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CHAPTERONE
KAT
The sharp ring of my phone wrenched me out of a deep sleep.
I fumbled in the darkness frantically, my heart thundering, and finally tracked my phone and pulled it out from under my pillow. The name flashing on the screen froze me.
Emma. My best friend.
It was just past three in the morning. The pit of my stomach dropped. Had something bad happened to her? Quickly, I hit the answer button.
“H-Hello? Emma?” I stammered, my voice thick with sleep. Her sobbing voice came through the speaker, and my heart pounded harder.
“Kat, he’s coming for me. He’s drunk again, and I’m scared.”
Fear skated down my spine at the terror in Emma’s voice. I’d heard her sound this way before, seen the tears, the bruises, and it was always the same person responsible. Her uncle was a vile man who tried to climb into her bed with her, and when she protested, he beat her. She’d been living in fear of him for the past year because no one believed her. And she couldn’t exactly be homeless while trying to pass college. I wished I could take her in to live with me, but my stepdad was an asshat when he was in a good mood. And last time I asked, he threatened to throw me out.
“I’m coming, Em. Lock your bedroom door and shove a chair under the handle. Just hang tight.”
“Please hurry,” she cried.
“I’ll be there soon. Pack a small bag. You’re coming to stay here for a few days, then we’ll find a place for ourselves.”
“But your stepdad…” she gasped.
“Don’t worry about that now.” I bit my lip as I pushed those worries from my mind and focused on the current problem. “I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up and sprang from my bed. Back in junior high school, we’d promised each other that we’d always have each other’s backs, that no matter who hurt us, it would be the two of us against the world. We both had shitty family arrangements. Her uncle was her only family left, while I had a stepdad who wanted to make my life hell ever since my mom passed when I was much younger. We were both twenty years old, trying to get through college, working two jobs to earn enough to move out.
Well, it looked like that time had arrived.
I didn’t have time to think about what I was doing. Emma’s sobs echoed in my ears. She was in danger, and I was all she had left. I had to get to her and fast, which meantborrowingmy stepdad’s car.
Dressing hastily in a skirt and a hoodie laying on the back of my study chair, I stepped into my trainers and quietly hurried downstairs. My stepdad kept his keys in the kitchen on a key hook hanging by the fridge, but as I fumbled in the dark, my fingers closing around empty air, I started to panic.
Where the hell were the keys?
Silence permeated the room, except for the tick-tock of the old grandfather clock in the living room. The rhythmic ticks just added to how frantic I felt.
Think, Kat, think.
Taking in a sharp breath, I forced myself to focus, figuring he might have left them by the front door after he arrived home from work. I crept across the kitchen floorboards, every creak of the old wooden house sounding like a gun going off in the silence.
Inches from the front door, a noise made me freeze. The floorboards groaned upstairs. My pulse thundered in my veins, and I swore my stepdad was going to catch me, then make my life hell. Last time I didn’t wash the clothes and put them out to dry, he refused to take me to work for a month, and I had to use the bus—which was fine, except it was a half-hour walk there from home. I finished work at midnight most nights, and we didn’t live in the best part of town, but he didn’t seem to care.
I held my breath, pressing my back against the wall, listening. Sweat pooled across my lower back as I stilled, waiting.
The staircase stood directly in front of me, the pale moonlight from the front door window illuminating the bottom steps. I kept staring at it, expecting to see him coming down any second. Another creaking sound just at the top of the stairs, and I flinched. The low rumble of my stepdad’s voice sounded. He was speaking on the phone, his words too muffled to make out.
The adrenaline left me feeling light-headed. That was when I noticed the glint of the keys near the front door shining in the moonlight.
Gritting my teeth, I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound until the creaking floorboards told me he’d gone back to bed. Waiting a beat longer, then hearing him snoring, had me pushing off the wall and lunging for the keys. My fingers closed around the cold metal, and I slipped into the night, quietly shutting the door behind me.
His bedroom faced the backyard, which meant he shouldn’t hear or see me driving off with his most prized possession. I hoped.
Nerves snaked down my arms as I rushed to his jet-black Dodge Charger. He called it his muscle car, and I rolled my eyes each time he did. The polished paint shone in the moonlight like obsidian stone. The car was broad, swallowing up the whole driveway, and the only time I’d driven it was a year ago when he’d broken his leg, and I had to fetch him meds from the drug store.
He almost killed me for getting it dirty.
