Veiled (The Shattered Veil #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Annalise

“He’s dead. I killed him.”

If Matt hears me, he doesn’t show it as rain batters the windshield like a thousand tiny bullets.

The tires lose their grip for a terrifying second, his jaw locking tight as he fights the wheel.

“Hold on!”

His hands are welded to the steering wheel, his split knuckles are bone white, and his swollen eyes are fixed on the slick road ahead. His pickup bucks beneath us as he pushes it faster and faster down the two-lane highway, the headlights carving tunnels through the dark.

Behind us, sirens scream. The sound is getting closer. Sharper.

“They’ll know it was me,” my voice sounds too scratchy, too shaky. “You have to go back, turn me in.”

“No! We are never going back,” he says, not daring to spare me a glance.

No hesitation. No fear.

My pulse hammers in my ears, beating in time with the sirens chasing us. My mouth is drowning in the taste of copper that I am trying hard not to think about. There’s blood on my shirt, too much of it, and it’s not mine—well, not entirely mine.

My ribs ache with every breath I take, probably broken. My vision blurs with every blink.

I want to ask him where we’re going, but I already know what he’ll say: Away. As far away as we can get.

Red and blue lights flare in my sideview mirror…closer now.

“Mattey, they’re—”

“I see them.”

He floors the gas pedal, and then everything happens so fast.

Water splashes high at both of our windows.

The engine revs.

A loud whooshing sound cuts over the sound of the rain.

Then, suddenly, the car is spinning, and no amount of Matt turning the wheel is correcting it.

The world flips.

We’re falling.

And then, everything goes black.

My eyes blink open, slow and heavy.

There is blood and broken glass all around me. I can’t hear anything, and every inch of my body aches. What the hell?

The truck shakes, and panic consumes me as where I am finally hits me: trapped in Matt’s pickup, with the lower half of my body already submerged underwater. All at once, everything that’s happened comes rushing back to me, and every sound around me rings clear and impossibly bright.

“Lee! Lee! Look at me!” Matt’s desperate voice pulls my eyes toward him. “Good, keep your eyes open. Can you unbuckle for me? I’m going to get us out of here. Just take a deep breath and stay calm. We’re going to be okay.”

“Yeah,” my voice breaks as I nod and reach for the buckle.

He’s already moving, pulling the headrest off the seat as blood streams down his face from a gash hidden beneath his dirty-blonde hair.

“Look away and hold your breath!”

He slams the metal base into the window again and again. We hear a crack, and then the driver's window is bursting outward, and the freezing river rushes in, swallowing us whole.

Matt grabs my hand in an iron-tight grip, dragging me through the narrow opening and up towards safety as the pickup continues to be swallowed by the ravenous river.

Cold air hits me like glass when we break the surface.

Matt’s hand drops from mine, but before I can even attempt to tread water, his arm is wrapping around my waist. “I know you’re hurting, but I need you to help me kick as much as you can.”

I try to agree, but words can’t get past my chattering teeth.

Together we fight the current trying to pull us downstream.

Just twenty more feet.

Every movement feels like I’m being torn apart, but we can’t stop.

Ten more feet.

My broken ribs and the freezing water work in tandem against me as I fight to get a full breath in.

Five more feet.

I start to dip under.

“I can reach! I’m going to carry you. Hold on, okay?” he lifts me like a baby in front of him as he trudges through the water and up onto the muddy riverbank.

A single cop car is parked on the bridge we went off, but there’s no missing the swarm of sirens cutting down the frontage road leading right to us as they get closer.

Matt lowers me to the ground, and I’m instantly immobile, half-drowned and half-dead.

My body is going into shock, and I can’t force my eyes to stay open any longer.

As they close, it’s not the river I see. Or Matt. Or even the police closing in.

I see him.

My father.

Flashback.

“You dumb bitch! Where is it? Where did you hide it?” His hands clamp around my throat, pressing me into the kitchen wall. The whiskey is so thick on his breath, it burns the air between us. Black spots litter my vision, and warm blood slides down my forehead into my eyes, stinging, blinding.

I knew, the moment I got home from teaching kick boxing at the gym, I knew it was going to be one of those nights. His bloodshot eyes tracked me from the second I set foot in the door.

I tried to move fast, get to my room without doing anything to draw his wrath, as if he ever needed a reason, but he was up—chair scraping, boots pounding, yanking my arm backward before I could even make it to the kitchen.

Pop.

I bite my lip until it bleeds to keep the scream from escaping my lips as white-hot pain tears through my shoulder. I feel my arm dislocate from the socket. But the more I scream, the more pleasure he gets, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

“Where were you?” Spit flies from his mouth, spraying across my face. “Out whoring yourself to every guy who bats an eye at you? You’re exactly like your mom!”

I should keep my mouth shut, take the abuse until he gets bored and moves on, but I’ve never been very good at that.

“I was at work, where I always am! Someone has to pay the mortgage!”

Slap!

My head whips to the side so hard my teeth rattle.

He’s taken almost every penny I’ve made doing personal training and teaching fitness classes over the years to pay the bills, but even so, he hates to admit it.

He makes more than enough as the Sheriff of South Hollow, but it all disappears into bottles and backroom bets.

“Don’t you dare disrespect me in my house, you ungrateful bitch!”

Before I can correct myself from the slap, his left fist knots in my hair, yanking my head back while he uses me like his personal punching bag with his right: face, ribs, stomach.

I can barely get a breath in between his hits, but I don’t miss the splatters of blood coming out of my mouth as my body reacts to each hit.

Just then, the door crashes open.

“Lee!”

Matt’s here, pulling my dad off of me and shoving him backward.

He shouldn’t have come.

Despite his linebacker build and standing over six feet tall, he’s no match for Dad tonight. Not when he’s wound up like this, and the alcohol keeps him from feeling any of the hits he does take.

My vision is too blurry to see much of their fight, but I can hear their grunts every time a fist connects with flesh. I’d wipe my eyes to try to clear them, but I barely have the strength to stand; there’s no way I can lift my arms that high.

My steps are practically nonexistent as I try to back up to the kitchen counter, needing something to lean against before I crumble to the floor.

My dad’s drunken grunts every time Matt makes contact almost match the number of hits Matt seems to take, but I know better than anyone precisely how hard my dad can give it.

Far too quickly, Matt’s fuzzy silhouette is curled on the floor, groaning, and my dad is coming for me again.

I don’t know how I’ve survived the last twenty years, but as the look of pure rage becomes clearer on his face the closer he gets, I know my time has run out.

I brace for impact, but then I see it, the kitchen knife block is only a foot away. I stumble as I reach for it, but as my fingers graze the first hilt, I'm being yanked backwards, chunks of my hair ripped from my scalp.

There's no time to think as instinct takes over.

I spin, driving the knife into my dad's chest with a strength that should be impossible.

His eyes go wide, his mouth opens, but no sound comes out as his weight barrels into me. Blood soaks through his shirt, and then mine, as he clings onto me like I’m his salvation.

Unsteady from the beating, and teetering under his grip, I steel myself to go down with him, but suddenly his hand releases me. Holding his chest and gasping, he collapses to the ground, small rivulets of blood coming out of his mouth and running down his cheek.

Matt appears at my side, hurt and hobbling, but still he drags me away as my dad bleeds out on the ground behind us, wrapping his jacket around me as we step out into the night.

“Come on,” his voice shakes. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

But even in his arms, the only safe place I’ve ever known, neither of us truly believes that.

Back on the riverbank, Matt pulls me against his heaving chest.

“We have to move. You know they’ll want revenge.”

I shake my head, staring at the dark water where I know his pickup should be. “He might still be alive.”

Matt doesn’t answer; he doesn’t have to.

If my father survived, he’ll hunt me until the day he dies.

If he didn’t, every cop in South Hollow will hunt me instead.

The lights from no less than five patrol cars crest the hill, painting us in flashing red and blue.

“Lee, it’s over,” he says, taking my hand in his. “Tell them it was me. You can live your life. You deserve to live it. Promise me.” His voice turns pleading when I don’t answer, “Promise me, Lee!”

But I can’t. I won’t let him sacrifice himself for something I did—something I should have done years ago.

So, instead of lying to the only real friend I’ve ever had, I wrap my good arm around him and try to memorize the way his heart beats and the unrelenting strength his hugs have fed into me after so many of my dad's brutal attacks. I remember all the times he’s been my protector, all the times he’s been my cheerleader, and I pray to any of the gods who will listen that I’ll be able to see him again.

“Get down, hands on your heads!”

The men I grew up around, the men who have ignored the bruises, heard the way my dad talked to me when he drank, who saw everything and chose to look the other way rather than stand up to their boss, surround us with their guns pointed and retribution in their eyes.

And maybe I hit my head too hard, but for the first time in my life, the fear inside me doesn’t belong to my dad, and somehow, that feels a bit like freedom.