lock there herself a couple months ago and sent him a picture. He breaks it down: Sofia only cares about Sofia, and being part of the perfect couple. He wanted to abdicate. When Gabby asks why he broke up with her, he says he couldn't deal with being ordered around anymore. Sofia won't accept that it's over.

He turns the conversation to Gabby. What does she love? She hesitates, biting back answers too close to the real her. She loves being outside. The woods, the lake. He teases her, says she needs better favorite things, and confesses his own: pie. She laughs, and he tells her that's what he likes—her laughing without a filter.

They stay until the bugs force them off the bridge. Back in his truck, he starts the engine, and the dashboard glow is the only light. A slow song plays on the radio, one she likes, and he turns it up. When it ends, they lock eyes across the seat. He leans in, cups the back of her neck, and kisses her. It's slow and sweet at first, then deepens until they're both breathing hard. She's just getting into it when the song fades out and a news voice comes on.

She hears the name Gabriel Thorn. Her body tenses. The mood shatters. She pulls away, hushes Everett, and listens. The news reports that Tennessee is facing supply issues with lethal injection drugs, and Thorn has been given the option to stay his execution or choose electrocution at the end of the month.

Ryan hears the news report and the world tilts. Her father, Gabriel Thorn, has chosen electrocution over waiting for lethal injection drugs, a method not used in years. The brutality of it hits her physically. Everett dismisses her distress, saying he hopes Thorn's death is as painful as possible, even joking about his head catching fire. Ryan struggles to explain her reaction without revealing that the Starling Slayer is her father, lamely claiming she feels squeamish about capital punishment in general. The romantic mood of the date evaporates. She asks to go home early, barely answers Everett's small talk, and skips the good-night kiss, darting inside.

Maggie finds Ryan shaken and curled on the couch. Ryan whispers the news about her dad. Maggie has already seen it on her feed. Ryan's voice cracks: why would her father choose that? She knows what he did, but he's still her dad, and she doesn't want him suffering. When Maggie tries to hug her, Ryan pulls away and goes to bed. A text from Everett arrives: You're a damn good kisser, Ryan Shipley. Can't wait to see you again.

Sunday afternoon, with Maggie at an open house and Dan out with his youth group, Jasmine seizes the chance to research Gabriel Thorn's case without adult interference. She and Connor are in the living room, Connor watching football while Ryan texts Mar and Ty in a new group chat. Jasmine suddenly shrieks. Zed's podcast, Free the Sparrows, has just posted the 911 call from the night of Thorn's arrest, footage neither the police nor the FBI ever released. Ryan's heart flies to her throat, but she forces herself to stay neutral, pretending indifference because she supposedly grew up in Europe and knows nothing about the case.

Jasmine plays the call. A male voice, Ryan's father, begins awkwardly: "Hello. Hi