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ONE
“Here it is, Nicholas. Hart Hollow Missouri,” Valerie called quietly from the front seat of her Ford Fiesta, waking me from my shallow dream state.
With a yawn, I sat up, stretched my arms to the ceiling, and grazed my knuckles on the worn fabric. I’d spent the previous two hours of the trip from Denver to Missouri in and out of sleep, the warm summer air making it impossible to drift off properly.
Though I was old enough to drive, myAuntValerie was reluctant to allow me the privilege unless she was woefully tired. Plus, her passenger seat driving took all the fun out of the act. As a result, our trip had taken twice the time it needed to.
I leaned forward between the seats, running a hand over my face as Valerie stopped at a flashing light in what appeared to be the town square. I attempted to climb over the center console, but Valerie swatted me. “Stop doing that. We’re almost there. Just stay back there.”
I huffed out a breath, a remark on my tongue that was better left there. Our arrival in the small, forgotten town was a fresh start, and I’d promised to be less of a dick to Valerie. She was all I had when I arrived in Hart Hollow.
Valerie put the car into gear and turned as I moved to the rear passenger window. I saw a man with a cane and glasses walking along the sidewalk.
The buildings we passed were brick, worn down—gone from my vision in a flash. As soon as we arrived in the downtown area, we were passing neighborhoods. Some homes were beautiful, some derelict.
The houses suddenly stopped, and we were approaching a road leading up to the Hart Hollow school district, the yellow buses announcing its presence. My new school sat on the hill to my right, but Valerie turned left as I pressed my nose to the glass, trying to see up the incline.
I shifted in my seat, moving to the center console again as we paused at a stop sign before turning left. The town was quiet, and we saw no cars as we pulled up to the Steele Heart Trailer Park entrance. A remark was there, a joke ready to fall from my mouth, but I bit my tongue instead. I’d vowed to be better to Valerie. The prior two years had been rough for us both—since the fire and the deaths at the ranch.
If our hearts had been made of steel, would we be unscathed right now?I pushed the poetry aside, playing the part of a normal teenager when I asked, “Which one is ours?” before glancing at Valerie.
She swept her red hair off her face, leaning her head into the headrest of her seat. Then, casting a fleeting glance at me, she pointed to the trailer in the back of the park, by a dark circle of trees. “That one.”
I leaned forward slightly.
The trailer was a little less dilapidated than the rest, and as far as I was concerned, it was the mother fucking Hilton compared to the crammed car we’d been in for hours and the motels we’d been living in for the past two years. “Nice. I like it,” I remarked, offering Valerie a reassuring smile.
She nodded before inching forward.
Everything we owned was on the floorboard, in the trunk, and scattered across the front seat. Items hastily shoved into bags and boxes the night we left, very few things added in the years since we crossed the state line out of California when I was fifteen. Our nomadic lifestyle meant spending little, blending in. Our budget went to food for the two of us and clothing for me. I’d gained several inches since we left.
Valerie pulled the car into the grass next to the trailer, put it into park, and cut the engine. I stretched, raising my arms again, finding resistance once more.
“The landlord said the key would be under the mat. Go look for it, and I’ll start getting things out of the trunk,” Valerie said after a moment.
I nodded as I reached for the door, dying to stretch my legs. When I stepped out of the car, my back popped and I cursed low, turning away from Valerie as she rounded the vehicle. She hated when I used “foul language.”
The August heat was suffocating in Missouri, and I pushed my shaggy hair from my forehead as I walked toward the front porch. It wasn’t quite in line with the trailer, but you could reach the door. The mat in front of the entrance was faded and off-center. I squatted down, lifting the corner. A silver key was there, just as she’d said. I snatched it, let the mat fall, and then turned to Valerie. “Got it.”
She rounded the trunk with a box of clothes in her arms. “Okay, open it up. I’m sure it’s stuffy. He said the last tenant moved out six months ago. Let’s open the windows.”
I opened the screen door, reaching for the doorknob. I stepped back a little when it opened. “It wasn’t locked,” I said as Valerie reached me, opening the screen door more with her shoulder. We stood side by side at the entrance, and I looked down at her. “I’ll go in first,” I said, dropping my voice.
I wasn’t scared. Walking into an empty trailer in broad daylight was nothing. Every morning when I woke from one of my fitful and brief sleeps, I reminded myself that the dead could not find me here. The horrors I’d seen in darkened rooms in the past haunted me, but in dreams, those images remained.
I pressed my hand to the front door, pushing it wide. Valerie clutched the box to her chest next to me, craning her neck to see inside.
“Flip the light. There should be electricity,” she whispered.
I reached for the light, flicked it on, and watched it illuminate our new home.
It was dusty, hot, and smelled like the color of the walls—bland. There was a brown couch on the far wall, one end table, and a glass coffee table. Light shone in the kitchen from the sliding door that led to the back.
As Valerie stood in the doorway, I walked through the kitchen to the bedroom on the right side of the trailer. When I turned the light on, I saw a full-sized bed and one nightstand. Satisfied that the room was empty, I flicked the light off, and closed the door.
Valerie had stepped into the trailer, still cradling the box of clothes. “It has two bedrooms. Yours should be down the hall.”
I passed her, then flicked the light on in the bathroom, giving it a quick once over. Satisfied, I left the door open and walked to the back room, finding my new bedroom.
