Page 1 of Burning For You

PROLOGUE

“Sean, you’re not going out tonight,” Derek Murphy shouted.

“You can’t tell me no,” Sean shot back. “I’m eighteen.”

“You’re still living under my roof. You’ve got school tomorrow. Until you get a damn job and start paying your way, I make the rules.”

Skye kept her head down over her algebra book, her pencil moving while she pretended this wasn’t just another war breaking out in her house.

It was always something.

Her parents fighting when her mother stumbled in late from the bar, too loud, too drunk, smelling like cigarettes and cheap liquor. Or her father barking orders, trying to scare her brother straight.

Half the time her parents were both out drinking together, leaving Skye alone with Sean nowhere to be found.

She preferred that.

Silence was easier than yelling.

“Fuck you and your rules,” Sean yelled before storming upstairs. His bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls.

She exhaled slowly and kept working. It wasn’t a normal day unless someone was screaming.

At least it hadn’t been aimed at her.

Not yet.

Not until Jenny Murphy strutted into the living room full of confidence, ready to issue those orders. “I need you to start dinner, Skye.”

“Can I finish my homework first?” she asked.

No answer.

She glanced up.

Her mother stood there in black jeans stretched so tight they looked painful, stuffed into a T-shirt that Skye recognized instantly as hers. Too small. Again. The fabric clung where it shouldn’t, like it might split if her mother moved the wrong way.

Or like those cans of biscuits when hit on the counter, soft squishy stuff spilled out of the cracks.

That thought made her want to laugh, but laughing would only result in a fight she wasn’t in the mood for.

There was no point saying anything about her mother wearing her clothing. She already knew the response.

Until you start paying your way, everything here is ours.

Including her.

“No,” her mother said flatly. “I just went to the store, put everything away, and I’m hungry. It’s your turn.”

Skye snapped her book shut, her wrist moving faster than normal.

Nothing ever changed.

Nothing would until she got out.

Two more years. That was all she had to survive. After that, she didn’t care how. College, couch surfing, a job three states away. Beg, borrow, steal. She was out of here.

She marched into the kitchen and spotted the frozen burgers on the counter. Looked like dinner.