Prologue
Liam
Eleven Years Old
I’m half asleep, buried under a heavy knitted blanket, when boots thud up the stairs to my bedroom.
My stomach lurches on instinct. Jolting upright, I force my sluggish brain to run through the day. The house is spotless. Dinner is sitting on the stove, covered in foil. I tackled my dad’s laundry as soon as I got home from school.
Raking my fingers through my long hair, I tug hard at the roots. What did I forget? Where did I mess up?
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Dread tumbles around in my gut, and I bite down on a scream of frustration. I was so lost in a daze on my walk home from school that I forgot to pick up beer from my dad’s shady friend at the convenience store.
How could I let myself get so distracted? How could a few strummed chords turn into an hour of playing guitar with the new kid in music class after the bell rang?
This is why I can’t have friends. Not that my dad would let Hail come over anyway, and even if he said yes, I wouldn’t want to expose Hail to the hell I live in.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t want to live so badly because the effort of survivingis exhausting.
Footsteps pause outside my door. I catch the shadow of boots beneath it. The coppery tang of blood fills my mouth as I sink teeth into my cheek, weighing my options. Is it a hide under the blanket or a run to the bus stop kind of night?
My gaze flicks to the DART card on my nightstand that my mom left. Do I have any money left on it? I’m not even sure the buses are running this late.
As far as my mom goes…
Yeah, she’s done helping me. She’s been gone for three months. Up and vanished after I got suspended from school for fighting. I’ve started having nightmares that my dad murdered her and tossed her bones in the woods behind my school.
Ice sheets my body when the door handle rattles. “What the fuck did I tell you about locking this door, boy? You stupid like your mother?”
I clench the blanket in my hands. I may not be able to forgive my mom for leaving me, but I know she’s a lot smarter than him.
She never laid hands on me.
A fist bangs on the door, hard enough to make me wince in anticipation of pain. Leaping out of bed, my foot gets caught in the blanket, and I tumble to the floor, head and elbows first, with a sharp cry.
“You think I can’t hear you? Get your ass over here and unlock this damn door. You know you made a fucking mistake. You’re gonna pay for it.”
My heart slams against my ribcage, desperate to escape. I know it’s not possible to die from fear, but in times like these, I question what’s real.
This can’t be normal. This isn’t how things should be.
Scrambling over to a pile of dirty clothes near my closet, I yank on dark jeans and a black hoodie. Frantically, I search around for my boots.
Where the fuck did I leave them?
The lock on my door gives out. I cringe as it slams against the wall and trembles from the force.
I don’t get to watch much TV, but I’ve seen enough to know my dad could star as the serial killer in a slasher movie. His eyes are pools of midnight, vast and cold as a desert at night. His giant body fills up the doorway, blue-collared shirt unbuttoned and sweaty black hair curled over his forehead.
Alarms blare in my head.Pain. Pain. Pain.
I think about calling the cops, but it wouldn’t matter. I’ll be dead before they get here. Even if they do make it in time, I doubt they’ll be able to pull him off me.
Chancing broken limbs, I leap out of my second-story window. Crickets fall silent as I land in the overgrown grass with a grunt. Rolling to my bare feet, I take off through the gap in the neighbor’s worn fence.
I fight back tears as I run. I don’t understand. Why does my dad keep me around? Why not dump me on someone else?
