Prologue #2
Something about his voice had always grated against my skin and set my nerves on edge. My grandma always said we had intuition for a reason, and we were fools if we didn’t listen to it. So, I stayed exactly where I was.
As they continued pressing the bell, I could just make out the two boys. A grade ahead of me, they looked just like the rest of the kids in our high school: T-shirts and jeans, hair a little bit askew. But there was cruelty in them. There always had been.
I wasn’t the only person they picked on, but it was always those physically weaker than they were. Maybe because they’d been given such a hard time in middle school. Maybe that meanness was just in them. Whatever the reason, I gave them a wide berth whenever I could.
“Maybe she isn’t home,” Paul said, looking through the side window.
Randy shook his head. “Car’s here.”
“So she’s out with Holt.”
Randy pointed at the lights illuminating the dining room and kitchen. “She’s home. Bet lover boy will be here any minute.”
An ugly smile twisted Paul’s lips. “What’s wrong, Wren?” he called. “Don’t want to see us?”
“Oh, she’ll see us,” Randy shot back. His hand slipped under his T-shirt, fingers closing around something I couldn’t quite make out as he pulled it from his waistband.
My mind put together the individual pieces before the whole picture. Black handle gripped tightly in Randy’s fingers, silver barrel glinting in the low light. A gun.
A buzzing started in my ears. It wasn’t that I’d never seen a gun before.
Our town was far off the beaten path in Eastern Washington, nestled between mountains that meant reaching Cedar Ridge by car in winter was sometimes impossible.
We had bears, cougars, and coyotes. Shotguns and rifles were typical, especially for folks farther out.
But I didn’t think I’d ever seen a handgun before, and certainly not in the grasp of a classmate on my doorstep.
Paul laughed and pulled a gun from his waistband, as well. “Did you try the door? It’s probably unlocked.”
It was true that most residents around town didn’t concern themselves with that sort of thing. But I could always hear Holt’s voice in my head. “Want to hear that lock click.”
He hated that my parents left me alone so much.
Had drilled it into my head time and again to check all the doors and windows before going to bed.
Over time, it had become a habit. A compulsion.
I locked every door after I entered. Drove Grae crazy that she couldn’t waltz right in—until I’d eventually given her a key.
My heart hammered against my ribs as my fingers skittered across my phone’s screen. It took four tries to hit those three little numbers. Nine. One. One.
“Cedar Ridge police, fire, and medical. What’s your emergency?”
“T-there are two guys trying to get into my house. They have guns,” I whispered.
“Damn. It’s locked.” I heard Randy mutter.
Paul sighed and bent over, searching the stoop. “There has to be a key hidden somewhere.”
“Who am I speaking to, and where are you located?”
“Wren Williams.” I rattled off my address.
“Wren, it’s Abel. I’m gonna get you some help. You just stick with me. Are you somewhere safe?”
I gripped the curtains as I watched Paul and Randy making their way around the house. Each step brought them closer to that damn ceramic frog my mom kept on the back deck, the one with the key underneath just for emergencies.
“They’re looking for the key.” My voice trembled as they disappeared from sight. Maybe I should make a run for it. But my closest neighbor was half a mile away. It would only take one lucky shot to make me regret taking that chance.
“Is there one outside?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
“I want you to hide, Wren. The place they’d be least likely to look.”
My mind spun. How many times had Grae and I played hide-and-seek in this house as kids? Too many to count. I knew every nook and cranny. Yet I couldn’t get my brain to cooperate.
“Wren?” Abel pressed.
“I-I don’t know where to go.”
“How about an attic or crawl space? A closet? Or under a bed?”
A series of images flashed through my mind. Options. Not the attic. The door was too obvious. The entrance to the crawl space was downstairs. I couldn’t risk it. The thought of shoving myself under a bed had my chest constricting.
It had to be a closet. I started moving. Mine would be one of the first places they’d look. I wanted to go to my parents’ and surround myself with their familiar scents, but I forced myself to go the other way to the second guest room.
Panic licked through my veins as I scanned the space. None of the closets provided much protection or disguise. They would be too easy to search.
I darted back into the hall and went to the guest bathroom. I pulled open the cabinet under the sink. Setting the phone down, I hurried to empty it of its smattering of contents. I quickly shoved them into one of the drawers.
Grabbing my phone, I crawled under the sink. I’d always been of average height and glad of it, thankful that I blended into the background. But right then, I would’ve given anything to be petite like Grae.
I pulled the doors closed, but they didn’t quite make it. I shoved myself harder against the back wall.
Abel’s voice cut across the line. “Wren, where are you?”
“The bathroom. The guest bathroom. In the hall. Under the sink. How long till the police get here?”
Part of me hoped it would be Holt’s oldest brother, Lawson, who responded to the call. The other half wanted him nowhere near this.
The dispatcher was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment.
My heart dropped. “Abel?”
“There have been three shootings tonight. All available officers are out on calls. I’ve got two coming to you, but they’re up the mountain. It’s gonna be a minute.”
Three shootings. It wasn’t possible. Not in a town as small as ours. The worst thing to happen here was a bad car accident that had killed two people. Shootings happened in big cities. Not here.
The buzzing in my ears intensified and infiltrated my entire body. It had to be them. Randy and Paul. A million things ran through my head. Questions of why and who had been targeted. Had anyone been killed?
A knock sounded on the back door, and I jumped, hitting my head.
“Wreeeeeeen, I can see the food on the counter. We know you’re home,” Randy called.
“Could you see them, Wren? Did you recognize them?”
“Yes. R-Randy Sullivan and Paul Matthews. They go to my school.”
“And you saw their weapons?”
“Yes. Handguns.” I was going numb now as if this were all happening to someone else, and I was watching from above.
“Do you have a weapon?”
“No.” My voice cracked.
Holt’s dad, Nathan, had been adamant about teaching us all gun safety, but to this day, that had been the only time I’d ever held a weapon—unless you counted a kitchen knife.
“Officers are fifteen minutes out. They’ll be there soon.”
“Found it!” Paul called.
I heard the key in the lock, the cylinder turning and bolt sliding. Or maybe it was my imagination that made it sound as if a bomb had just gone off at my back door.
“They’re in the house.” My words were barely audible as footsteps pounded up the stairs. “Don’t talk.”
Abel didn’t say a word, but a click sounded across the line. A barely discernable agreement.
Chaos erupted down the hall—from my room. Crashing furniture, and the closet door banging.
“Where the hell is that tight-assed bitch?” Randy growled. “Lover boy isn’t here to protect you now, is he?”
Oh, God. Holt. My mind warred with itself. Part of me wanted him here to rescue me from this nightmare. But another part wanted him as far away from this house as possible.
Randy’s twisted face flashed in my mind. The anger that had etched itself there after he’d asked me out in the seventh grade, and I’d declined.
My breaths came in quick pants as Randy and Paul moved from room to room. The air stilled in my lungs as footsteps sounded in the bathroom. Someone tore back the shower curtain.
A shot sounded, and then I heard shattered glass.
“Save your bullets for things that matter,” Paul said.
“She’s here somewhere,” Randy gritted out.
“And we’ll find her.”
Faint footsteps sounded downstairs, and relief and fear warred inside me. Holt or the police? Holt would’ve rung the bell. It was the police. It had to be.
The cabinet doors flew open, and Paul hooted with glee. “Look what I found, Ran. If it’s not a Goody Two-shoes hiding under the sink.”
A sneer twisted Randy’s face as Paul hauled me out. “Get on your knees.”
Paul shoved me to the floor. I hit the tile with a force that jarred my spine, and my phone tumbled to the bathmat.
Randy snatched it up, glaring at the screen. His finger punched the end icon. “Stupid bitch was on with 9-1-1. You tell the cops who was here?”
“N-no.”
“Fuckin’ liar.” Randy slapped me so hard my head snapped back, and I tasted blood.
Footsteps sounded in the entryway. I prayed for the officers to hurry.
Paul stomped on my phone, the screen making a crunching sound. The only thing I could see was the now-fractured image of me and Holt, shattered into a million tiny pieces. “We gotta get out of here. The cops will be on the way.”
Randy’s eyes flashed. “No. I’m having my fun with her first.”
A siren sounded in the distance. More help.
Hurry.
I chanted the word over and over in my mind as if the two syllables could save me.
“We gotta go now,” Paul snapped.
“Then help me get her ass in the car. I’m taking my time with this one.”
My stomach roiled as the metallic taste in my mouth intensified.
Paul raised his gun. I couldn’t look away from the muzzle pointed straight at me.
Memories flashed within the darkness of the barrel.
Laughing as I sailed through the air after Holt threw me into the lake.
The buzz beneath my skin the first time his lips touched mine.
Holt holding me tightly as I let the tears flow when my parents had forgotten my birthday.
Again. Planning that big, beautiful future that would be ours.
All my best moments had been with Holt. But I hadn’t had nearly enough.
I opened my mouth to scream. To beg. I wasn’t even sure which.
But I didn’t get the chance.
I heard a pop, like the sound of a single firecracker slicing through the air.
Heat bloomed in my chest. Then fire. And I was sliding down.
The tile was so cold, frigid compared to the inferno blazing in my torso. I wanted to sink into that coldness to escape the heat. But most of all, I wanted Holt.
“What the fuck?” Randy bellowed.
“She’s not worth getting arrested over, man. We gotta run!”
The ceiling above me melted into a cascade of colors, the pastels swirling together until it almost looked like my favorite time of day. Twilight. How many times had I made Holt sit with me past the sunset so that I could watch nighttime take hold? So the sky could soothe my soul.
I almost felt Holt’s lips pressed to my temple. “I’ll watch every twilight with you. Every moonrise, too.”
Footsteps pounded on the stairs. “Where the hell is Holt? We need them both.”
I tried to get my brain to place that voice. But I couldn’t quite… “Don’t worry, Cricket. I’ll scare the ghosts away.”
The twilight ceiling darkened, and the only thing I could think then was that I was glad Holt was late.
But I would’ve given anything to feel his arms around me one more time.