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PROLOGUE
DELILAH
Dad kissed the top of my head while I was grimly facing my spelling homework.
“I’ve got work to do today before we make dinner tonight,” he said. “Stay out of trouble, all right?”
“Of course,” I answered dutifully.
“You always do.” The scent of his cologne was heavy, mingled with some kind of chemical cleaning odor, but I didn’t mind.
I carefully set my colored pencils in rainbow order on the countertop and went to work. He always complimented me on how I was organized and methodical.
The lights flickered, then went off, leaving the kitchen still bright with afternoon light. The microwave clock had gone blank. The house was suddenly eerily silent.
The door to the basement, which was usually locked, clicked open. The LCD screen above the keypad had gone dark. I stared at it, chewing my lower lip, then went back to my math.
I was halfway through filling in my times tables when a groaning sound rose from the basement.
I got up and walked toward it, my heart pounding.
I wanted my dad so badly. I stopped at the door to the basement stairs, staring down there, and the groaning broke off. A woman’s voice rasped, “Help me.”
I turned and ran for the garage, hoping my father would be inside. But it was dark, with the lights off, and his car was gone. I stood there on the cement floor, breathing in the familiar strong cleaning scent—Dad was such a neat freak—and wishing the door would rumble to life and his headlights would split the dark in the garage.
But nothing happened. I stayed in the cold garage until I convinced myself to stop being a coward. It was time to go back.
I’d survived being left behind by my mom, then being tormented by my foster family until my father and I found our way back together again. I could be brave enough to go into the basement and keep my dad safe.
I got the big, heavy flashlight—big enough to be a weapon—from its place on the garage shelf, and then walked back into the house. My steps were faltering going down the stairs, but I still went, even if my legs shook.
A woman, strapped to a table, was frantically working one wrist free from the leather cuff.
She turned her head to me. Her dark hair was matted to her face with sweat and blood, her face twisted with pain. She was so ugly and yet…she looked familiar.
“Mom?”
My voice sounded weak. My mother had bought me a Coke and left me at that gas station, clear-eyed and sure of herself.
“Help me,” she begged, without a trace of recognition in her eyes.
“Do you remember me?”
She blinked hard. As I studied her face, her nose looked different, and her eyes…her eyes were brown. My mother’s violet eyes were just like mine.
I exhaled in relief. She wasn’t my mother.
“Help me,” she begged.
I stared at her, curious, as she went back to yanking desperately at her cuffed hand. Her joints seemed unusually bendy, the way her hand was folded to escape the cuff not quite natural. When I was an adult, I’d learn about hypermobility. It was rare, but inconvenient in a victim.
She finally got her hand loose and reached to undo the other buckle. Her fingers kept slipping. She made a desperate sound in the back of her throat, a sound that wasn’t quite human. In her desperation at the moment, it was easy to believe she wasn’t.
What was she going to do when she got loose? Kill my father? Call the police, which would be the same?
I couldn’t lose my dad.
Especially not to this woman who looked like my mom, who had betrayed us both.
