Beneath the Flames

Chapter 1

Five in the morning and the summer heat was already shoving its way down my throat like boiling water.

My shoes stuck in the mud, making a lovely squelching sound as I tried to free myself from the sticky mess.

A wicked thunderstorm had passed through in the night, and though we had desperately needed the rain, it made the chores around the farm much more unpleasant.

Sunrise on the farm was torture already—anything before nine a.m. was of the devil—but I expected nothing less when I willingly lived in the middle of nowhere Minnesota.

This was where the winters froze your bones down to the marrow and solidified the snot in your nostrils, and the summers boiled your skin beneath the glare of the sun while you drowned from breathing the humidity.

But I chose this—to stay here. Of course, I had never had much of a choice, not when it came to the safety of my family. I was constantly trying to remind myself this was the right decision.

Mornings like this made me feel otherwise.

I ran my hands through the corn stalks towering above my head, forcing myself to focus on the rough feeling instead of my racing thoughts.

Leaves tickled my palms, the tips of corncobs sticking out of their husks.

I stopped to pierce a kernel with my fingernail, looking for the juice inside to be milky white.

When it wasn’t, I muttered out loud, “A little bit longer.” Maybe another week or so and it would be time to harvest the cornfield.

Sweat slid down the side of my face as I continued through the stalks, making my way back to the house, mind spinning as it usually did.

Only this time my thoughts twisted over last night.

My mom had been begging me to go and do something just for me for once, and I had finally relented.

I hadn’t wanted to leave my family unprotected, but she insisted I needed to get away—at least for a few hours.

Only now, with the way I had to drag my eyes open this morning and force myself from the bed, I was deeply regretting staying out so late.

I had treated myself to dinner and a movie in a town an hour away, and had intended to be home by ten at the very latest, but it had been so nice to just…

get away for a while. I ended up getting some ice cream and walking through the town park, watching for meteors shooting across the sky until well into the early hours of the morning.

It had taken all my self-control to return to this place I hated so very much, the mental picture of my mom and siblings like a cattle prod finally driving me back home.

A boy’s voice rang out. “Maren!”

“It’s time for breakfast,” another voice said, a girl this time.

The rustle of stalks swaying together got louder before two bodies crashed into mine. I barely managed to catch myself, and both of them, from falling into the wet mud beneath us.

My brother and sister giggled as I held them in each of my arms. Two sets of bright green eyes stared up at me, rare smiles on their faces. Instinctively, I pulled them closer, needing the reassurance that hugging my siblings—who were alive and unharmed—brought me.

“Mom told us to come find you,” Joey said, his gap-toothed smile easing the ache in my heart just a little.

He was the younger of the two at twelve years old.

My favorite thing about him was that nothing seemed to dim his spirits despite the life he had grown up in.

Though he often hid his smile when we were in the house, he never held it back when we were alone.

That smile never failed to set me at ease, to infuse a little bit of life back into my bones.

“Come on, Mar, let’s go eat!” Lila tugged at my arm, yanking me back toward the house. She was a year older than Joey and had already been forced to learn how to stuff everything deep down inside to protect herself.

I hated this life for them. For me.

I wished, more than anything, that I could take them away from here, do more to protect them than just being a bodyguard.

“You two head back. I’m right behind you,” I replied, nudging them forward. I needed a second to myself before entering through that door again.

Lila’s and Joey’s shoes squelched in the mud as they turned and headed back the way they came.

I blew out a breath, swiping the sweat from my forehead as I waited a few moments and then followed after them.

The stalks of corn grazed against my bare arms as my boots tromped through the dirt between the rows, the scent of wet dirt meeting my nose.

Our house came into view as I reached the end of the field, and I stopped for a moment, trying to catch my breath from the humidity sucking the air from my lungs.

The house was a quaint one-level log cabin with three bedrooms, one for my parents, one for me, and the last for my two younger siblings. One lonely bathroom was nestled in the center of the home, which was a nightmare trying to share, especially with my siblings entering their teenage years.

The porch thudded beneath my boots before letting out a creak as I crossed to the door and stepped into the blessedly cool house.

“There you are, Mar!” Mom said as I came around the corner into the kitchen, instantly enveloped by the smell of biscuits and gravy.

Her back faced me, a cutting board in front of her on the massive island, an array of vegetables scattered across the surface.

The knife hit the board with a thwack. I wished she would turn around so I could see her face—her eyes—so I could tell what kind of day today would be.

It all depended on him and his moods. I’d learned to look for the fear in my mother’s eyes that she couldn’t quite hide from me anymore to know whether the day would take a turn for the worse.

I tried to catch a glimpse of her in the mirror sitting on the mantle across the room, but she kept her head stubbornly away from me, her attention fixed on the vegetables so intently it looked like she was performing surgery on them.

“Can you take those out of the oven?” Mom asked, throwing a thumb over her shoulder. “The gravy and bacon are ready on the stove.”

“Sure.”

I studied her for a moment, looking for any sign about what was to come, before shoving my hands into a pair of red oven mitts with hearts on them, a gift I had given to Mom when I was a kid, and braced myself for the heat as I opened the oven door and pulled out the buttery golden pillows of bread.

My mouth watered at the sight, my stomach giving off its own rumble of approval. Mom’s biscuits and gravy were the best in the state. She’d even won an award at the state fair a few years back. Her cooking was the one bright light in this dark world.

Even if the rest of my life was soaked in fear, at least one piece of it was comforting and good.

“I need to run into town later,” Mom said, breaking me from my thoughts once breakfast was safely nestled in a basket.

“Can you stay and keep an eye on things?” she asked, moving to the stove to stir the vat of gravy.

She still refused to look at me. A creeping dread skittered up my spine like bugs.

Look at me. I slumped against the counter, waiting for her to turn around, hoping the suspicion I felt was wrong.

When she finally met my gaze, I bit the inside of my cheek to hold back the angry scream that so desperately wanted to be let out.

The right side of my mom’s face was black and blue, her eye slightly swollen. Her lips attempted to curl into a reassuring smile, the same one she always gave me, but it looked more like a grimace with the giant bruise on her face.

She must have seen my fury building because she took a step toward me, glancing at the back of the house.

“I’m okay,” she whispered, putting her hands on my arms.

“You don’t look like it,” I snapped quietly, pulling out of her grasp.

“It happened last night while you were…out. It was me or Joey. It wasn’t even a question.”

She didn’t have to explain what happened. I already knew. It wasn’t the first time.

Guilt slammed into me. I never left home, wanting to be here to counteract his moods, to take the brunt of his anger, but yesterday I finally relented to my mom’s pleading.

Normally I would have said no. Every other time I said no.

But not yesterday.

And look at what had happened. My mom’s face appeared like she went one too many rounds in a boxing ring.

She easily read my expression. “It’s not your fault, Maren. Don’t you dare think as much.”

I suppressed an eye roll, not wanting to make her feel even worse, even though I wished that I could scream at her to wake up, to get out of here, to finally take care of her kids. She was right. It wasn’t my fault. It was hers.

“I could’ve stopped this,” I whispered, gently touching my mom’s bruised cheek.

She took my hand and kissed it. “No, my darling, you couldn’t have.”

A shaky sigh spilled out as I fought back tears. If I had been here, it would have been my face that looked like that.

I hated this life. I hated constantly living in fear. Constantly looking over my shoulder.

But most of all, I hated him.

My mom stepped away and went back to chopping vegetables like nothing even happened. Her movements were slow, like she was taking great care to not cut her fingers with her sight hindered by the swollen eye.

I glanced toward the back of the house, wondering when he’d be making an appearance.

Not for the first time, I envisioned standing up to him, telling him I was taking Mom and my siblings and we were never coming back.

I envisioned him trying to hurt me, but finally landing a blow of my own, and the satisfying feeling of hurting him the way he’d hurt me hundreds of times.

Tears burned my eyes at the vision in my head, wishing I was brave enough to do just that. But my bravery only went as far as not leaving the farm, not leaving them unprotected, and taking my father’s abuse so they didn’t have to.