CHAPTER THIRTEEN
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
Claire set off down the sidewalk, leaving the foster home behind as fast as she could. She was practically running, heading for the playground a few blocks away. There wasn’t anywhere else within walking distance.
The morning air felt surprisingly hot on her face, considering it was still early, and sweat broke out beneath her T-shirt. She slowed her steps. She had only one clean set of clothes. Probably wasn’t smart to get this one all gross.
She shoved her phone deep in the back pocket of the shorts the foster mom—Janice—had bought her. The T-shirt and canvas sneakers were new too. There’d been no time to wash them last night, and the fabric felt stiff and scratchy. Everything about this house was uncomfortable.
She needed a minute. Just a damned minute. Since Monday night, she’d felt as if she’d been stuck in a nightmare. No, a horror movie. The other kids at the home never stopped yelling, even when they were happy. They’d screamed and screeched off and on all night. Janice apologized and offered Claire earplugs. She said the kids had some issues .
Don’t we all?
If the kids’ lives were perfect, they wouldn’t be here, would they?
Yeah, the rest of the fosters were little. The oldest was seven. But they all had one thing in common: they had nowhere else to go.
Do you want to go out to breakfast? Janice’s husband had asked her.
With those other kids? The screamers?
Hell no.
She needed to sort through the past day and a half. No. She didn’t want to think about that at all. She wanted to think about dumb work, getting ready for a new school year, worrying about AP Spanish and college applications. She was supposed to be a senior this year. But everything had changed.
She breathed.
Her life had been ripped out from under her. A bright speck of anger warmed inside her. Tears burned the corners of her eyes. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t done anything to deserve what had happened to her.
Claire rounded a bend in the road and crossed the street. She looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see the house, but she wasn’t that far away. A couple of blocks maybe, not that she’d been counting, but Janice had made her promise not to leave the neighborhood. Where would she go? She didn’t have a car, and the house was like, seven miles from town. She could walk, she guessed. But walking to Grey’s Hollow wouldn’t solve anything.
The playground appeared ahead. It was a small one, with swings and a climbing structure for little kids. She stepped over the curb, sat on a swing, and turned it around and around. The chain twisted tighter and tighter, raising the seat higher, until she pulled her feet off the ground and let it spin back.
When it finally jerked back into position, Claire planted her feet on the ground. The dizziness matched her emotions, swirling out of control, leaving her with a vague sense of nausea.
She stared down at the cheap sneakers, bought in a late-night, desperate shopping trip to Walmart. Claire hadn’t been thinking straight, but Janice had known what to buy. She had a list in her phone: two outfits, sneakers, pajamas, toothbrush, one pack each underwear and socks. How many times had Janice made this late-night run? How many kids had she supplied and housed at the last minute?
How many of those kids ever got to go home again?
Claire could never go home. She wasn’t even sure she could step into that house to get her stuff. Not after what she’d seen there, what had been done there. She closed her eyes, as if that would block out the mental images. Nope. Still there.
If she had a vehicle, she would have driven away last night, gone as far away as possible.
Put a thousand miles between her, the house, and the terrible memories.
Instead, she’d spent the night in a strange bed with its own horror movie soundtrack playing in the next room that no earplugs could fully block, not even with the pillow smushed over her head.
She took a deep breath and dug her toe into the dirt under the swing. She needed to work through some next steps. But much of her future was out of her control—at least for the moment. Janice told her not to think ahead, at least not for the next couple of days. There were too many variables at play to make any sort of plan.
Claire would be eighteen in nine months. She’d be a legal adult who could make her own decisions. But this morning, there wasn’t a single aspect of her life that didn’t seem bleak. There were no good options to pick from, even if the decisions were hers to make.
The weight of the situation crushed her chest until she could barely breathe. Sweat moistened her palms, and she rubbed them on the shorts.
The sound of an engine startled her, her senses fine-tuned from stress. The sun felt hotter. She didn’t have her phone. How long had she been here? She’d lost track of time. A car door slammed. Her foot stopped digging. Her head snapped up, like a deer smelling a predator on the wind. A man stood beside a dark SUV. His focus on her was so intense it nearly burned.
Claire stood and backed away from the swing, her heart thumping. He started toward her. Her sneaker caught in a patch of weeds, and she almost went down. But she regained her balance with a hand on the ground. Straightening, she looked up.
He was headed straight for her. A ball cap shadowed his eyes, but she could feel his gaze riveted on her. She should run. A voice inside her head screamed Go!