One Impossible Moment (Everstill #1)

Chapter 1

Kallie

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Kallie pressed her forehead to the smudged window and watched the other kids chase each other across the patchy yard. Their laughter carried through the screen door as if they belonged to a different world than the one sitting heavily in her chest.

She couldn't find anything that made her happy when she didn't want to be here. The little kids played stupid baby games, and the older kids wouldn't let her hang out with them, even though she was ten years old.

"Get outside until dinner," Monica called from the kitchen. "And don't come back inside asking for snacks unless you want to stay in your room. You know the rules."

The rules always changed. Sometimes, she couldn't do anything right, and her foster mother would make her sit on her bed for what seemed like hours. She almost wished it were time for school again.

Kallie dragged her feet, slipped out the door, and let it bang shut behind her, the sound swallowed by the chaos of the foster home.

She wrapped her arms around herself and wandered toward the edge of the yard, where the grass thinned to dirt and the fence leaned as if it were tired of standing.

The sun was sinking lower over the treetops.

Once it got dark, Monica would call them inside, feed them dinner, and then she'd line up for a shower before her nine o'clock bedtime.

Because the younger kids bathed first, she and the older ones ended up taking a cold shower.

There was nothing she hated more than a cold shower.

She kicked a rock, then another. A kid's cry drew her attention, and she squinted, seeing who was upset.

Trevor wailed, fighting with Jasmine over the tricycle. Those two never got along. Monica complained that they were the terrible twos, whatever that meant.

The two older girls who lived in the home stopped talking as Kallie got closer. Since they didn't tell her to leave, she inched forward.

"Sh. Kallie's behind you," whispered Halsey.

Rachel turned around. "What do you want?"

Kallie ignored the rock, glanced at the house, and then said, "Do you know when my mom's coming back?"

They were teenagers. They knew everything that happened at the house.

"When she gets clean." Rachel tossed her hair over her shoulder. "If she can do it. Most can't. Maybe she won't come back."

"She'll come back," Kallie whispered.

"Your mom will have to earn the right to be around you first." Halsey cocked her head. "But don't get your hopes up. The judge isn't going to let a druggie near you if she can't stay clean."

She wanted to tell them to take it back. Her mom was coming for her, she had promised. But Rachel and Halsey would only argue with her, thinking they knew everything, even other people's business.

Kallie dug the toe of her sneaker into the ground, pretending to understand.

No one ever listened when she begged to leave.

She didn't want to be in foster care anymore, not with the rules, not with the constant ache in her stomach, not with the uncertainty of whether she'd ever see her mom again, and not with the way no one gave her honest answers to her questions.

"Go play with the littles. We have things to talk about that you wouldn't understand." Rachel shooed her away.

She stepped to the side, glancing over her shoulder as she walked to make sure they weren't going to tease her. They'd gone back to talking, ignoring her completely.

At the corner of the yard, she made sure they were no longer watching her, then slipped through the loose board in the fence. She had no idea where she was headed, but she just wanted to get out of there.

If it were true that her mom wouldn't come back, it meant that she had no one on the other side to get her out of the foster care system. It would be better if she ran away.

The narrow road with broken asphalt behind the house curved between fir trees and faded into the forest's shadows. She had never noticed it before. It wasn't like the road in front of the house with white lines and traffic.

Out of sight of the house, she slowed her pace and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Even though Monica would punish her if she were caught outside the yard, she kept walking.

There was nothing here for her. Her mom was locked up somewhere. Her social worker had no way to contact her mom. She couldn't send any letters or make any calls.

She had no one.

Her mom wasn't supposed to leave her. A mother wasn't supposed to pick drugs over her daughter.

If her mom really loved her, she wouldn't do drugs. If her mom really loved her, she would fight to keep Kallie in her life.

She sniffed. Even if she wasn't old enough to understand grown-up things, she knew that someday, if she ever had a daughter, she would never let her slip away.

A gust of wind stopped her. She shook the hair out of her face and looked behind her. She couldn't see anything but a wall of shadows.

A moment of panic hit her. How was she going to find her way back? What was happening?

A shiver crawled up her arms, raising goosebumps. The light dimmed for a heartbeat as if a cloud passed in front of the sun, even though the sky was clear.

Kallie froze.

Then it was gone. The wind ended as fast as it came.

She turned to go back, but the shadows grew bigger, pressing closer, pushing her forward. She swallowed her cry and ran away from the thickness, going toward the clearness.

The road curved and then opened into a town she'd never seen before. It was small and quiet, unlike the place where she lived. Buildings lined the street, and in the distance, she could see houses. A faded sign hung crookedly over the street, its letters too worn to read.

Men stood outside the storefronts. Big men. Even from a distance, they looked scary, with tattoos, beards, long hair, and torn jeans. They watched her with eyes that made her want to turn around.

One of the men stepped away from a motorcycle and crossed the street toward her. He moved as if he owned the ground beneath his boots. Maybe he was the...the...

She couldn't remember what people called the person who made the rules in cities. Not the president. She thought hard. The man had come to her school on Appreciation Day.

Oh, the mayor.

Maybe the man was the mayor.

"Where are you headed, kid?" His low voice kept her in the middle of the road.

He wasn't young, but he wasn't as old as Monica's dad, who came by the house every Saturday and glared at all the foster kids. His hair, scruffy beard, and mustache were dark brown. She lowered her gaze. Tattoos showed under the sleeve of his shirt, but she couldn't make out what the designs were.

Kallie swallowed. "I don't know."

He walked around her, eyeing her all over. She crossed her arms and inched backward.

"You running from something?" he said.

She nodded. He scared her enough that she couldn't lie.

"Where are your parents?" he asked.

"My mom's...getting better." Her throat tightened, not wanting to say that her mom was in jail. No one liked bad people, even though her mom wasn't bad. She was sick. "I have to stay with a foster family until she comes back."

"Does your foster family know you're here?"

She shook her head. "I don't like it there."

He didn't ask why. He didn't tell her to go home. He didn't say she couldn't be here.

He jerked his chin toward the building behind him. "There's food in the restaurant. Tell 'em Finn said you could have a plate. Once you're done eating, you need to get out of here."

"Finn?" she echoed.

"That's my name."

Looking at the other men, watching their conversation, she stepped closer. "Are you dangerous?"

A corner of his mouth twitched. "Yeah. I am, kid."

She'd learned about stranger dangers in school. There were a lot of weird people at the corner store where she used to live with her mom. They'd try to talk to her and sometimes say nasty things about her mom that she couldn't repeat.

The men in town watched her. She peeked at them. Were they getting closer? She stepped toward Finn. There was something about him that made her feel safer, as if he would protect her if those men got too close.

"What did you do to be a bad man?" she asked.

"That's not something I'm going to talk about with a kid."

She nodded like that made sense. Somehow, it did. Even teenagers didn't want to talk to her.

"Can I stay here?" she asked

He pointed down the street. "You have to be an adult to stay in one of the empty houses. If you need food, go ahead and eat, but after that, you need to leave. Stay away from the men around here. They're not the kind you want to talk to."

"Are you the kind of man I can talk to?"

"No." His eyes hardened. "I'm worse."

He meant to scare her, but she wasn't afraid anymore. She understood that she couldn't stay and that she had no one to watch over her and keep her safe.

"I think I should go back to my foster home before I get in trouble," she whispered. "Do you want to know my name?"

He cocked his head. She leaned forward so none of the other men could hear her.

"My name's Kallie Michelle Clark." She lifted her hand and shielded her mouth, whispering, "Kallie with a K."

She stepped away from him. No one moved in her direction.

"Bye, Finn. I'll come back and see you later." She ran back in the direction she came, knowing she was late and Monica probably called everyone in for dinner, and now she'd be grounded.

At the corner, she stopped. Winded from running, she looked behind her. Finn still stood in the middle of the road watching her. She raised her arm and waved over her head so he could see her.

He lifted his hand in the air. She smiled, biting down on her bottom lip. He wasn't dangerous to her.

Hurrying, she spotted the fir trees on each side of the road. Remembering the wind and the black clouds, she ran faster. In no time, she reached the corner of the fence and scurried through.

Rachel and Halsey still spoke with their backs to her. She straightened, trying to catch her breath. The little kids played on the driveway. Trevor cried over the tricycle, pushing Jasmine.

Breathing hard, she walked through the yard and sat on the porch step. It was like she hadn't left.