Prologue
ERIK
TWELVE YEARS OLD
Screeching rubber screams all around me as the wheels of our old rust bucket car begin skidding over asphalt before the car jerks to the side so violently, I bite my tongue.
Blood spurts from my lips, my limbs flaying around as the tin can we’re strapped within rolls.
It’s so loud, the crunching of metal, smashing of glass, it’s like surround sound on an action movie I didn’t want to be cast in.
I didn’t plan on sending us rolling when I jerked the wheel from my mother’s grasp.
I planned on us hitting one of the trees bordering this small stretch of road and her going through the windshield.
It’s why I unclipped her seat belt before grabbing the wheel.
Steel meets concrete before we stop with a jarring clank in a ditch at the side of the road, draining me of breath.
My eyesight blurs as the blood from my mouth streams up my face and into my line of vision.
There’s a humming violently in my ears and then moans of pain.
“I’m stuck.” My mother croaks from the driver’s side. “I can’t move. Erik?”
My thoughts are muddled as I try to breathe through the burning filling my lungs.
“Help me.” Mother’s voice whimpers through the haze of the chaos.
Searching with shaky hands I locate my seatbelt and hit the button.
The weight of my body collapses into a heap with a soft thud making me cry out from the pain stabbing through my ribs.
“Erik, I’m stuck.” My mother repeatedly cries, frantic.
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
I heave through ragged intakes of air before seeking out her damaged form beside me.
She’s not stuck, her back is broken, her body lying at an odd angle.
Blood fuses with her hair making it appear darker than usual.
An intense scent wafts into my nose, alarming me to further danger.
Within seconds of me smelling the gas, orange and gold flames swirl and caress the metal at the front of the car.
Forcing myself to my knees, I swipe at my eyes and search for a way out.
The window on my side smashed with the impact, and there’s a big enough gap for me to crawl free from the steel trap our mother drives us around in.
My ribs ache, but I don’t stop crawling through rubble, then dirt, until I’m staring back at the car from the roadside.
There’s pressure in my gut causing me to wheeze and gasp for air.
It’s uncomfortable but not painful enough to buckle me.
Mother’s screams mix with the hissing of the blaze gathering strength, devouring what was once our car.
There’s a pounding in my chest, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now.
This wasn’t planned out, it was a reaction to a selfish choice that bitch made for all of us in a moment of anger and panic.
We’re moving away.
She doesn’t care about us or how her lifestyle impacts the small life we have.
I’m not a kid anymore.
I’m not going to be pushed around anymore.
I’m the monster of her creation, and the beast always turns on its master in the end.
This is the end, mother.
I watch in wonder as the glass pops from the back window that wasn’t damaged when the car rolled. Steel creaks and moans as if it’s alive and suffering right along with my mother.
Nighttime creeps over the horizon, stealing the sun and coating the scene in an orange glow obscured by tall, willowing trees overlooking the carnage.
Mom always insisted on using this back road.
It was secluded and more rubble than road.
She hates having to wait in traffic.
Now she’s burning up with no hope of being seen by other cars passing.
“Erik, help me!” She bellows on choked sobs between screams of pain.
My eyes drop to her mangled body, entangled with the scrap heap.
She’s such a selfish bitch.
Not once has she called out to my unconscious sister trapped by her seatbelt in the back seat.
The flames haven’t reached her yet, and my gut tugs at the thought of my sister’s skin blistering and burning away.
Her dark hair hangs limply around her innocent face, her body suspended upside down in her seat, the seatbelt keeping her trapped inside the oven.
Her face is so still, oblivious to the pain she will suffer in minutes.
She was sleeping in the back of the car when our mother decided to tell me she was moving us away because she met some new fucking boyfriend.
My sister’s silence beckons me to her.
I can’t let her die alongside our mother, she deserves more than that.
She deserves more from me.
Slipping back down the small verge, heat blasts my flesh, making me wince and attempt to cover my face with the shirt I have on.
Dropping to my knees, I smile at the tormented cries of our mother giving me a swirling of satisfaction.
If Ebony were awake, would she want me to save our mother?
Glass scrapes and burrows deep into my flesh, but I’m used to pain, so it doesn’t prevent me from reaching through the window and yanking at the seat belt keeping my unconscious sister trapped.