Burning For You (Sunset Ridge #5)

Prologue

“Sean, you’re not going out tonight,” Derek Murphy shouted.

“You can’t tell me no,” Sean shot back. “I’m eighteen.”

“You’re still living under my roof. You’ve got school tomorrow. Until you get a damn job and start paying your way, I make the rules.”

Skye kept her head down over her algebra book, her pencil moving while she pretended this wasn’t just another war breaking out in her house.

It was always something.

Her parents fighting when her mother stumbled in late from the bar, too loud, too drunk, smelling like cigarettes and cheap liquor. Or her father barking orders, trying to scare her brother straight.

Half the time her parents were both out drinking together, leaving Skye alone with Sean nowhere to be found.

She preferred that.

Silence was easier than yelling.

“Fuck you and your rules,” Sean yelled before storming upstairs. His bedroom door slammed hard enough to rattle the walls.

She exhaled slowly and kept working. It wasn’t a normal day unless someone was screaming.

At least it hadn’t been aimed at her.

Not yet.

Not until Jenny Murphy strutted into the living room full of confidence, ready to issue those orders. “I need you to start dinner, Skye.”

“Can I finish my homework first?” she asked.

No answer.

She glanced up.

Her mother stood there in black jeans stretched so tight they looked painful, stuffed into a T-shirt that Skye recognized instantly as hers. Too small. Again. The fabric clung where it shouldn’t, like it might split if her mother moved the wrong way.

Or like those cans of biscuits when hit on the counter, soft squishy stuff spilled out of the cracks.

That thought made her want to laugh, but laughing would only result in a fight she wasn’t in the mood for.

There was no point saying anything about her mother wearing her clothing. She already knew the response.

Until you start paying your way, everything here is ours.

Including her.

“No,” her mother said flatly. “I just went to the store, put everything away, and I’m hungry. It’s your turn.”

Skye snapped her book shut, her wrist moving faster than normal.

Nothing ever changed.

Nothing would until she got out.

Two more years. That was all she had to survive. After that, she didn’t care how. College, couch surfing, a job three states away. Beg, borrow, steal. She was out of here.

She marched into the kitchen and spotted the frozen burgers on the counter. Looked like dinner.

She yanked a pan from the cabinet and dropped it onto the stove harder than necessary. Her mother didn’t react. She never did.

Not even when she followed Skye into the kitchen, dug out her cigarettes, and lit one to watch.

“What do you want with it?” she asked, wrestling with the frozen box of meat to get it open.

“Fries,” her mother snorted. “Isn’t that what we always do?”

She cranked the oven, grabbed a bag of frozen fries, dumped them onto a pan, and shoved it inside before the oven had even finished preheating.

Next came the vegetables. She held up a bag of peas and carrots. “Is this okay, or do you want something else?”

“Lose the attitude,” her mother said, taking a long drag. “You’re not the one who was out until two in the morning and then had to get up for an appointment this morning.”

“Doesn’t the bar close at midnight?” she asked quietly, keeping her sarcasm at bay... barely. “Or did they change the hours?”

“Don’t be a wiseass. You know I stay for a few drinks.”

“Then that’s on you,” Skye muttered.

“What was that?”

Her mother lunged forward, fingers digging into Skye’s arm, yanking her around. The bag of vegetables flew from her hand and skidded across the floor.

“Nothing.”

“That’s right,” her mother snarled, her breath hot with smoke and perfume as she leaned in. “Nothing. Keep your mouth shut.”

“Jenny, what now?” her father asked, stomping in and grabbing a beer.

“Your daughter’s getting lippy again.” Her mother’s hand released to catch the can he tossed her. Couldn’t risk dropping her Marlboro. “Sean’s rubbing off on her.”

“At least she’s not screaming in your face,” her father said. “That boy needs to get his shit together.”

Skye turned back to the stove while they complained about their kids like she wasn’t standing right there.

Like she wasn’t a human and didn’t have feelings.

Not that they’d give two shits about what she thought, cared, or felt.

She learned early how to tune them out.

It was the only way to survive.

She set the table. She served the food. She ate in silence. Dinner came and went like that...like most nights.

After cleaning up, she grabbed her books and headed upstairs, ignoring her mother’s slurred voice calling after her. “Stop being a little bitch.”

She shut her door and finished her homework.

By ten, she was in bed, her phone charging, her TV off. Sean’s television blared through the wall like always. She fell asleep anyway.

She always did.

But the coughing woke her. She was coughing.

The air felt thick. Her eyes burned.

She blinked them a few times. Fog?

No—smoke.

“Mom!” she screamed, bolting upright. “Dad!”

She opened her door.

Flames filled the hallway, crawling along the ceiling and blocking the stairs. Blocking their bedroom. And closing in faster than the rapid breaths escaping her lungs.

“Sean!” She pounded on the wall between their rooms, but his door was swallowed by fire, the heat too intense to get closer.

Panic clawed up her throat.

There was nowhere to go.

She slammed her door shut and shoved clothes under the crack, but smoke poured in anyway. Heat pressed against her skin. Sweat soaked her clothes. Tears streamed down her face.

She grabbed her phone, ran to the window, unlocked it with shaking hands, and shoved it open.

The ground below looked impossibly far.

Jump or burn.

She didn’t hesitate again.

She climbed out, clung to the sill until her fingers screamed, then let go.

The last thing she saw was her house, every room glowing orange rushing past her as she fell.