Chapter 1
Chapter One
T wo weeks later
KAYLA
A siren blares from behind me. I curse loudly, the creativity of the words shocking even me, as I pull over to the side of the road.
The sirens of the cop cruiser behind me are disturbingly loud.
I don’t think the dude plans to turn them off despite the fact I’m already at the curb.
Humiliating me is his favorite hobby. Though, for the love of everything, I don’t understand the need for theatrics now: his only audience is the squirrel crouched next to a bush on the tree line.
Teeth gritted hard enough to crack the enamel, I sit and wait to see what Officer Attleborough wants with me this fine morning.
The knock on the window startles me. No matter how many times we’ve done this, it always does.
I should have rolled it down by now, but it’s our little game we like to play—making each other as miserable as we can through even the smallest inconveniences.
The rain’s starting, and I want him to stand under the impending downpour.
I cross my fingers, hoping fate will be on my side today.
“License and registration, please,” Jake intones—how creative of him; you’d think he’d find some new words after dozens of times stopping me—fixing the bridge of his Ray-Bans I absolutely loathe with his middle finger. What a douche. I look through my window at the sky full of rain clouds.
“They’re the same as they were two weeks ago, Jake.
When you stopped me for driving one mile above the speed limit.
Remember?” I snort, pretending to scout for dirt under my nails rather than look at him.
Why would I? I’ve seen his face stopping my ass so many times I can recount the exact size and placement of each of the thirteen freckles on his nose.
Most notably, the ones closest to his right eye.
Six small freckles lined up in an almost perfect hexagram.
Sometimes when I’m bored, I trace a star between them with my eyes.
He’s a star, all right, in his own mind.
A perfect nitwit. All three of the Attleborough siblings have those tiny honey-colored dots all over their noses, and I used to think of it as cute. Now it annoys the crap out of me.
“That’s Officer Attleborough to you,” he says with a sneer and splays a palm toward me, waiting for my documentation. Wow, he’s extra sassy today.
I pass him my registration and license, carefully eyeing his face and trying to assess his mood further. He’s an asshole, no doubt about that, but he’s also an asshole who can make my life ten times more complicated than it already is .
In doing so, I notice Officer Jake changed his hairstyle—he used to have a short military cut, and now he is growing surfer-dude blond locks. I’m not sure if I like this change or if I think it makes him look like even more of an asshole.
After taking my papers, he slowly walks, penguin-like, back to his car and gets inside.
Great, now he’ll take all the time in the world to check them.
We both know he won’t be checking crap, though, because he has to know all my info by heart by now—I bet if I woke him up in the middle of the night, he could recite my license number without hesitation.
Still, he’ll make sure to hold me as long as he possibly can, so I suck it up and wait.
I’d love to browse Instagram to check which new tattoo designs my favorite artists have come up with lately, but my phone was destroyed in the fire, and I still haven’t gotten around to buying a new one.
Those things are expensive, and I don’t have a spare grand just sitting around, waiting to be gloriously wasted on a shiny—though very handy—rectangle.
So, I sit and wait. And wait. And… wait.
I take this ample time to muse upon why they hate me so much for the thousandth time.
All I know is Jake is Justin’s brother, and ever since Justin got back from jail about three years ago after the previous three he spent inside, he turned into a douche-asshole, and Jake followed his lead—though he was still a scrawny teenager at the time.
Unlucky for me, about a year ago, Jake joined the Little Hope PD.
And every day, there’s less and less hope left for me in this wonderful place I still call home.
Around every corner, in the shadow of every building, the brave Officer Attleborough protects the innocent citizens of Little Hope from the devious, treacherous me.
I’ve gotten so many tickets in the past year and a half (courtesy of him) that I eventually stopped paying them.
My registration expires soon, but I’m scared to go to the DMV to see how much I’ll need to pay in fines to renew it.
Besides that, something tells me my driver’s license is about to be suspended, and I’m so not looking forward to that either.
I bet the good officer can’t wait to pull me over for my expired registration or suspended license and give me the final kill-shot ticket that will dissolve my already empty wallet to dust.
Twenty minutes later, when I’ve long given up on my dentist appointment that was supposed to start ten minutes ago and accepted the possibility of having cavities in my future, he saunters back with my license, registration, and a freshly signed ticket.
“What’s that for, officer ?” I sneer.
“You’re a hazard on the road,” he accuses me, per usual.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else is new.” I snort in an unladylike fashion—there’s nobody to impress here, and it’s not as if he can hate me any less.
“No, your right light isn’t working.” He points behind me with a vindictive smile. “See? A hazard.”
“Jake, Alex is out of the city, and Justin’s the only mechanic in town. You know that.” I remind him with a heavy frustrated sigh.
“I know that.” His devious grin only grows more self-satisfied as he fixes his sunglasses higher up his nose. Then he walks back to his patrol car, its sirens having quieted about ten minutes ago. Jerk. What am I supposed to do?
The moment Jake gets inside his cruiser and closes the door behind him, the skies open and begin to pour sleet down onto the earth.
What the hell is wrong with the weather lately?
It’s almost May already. And couldn’t you have started maybe two minutes earlier?
I ask, angrily eyeing the heavy drops of sleet bouncing off the paved road.
It would’ ve made my week to see Officer Hard-ass get drenched and know his shiny shoes would be squelching under his feet all day.
Could good fortune be on my side at least once, please?
I tilt my head back and gently bang it against the headrest a few times.
Justin owns the only auto shop in town, so I’m screwed.
The closest neighboring town is thirty minutes away, which isn’t bad, but the weather sucks, and I don’t like driving my old boy on a slippery road.
My tires are as bare as a sphynx cat—there’s no tread left on them.
It’s a wonder I’ve passed inspection in the past. It pays to have connections.
I drew a tattoo for a mechanic at a Springfield auto shop, so he did me a favor and signed off on my bare tires.
A favor to me—yes, a favor to the society—don’t think so.
I might as well be skating on a mountain road without brakes. A very fun activity.
I’d love to say my Jeep Wrangler is as old as I am, but it’s older.
This boy has taken me through more snowstorms than I can count, but it’s running on its last legs, and I’m not sure how many years—or months—it has left.
If it craps out on me, I’d have to find another job.
And now, I have no choice but to find a way to fix my vehicle, considering I can’t afford to suddenly be without wheels.
I think about my options. I can try my luck and see if maybe somebody else is working at the garage today and pray Justin will be busy doing something else far, far away from Little Hope.
Like, Australia far. Alex is out of town, and he’s the only one who could help me besides Justin and his folks.
Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t go to Alex—at least, not yet. Not to him, not to Freya…
I take a deep, cleansing breath, preparing myself for the long journey to another town. Right then, my car magically stops. Just… stops .
I try to start it, frantically turning the key. It doesn’t work.
And just like that, my day becomes even shittier.
The battery is dead. It’s been on the verge of death for a few days already, I could tell when I tried to start it on cold mornings and it resisted, but each time I just reminded myself that I can jump-start it like a pro with my generator…
which is back at my trailer. Who’s going to help me here, on the side of a road with no houses or cars around? I don’t even have a phone on me.
The heavy, slippery slush keeps falling, and it’s getting colder by the minute.
Higher in the mountains, it’s always colder; my trailer is parked at the bottom of one mountainside, while Little Hope is nestled in the little groove on another, and my old boy decided to check out between the two of them, right at the coldest spot.
I can’t even be mad. He’s been giving me so many warning signs I chose to completely ignore.
I’m wearing my warmest jacket, but it’s still not warm enough.
My hands and nose first tingle from the cold, then begin to go numb.
I pop the hood of my Jeep and get out. I can’t fix it, but I know where the battery’s located, and maybe I can hit it and add some kinetic energy that will allow it to miraculously start.
I didn’t like physics in school, but I learned enough to have a little shred of hope that this would work.
Ten minutes later, I’m back in the car. Giving the battery a smack didn’t help—shocker—besides making me more aggravated with the situation.
Damn it, a phone is the next purchase, even a cheap one with no internet.
Anything will do as long as I can call somebody when in dire need of help. Which is now, obviously.
An hour later, I’m freezing, and not a single car has driven by. Yes, Little Hope is a pretty secluded town, but not that secluded. Where is everyone? I feel like a character in a post-apocalyptic flick expecting a lone zombie to wobble out from the woods anytime now.
My fingernails are turning blue. Great. That’s exactly what I need right now—to get frostbite and lose my fingers. I had big plans for these fingers of mine.
The rev of an engine startles me, and I jump in my seat.
I’m so eager that I dash out of the car without hazarding a look first. Right before I start jumping and frantically waving my hands in the air in hopes the driver will stop, I recognize the truck.
And the driver. Freakin’ awesome. He’d rather mow me down than help me out, and there’s no sense in humiliating myself even more. Deflated, I climb back inside my Jeep.
And, of course, he sails on by without even braking. Figures. I shiver yet again from the cold and blow puffs of barely warm breath onto my palms.
The car rev comes again a second later, and I get excited in hopes there’s another person out there to save this damsel in distress. No such luck. The truck is coming back. Just great, he wants to rub some salt into my raw wound.
Justin Attleborough’s brand-new, fancy-schmancy truck stops on my side of the road, facing me, and he slowly hauls his big body out.
I bet it has heated seats, I gripe internally, shivering in ghostly pleasure at the thought of warming my frozen ass on one of those seats.
He’s not dressed for the weather, unlike I am, and I’m still an icicle.
He’s wearing washed-out jeans and a brown flannel with the sleeves rolled up, a dark T-shirt peeking from the collar.
A black beanie is pulled over his short sandy hair.
One might say it’s blond, but it’s not. It’s the color of warm summer sand that you’re just dying to feel run between your fingers to see if it’s as soft as it looks.
He does a quick stretch and strides toward my driver’s side in his usual overconfident manner, as if he’s hung like a horse, and his balls of steel smack his knees with each powerful step. That could very well be the case, but regardless, it’s just too alpha for my liking.
Ri-i-ight.
I sit and look in front of me without acknowledging him, even as he’s knocking on the window.
“Open up,” he orders, and as if I were an idiot, I do just as I’m told. Only halfway down, though, some brainpower might still be left in my frozen skull. “Your junker finally gave up?” he prods with a sneer.
“My car is perfectly fine,” I argue, wiping at my nose self-consciously as I feel it dripping over the numbness. The tip smarts to the touch, tingling with cold.
“Sure, it is.” His smirk is sardonic. “So, what are you doin’ here?”
“Sightseeing,” I offer, looking to the side. It is beautiful, that much is true: great Maine mountains after a downpour ruling over dark evergreen woods and a dirty, slippery road, with a bird chirping happily somewhere.
Idiot. It’s fucking freezing out here.
“Cute,” he retorts, unsmiling. “How you gonna get out of here?’
“I’ll figure something out.” I dare a quick glance at him and regret it instantly. His bright blue eyes are trained on my face.
“Sure, you will.” He jerks his head. “Pop the hood.”
“Why?”
“Just fuckin’ open it.” This comes out as a growl—the tone of his I’m most familiar with .
He hates me, and I sort of hate him too ( I think? ), but for the past hour, there were no vehicles driving by, and the only other living soul I saw (more like heard) was that chirping bird high as a kite, so I swallow my pride and press the button to pop the hood.