Page 1 of Her Fearless Warrior

PROLOGUE

Seven-year-old Lincoln Edison turned up the volume on his iPod as high as it would go and winced as Nickelback’s lead singer tried to blow out his eardrums. He would do anything to block out the sounds from down the hall.

Despite Chad Kroeger’s best attempts, Linc couldn’t block out his mother’s scream. Only one scream. Those were the worst. He grabbed his pencil so tight it broke. If his mom wasn’t screaming, it meant that Dad was choking her or she’d passed out.

Or was this the time that Dad would finally kill Mom?

Ick churned through his stomach and he felt like he was going to throw up. He could hear them in their bedroom, so he snuck downstairs to the kitchen. He was barefoot, so he didn’t make any noise. He’d learned how to be quiet when you’re barefoot from that movie—he was pretty sure it was E.T. When he got to the kitchen, he reached up real high to get the phone off the hook from the wall.

He carefully dialed 911.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

That lady was really loud. Linc pushed the receiver to his chest to make sure her voice couldn’t be heard. He pulled the long cord so that he could move around the counter and scrunch down real small into the corner of the cupboards.

“You need to be quiet,” he whispered to the lady.

“Okay. Can you tell me what your emergency is?”

“I think he’s going to kill her this time.” Linc choked back a sob.

“Are you someplace safe?”

“Yeah, I’m hiding in the kitchen.”

“That’s good. Now tell me your address.”

Linc did. He had it memorized. “Is a policeman going to come?”

“Yes, honey. A police officer is going to come.”

“Okay.”

“Tell me your name.”

“I’ve got to go back to my room. If he finds me here, I’ll get it.”

He got up from the corner and started to walk around the counter to hang up the phone.

“I need your name,” she said louder.

She wasn’t supposed to talk loud. Linc had already told her.

He reached up on his tiptoes and hung up the phone. He listened carefully and heard a shout, then a soft scream. That was another thing he hated, when Mom couldn’t scream anymore. It meant that everything was getting worse.

He carefully made it back up to his room, making sure to close his door as quietly as he could. Then he went to his window and waited. It seemed like forever for the police car to drive up to the curb. They didn’t have their lights flashing or their siren going, and he didn’t understand why not. Two men got out of their car and knocked on the front door.

All the sound in his parents’ bedroom stopped.

Then he heard his dad’s shoes stomping down the hall, and Linc’s door slammed open. “It was you!” his dad hissed.

His dad’s eyes glowed as he towered over him. Then he did something he’d never done before. He hit Linc. He punched Linc in the stomach so hard that he landed against his bed. “You called them, didn’t you, boy?”

Linc couldn’t pull in air. He saw his mom behind his dad. She looked like she always did, scared and hunched over. That’s because his dad was always sure not to hit anyplace that people could see.

“Because of you, you little shit, I’m going to have to go deal with them. When I come back, I’m going to come deal with you. In the meantime, you stay here and keep your trap closed. You got it?”

Linc nodded. He didn’t know what else to do.