Chapter 1
Chapter
One
STORMI
The first thing I felt wasn’t pain, it was quiet. The kind of silence that presses against your eardrums, heavy, like the world was muted. I should’ve been screaming, begging, fighting, instead I was floating.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in Jo’s kitchen anymore. No flashing lights, no blood. Just space. Endless space and soft like the air itself were holding me up. And then I saw her… a little girl in pink barrettes, skinny legs and eyes too big for her face. My eyes, my legs, my everything.
She tilted her head at me squinting. “You look tired.”
I laughed, a weak, shaky sound. “That’s what happens when you grow up.”
“You’re me,” she whispered, like she already knew. “But… Old.”
“Older,” I corrected, sinking down so we were eye to eye.
My heart thumped painfully, not from the bullets, but from looking at the pieces of me.
I thought I buried. The scared girl who wanted somebody to love her.
The girl who prayed every night that her mama would get clean, that her brother wouldn’t grow up too fast, that maybe just maybe she’d make it out.
“I came to tell you something,” she said her voice catching.
My brows scrunched. “What’s that?”
She reached for my hand, the same way I used to clutch at my blanket when the shouting in the house got too loud.
We walked together toward the part of my past I’d tried for years to bury.
The night I thought I wouldn’t make it out alive, I was thirteen.
Just a kid trying to keep a baby alive while my mother slept her life away.
The clock on the stove glowed 1:15 a.m. I had the burner turned high, a pot of water boiling with Noah’s bottle floating inside.
Our microwave had been broken for months, and I’d read somewhere that heating bottles that way weren’t safe anyway. So, I did what I could with what I had.
Jo had “called it a night” hours ago. Said she wasn’t feeling well. Translation: she’d shot up and passed out.
Noah was only two months old, still waking up every couple of hours, crying for milk, needing to be changed.
Those two months had aged me years. I learned more about motherhood at that time than any teenage girl should.
After that, I swore off the idea of ever letting a man get close enough to ruin my peace.
Every night was a loop: feed him, rock him, change him, and somehow squeeze in homework before the sun came up.
I’d be lucky to get three hours of sleep before school.
That night, I remember walking out of the kitchen, cradling Noah against my chest. His little cries softened as I changed his diaper on the edge of the bed.
When he finally went quiet, I laid back just for a second, I told myself.
But exhaustion took me fast. We both drifted off, side by side.
A few hours later, the sound that ripped through the room wasn’t Noah’s crying. It was the smoke alarm. My heart stopped before my body moved. The smell hit next to burning plastic, and there was heavy smoke. I’d left the bottle on the stove.
“Shit.”
I snatched Noah up so fast he started screaming again. The air was thick, heat crawling across the ceiling. I ran for Jo’s room.
“Jo! Jo, wake up! We gotta go!”
She was laid out with a cold needle still hanging from her arm, and an empty bottle on the pillow beside her. For a second, I froze. I’d seen this scene too many times. But never with flames coming down the hallway.
“Jo!” I yelled again, shaking her, trying to ignore the tears burning my eyes. “Please, get up!”
Nothing. Just Noah crying and the crackle of fire in the next room.
I yanked the needle out, tossed it on the dresser and splashed water from the bathroom over her face.
She coughed and stirred a little. I prayed harder than I ever had in my life.
When she finally blinked awake, her first words cut deep.
“Stormi, what the fuck did you do now?”
Her voice was hoarse but full of venom.
“The bottle. I fell asleep. I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“You had one job, Stormi. One! And you can’t even do that right?”
“I’m tired, Jo! Noah wakes up every two hours. I’ve got school, homework, everything!”
“Oh, so now it’s Noah’s fault?” she snapped. “Nobody told you to take all them honors classes, trying to show out like you better than me.”
Her words hit like bricks, but I didn’t have time to argue. The fire was spreading.
“Whatever, Jo. Let’s just go!”
And like some kind of miracle, the door burst open. Firefighters. The room filled with light and shouting. Jo’s anger shifted in an instant. She smirked, brushing her hair back.
“Now that’s the kinda rescuing I need,” she said, eyes locked on one of the men in uniform.
Even as the fire burned down our kitchen, her mind wasn’t on us, it was on them. That night, I made myself a promise. I’d never be her. Never let my worth be measured by a man’s hands or attention.
I’d protect myself, protect what was mine because in my world, no one was coming to save me. I had to be the protector. The provider. The fighter.
“I’m okay, Stormi. You can let me go. I survived so you can live.” The younger version of me said, grabbing my attention from the flashback.
It was as if she felt everything, I was feeling from reliving that moment just now. I tried to fight back the tears, but they started to flow anyways. I could tell in her face it wasn’t her intention to make me cry.
“Tell me… How life’s going?” she quickly asked, wiping away the tear that fell.
“We’re married now. To a man who loves us. Really loves us. Not just says it but shows it. Every single day.”
Her little eyes widened, shiny with disbelief.
“And guess what?” My hand fell to my stomach, and for the first time since I found out, the fear melted into pride. “We’re about to be a mom”
Her gasp was so pure it made my chest ache. “A mommy?”
“Yeah, the kind we wished for soft patient there. The kind who doesn’t run away. Our baby gonna know love like its air.”
She blinked, like she was trying to picture it, and for a second, I saw hope bloom in her face. Hope I never let myself feel back then.
“And Jo?” she asked, her voice small. “Did she… did she get better?”
The question cracked me open. I pulled her close, brushing my lips against her forehead.
“She’s working on it; she’s actually trying this time.
We’re going to therapy together, learning how to love each other without the poison between us.
Our relationship isn’t perfect, but we’re both showing up and she’s clean. ”
Tears strung my eyes, hot and fast.
“Noah?” she questioned quickly, before the pain could swallow me whole.
“He’s not little anymore. He’s finding himself, trying to create his own path that I’m not sure I understand, but he’ll be great. Just has to figure himself out.”
“He’ll be okay.” Her smile was slow, but when it came, it lit her whole face up. My face.
“You kept us safe,” I whispered.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said, voice trembling as the silence around us started to buzz, as if the world outside this dream was trying to pull me back.
“I survived long enough for you to get here. And now…. Now you got us. Go be happy. Your family waiting on you.”
Her fingers slipped from mine, her small body fading into light, and I wanted to scream, to beg her to stay. But instead, I heard my own voice echo back at me.
“Keep fighting Stormi. Don’t stop now.”
Then the silence shattered as Seth shouted my name, his voice broken and desperate, and I fought to hold on.