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Chapter One
Willow
Sixteen years ago…
If Mama finds me, she’s going to swat my bottom.
That’s what she always says when she’s mad at me for being stubborn—Willow Rainbow Astor, listen to me right now or I swear I’m going to swat your little bottom!
But she never does, and she promised me she never will.
She said so last Christmas, when we were waiting in line to see Santa in the park and the man in front of us spanked his little boy so hard that he started screaming. I turned to Mama, my eyes full of scared tears, wondering if that was what a “swatted bottom” looked like, and she leaned down and whispered, “I’ll never hurt you like that, baby. Never ever. I promise. No child deserves to be treated that way, no matter what they’ve done.”
But she might change her mind today…
If she catches me.
“So, make sure she doesn’t catch you, silly,” I mutter to myself, sticking my head out from behind the back of the laundromat.
But there’s no sign of Mitch coming down the trash-littered alley.
But that’s okay. He’ll be here. Mitch is one of my best friends and he knows I’m dying to play Unicorn Blood Sport 2, and that there’s no way my mom will let me buy it, even though I have sixty whole dollars saved up from my birthday party last week.
Mama thinks violent video games are bad, even ones with cute cartoon unicorns who fart rainbows and make super funny faces when they kill off the bad goblins.
Once she found out Mitch’s mom let us play games like that, she said I couldn’t go over to his house after school anymore. I had to come straight home, check in with Aunty Sarah next door—who isn’t really my aunt and is also very old and super cranky—then let myself into our apartment and start on my homework.
But second grade homework only takes a few minutes and then I have two whole hours to sit around and wish I had a friend to play with—or some goblins to kill.
I’ll have plenty of time to finish my homework, beat a level of Blood Sport 2, and still get my chores done before Kelley gets home from volleyball practice and Mom and Dad from work.
That’s the good part of being “the most responsible eight-year-old” my parents have ever met. They trust me, and I think it’s okay to use that to my advantage once and a while.
I know lying is wrong, but this doesn’t feel wrong. Playing video games isn’t going to make me a bad person or give me nightmares. Mama’s scared of that for no reason.
Kelley, my big sister, fights with our parents about stuff like that, but I don’t see the point in fighting when I can sneak around and do what I want without upsetting anyone. That way Mama’s happy, I’m happy—everyone wins.
Unless Mitch takes much longer and then I’m going to be super late to check in with Aunty Sarah, she’ll call Mama to report me missing, and then Mom will track me down with her crazy accurate kid-tracking powers and my bottom will be so much swatted toast.
I glance down at the empty alley again and then at my red watch, the one Kelley gave me because big plastic watches aren’t cool anymore for big kids. But any kind of watch is cool for little kids. I’m the only girl in second grade who wears a watch. Even Pax, the meanest bully in school, who makes fun of me any time he has the chance, said he liked it.
Then he tried to make me give it to him and punched me in the back when I wouldn’t. He punched me so hard it hurt to pee for a whole day, but he didn’t get in trouble. The teachers are too afraid to punish Pax. He’s the Alpha’s son and gets to be as mean and lazy as he wants.
Mama says it’s natural for a kid to take advantage and that it’s the grownups’ fault for indulging him.
She doesn’t know how often Pax hits me. I don’t tell her. I know it would make her mad and sad, and I’m afraid she might try to stop him.
I might only be in second grade, but I’m old enough to know that would be a bad idea.
The Alpha wouldn’t believe my mom. Or me.
The Alpha would believe Pax is an innocent little prince and I’m a dirty little liar who deserves to spend my weekend in an isolation pit thinking about what I’ve done.
According to the rumors, the Alpha has lots of deep, scary pits in his basement. People who make him mad enough to punish them, but not kill them, end up at the bottom of one of those pits in the dark with no food or water for forty-eight whole hours. They say there are bugs and rats and things down there that crawl all over you. That they bite and scratch and make it too scary to sleep even if you could find a way to lie down. But the pits are so narrow there’s no room to lie down, not even if you curl up in a tiny little ball.
That’s part of the torture, that you can’t sit or lie down or rest and that when you go potty it just runs down your legs inside your clothes and makes you feel stinky and itchy and awful and sad.
I shiver, fighting to swallow past the knot in my throat, the feeling that something bad is about to happen swelling inside my chest.
