Prologue
“NO! MOMMY!! I WANT MY MOMMY!!! NOOO!! MOMMY, HELP!!
I can hear her,but I can’t see a damn thing in the pitch black of the bedroom. I feel my arms tied to the bed but whoever did this obviously did it quickly because one of the knots is loose. Thank you, God!
I untangle myself and reach out for the panic button on my bedpost as I scramble to get out of bed. I don’t understand how the alarms could’ve been disabled. They were set remotely. No one should’ve been able to get through them. They are quite literally hack proof.
“Damn it!” I yell under my breath, my frustration disappearing into the darkness.
I can hear my baby still screaming for me but whoever is here cut the lights. I follow her cries, all of my senses heightened because I’m running blind. I feel someone at my back and immediately stop. Acting quickly and aggressively, I pull back my elbow, striking upward forcefully and crushing their windpipe. Once my attacker is struggling to breathe, it gives me the chance to land a roundhouse kick to their temple, knocking them unconscious.
“I’m coming, sweet girl.” I say it to myself more than anyone.
Whispering mutters of self-encouragement, I run down the stairs. Every second that passes drags on, feels like an hour. I just need to get to her. Just as I make it to the last step, I’m ambushed by three guys in masks. I vaguely see what appears to be a woman, lugging my baby girl toward the door as she reaches out for me and screams her little head off...
I propel all of my weight through the front guy, knocking him down. A swift kick into the gut of the guy on my right drops him to his knees. I’m running on pure adrenaline as I try to outrun the last man standing. I reach out as the woman holding my baby gets to the front door, but I’m snatched back roughly.
I swing my elbow back to hit his face, but he dodges it like he saw it coming. Adjusting my eyes to the darkness, I can now see the other two men picking themselves up off the floor. They hurtle themselves toward me as the wail of sirens blares in the background. They must hear them as well, because they flee out the door just as I hear the engine of their getaway car rev.
I run as hard and as fast as I can, watching as the three of them hop up into the bed of a nondescript, black pickup with no visible license plate. Reaching out, I grapple to hold onto the tailgate of their pickup as I run down the middle of the road, tears flooding my face. They accelerate down the long country road and I fall to my knees sobbing, my chest heaving for air.
The sirens get closer as the police approach from the opposite direction, heeding the call from one of the panic buttons I managed to mash. My dad insisted I install them in any home we move to — so much for that working. They’ve got her, despite my best efforts to keep her hidden. Someone still found us. She’s gone. My sweet baby girl. Someone has stolen her and I may never see her again...
Chapter One
Quinn
Shooting straight off the bed, I feel like I’m suffocating. I’m sweating profusely. Kicking the threadbare blankets off of me, I can still hear the echo of the little girls’ screams. These nightmares that haunt me on the regular. But they aren’t mine. They couldn’t be.
I don’t know a single sixteen-year-old girl who dreams of the horrors I do. Of losing a kid that doesn’t exist. But these nightmares make me realize that I will never have a baby. Notever. The constant worry that I’ll turn out like my own neglectful mom is enough. My under the table jobs and small local underground fights barely keep our heat or electricity on as it is. They’re never enough to keep me fed. There’s zero percent chance I’ll ever be willing to take responsibility for another human being. Or bring a child into this kind of world. I’ve learned enough from dear ol’ ma to stay away from all the guys in this sketch ass neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, plenty have tried. But I’ll die before I let any man touch me without consent. Hell, I’ll barely let them touch me with it.
I don’t know why I keep dreaming someone else’s nightmare, when my own life isn’t far from one. But it’s time to shake it off and get ready for another day in the shitshow that is my life. I swear, I’m just counting down the days until graduation. I’m only two months into junior year, and I’m already done. It’s an internal fight on the daily. I know I need an education to get out of this shithole but most days I just want to run as fast and far as I can.
“One day at a time.” I whisper to myself as I stare at my reflection in the broken mirror leaned up against my wall.
It’s my daily reminder that I’m going to survive this place. I will. Ihaveto. There’s some weird noises outside my bedroom door, but I ignore them in favor of my headphones and old MP3 player. It’s likely ma’s flavor of the night. And I don’t want any part of that. A few years ago, I scraped up enough money to buy a pretty badass lock for my door. It does little but ease my mind, but it helps enough that I sleep some nights. I desperately need a shower after waking up in another nightmare sweat, but it looks like it’ll have to wait ‘til gym. Throwing my hair up in a top knot, I grab my toothbrush and toothpaste and cringe. There’s no way in hell I’m leaving my bedroom when I don’t know who’s out there today, so I brush my teeth dry, using a red solo cup full of questionable tap water to swish and rinse.
Slipping out of my sweat-soaked leggings and tank top, I slide on a pair of skinny jeans and a shirt that has more holes than fabric. It honestly needed replacing years ago, but I needed dinner last night, too. And that didn’t happen, either. As much as puberty sucks, I really could’ve done without the extra curves since new clothes are a luxury I can’t afford. The essential bits are covered, so this will have to work for now. I grab my hoodie and lace up my trusty combat boots, also known as my best, ever thrift store find. Tucking my knife and a few loose bills into one of them, I sneak out my window as quickly and quietly as I can.
* * *
Climbingup the steps at the front of the school, my intuition has the hair on the back of my neck standing up. Something is going down. I don’t know what just yet, but I can feel it in my bones that something isdefinitelywrong. There’s a few kids tumbling out the front doors, eyes wide and panicked. It’s enough that I almost turn on my heel and book it in any other direction, but my crazy calls to me. My inquisitive ass is too damn curious for my own good. I cautiously enter the building, aware of all of the usual scenarios that could be happening within these walls. Reaching into my boot for my knife, I tuck it into the sleeve of my hoodie.
I hear the screaming first.
“You have to listen to me! This ishisfault!! I swear!Hedid this! He just wouldn’t stop, ya know?! No one ever made him stop. He was never going to stop; don’t you understand? My life is ruined... There was no other way...”
The screaming girl is Leia, a girl I’ve gone to school with since kindergarten. She’s always been a quiet girl for the most part. She’s nice and keeps to herself. Trouble easily finds you in this place if you don’t keep your head down, and she always did. From the sounds of things, trouble still found her. She sounds beyond hysterical as her voice devolves into sobs. I see some of the student body surrounding her, most of them filming her on their phones. But no one seems to be bothered enough to help her. I hear sirens getting louder and louder, then I feel the commanding presence of the police at my back when they move toward the scene while invading the school, clearly here for something other than another bullshit teenage brawl to be broken up.
Up closer now, I see why and nobody is helping him either. My history teacher is sprawled face down on the floor, blood pooling out from under his head. His pants appear to be unbuttoned and falling down over his ass. His arm and hand are pinned under him, like he was trying to run and hold his pants together before he took a shot to the head with something heavy. Leia is shaking and sobbing on the floor, her shirt is torn open. She has a bruising set of handprints on her arm and there’s a bloody fire extinguisher on the floor next to her. She’s crying frantically as the police create a protective barrier around the scene, just before they arrest her.
“I heard he’s been raping her since the beginning of freshman year. She just went to him because she found out she’s pregnant. She was trying to confront him - telling him that he needed to fix it and stop what he was doing because when her parents found out, he’d be going to jail. Supposedly, she’d been begging him for help with the problem he caused, but instead he got so excited by the news that he tried to rape her again.” Some dude spouts some gossipy bullshit up ahead of me.
The principal barks out orders for teachers to help run interference with the students, trying to usher everyone towards the library. They collect everyone’s phones so the incident isn’t blasted all over social media. Ha, like that’ll do any good. Most of the kids here were probably streaming live, so good luck to the school with that failure of a dream. This shit is about to blow up every social media network there is and the news crews are probably already on their way. There’s little the school faculty can do at this point to prevent a media shit storm from coming their way.
Damn it, I should’ve taken off. I fucking knew it. Discreetly tucking my knife back into my boot, I attempt to turn around to run but get caught up by one of my damn teachers. She grabs hold of my arm and gives methatlook. You know the one. It’s the look that adults give teens that says, ‘You’re not eighteen yet. I’m still in charge, so you have to listen to me. Blah, blah, blah.’
Fuck.