All I could do was shake my head helplessly when Beverly looked at me. I wanted to be able to tell her it wasn't true, that of course not Richie, because that would never happen to him. It would never happen to any of us. But he had been there one moment and then gone the next and Eddie had seen it. Eddie had been forced to watch it happen and that was the end of it.

There was nothing else I could say.

I swiped the back of my hand across my eyes and found the tears had dried up. I was expecting to find tears, but instead I was just angry. I was angry that we had been taken from our home, angry that we were forced to live with monsters, angry that one of them had killed Richie. I wanted to scream and punch something, but all that anger was pointless and directionless.

"It's true," I whispered in a broken voice.