1. - – Amelia
CHAPTER ONE
-
AMELIA
The pine needles are the worst.
Every step drives them deeper into my torn feet. A welcome reminder that I'm still alive. Blood slicks the bottoms as I stumble through the dark Alabama woods behind Preston’s estate.
I can’t stop. If I stop, they will find me.
The trees claw at my body, shredding my cocktail dress, while the branches snapping against me feel like a fire spreading across my skin. My lungs burn, and something in my ribs screams every time I inhale. But none of that hurts as badly as the memory of Preston’s hands around my throat.
“If you embarrass me again,” he had whispered calmly while tightening his grip, “it’ll be the last time you do.”
The calm was always the most terrifying part. Preston never yelled. Not when he punched me hard enough to knock out one of my molars. Not when he shoved me onto the marble bathroom floor and climbed on top of me, not even tonight when he’d nearly killed me.
I trip over a root and crash down hard into the dirt. Pain explodes through my palms, and for one horrible second, I'm back on the floor in Preston’s bedroom.
Preston is standing over me, adjusting his cufflinks while I struggle to gulp in air he had just deprived me of.
“The numbers dropped four points, Amelia.” That slight dip in polling numbers during his Senate campaign was somehow all my fault.
My smile at the fundraiser tonight hadn’t looked convincing enough. I didn't laugh at the right donor’s joke. I’d spoken too quietly to a reporter when asked a question.
Preston always cataloged and saved every perceived indiscretion so he could punish me for them when we were home and behind closed doors.
I push myself off the ground before my thoughts run away from me and the memories swallow me whole. I have to keep moving.
Don't Stop. Those two words replay in my mind, over and over, to the rhythm of my pulse as I run. Just when my legs are about to give out, the woods finally break open, spilling onto the edge of a quiet neighborhood.
A driver had left a silver sedan idling and unlocked while he made his delivery. It was an answer to my prayers, and I wasn't about to hesitate; I didn't have time. I climb into the driver’s seat, peeling away from the curb with shaking hands gripping the wheel.
Streetlights blur past in pale yellow streaks.
Blood smears across the steering wheel beneath my palms with every turn.
The radio crackles softly with late-night gospel music.
I turn it up and let the sound fill the car.
The background noise helps drown out the dark thoughts that the silence always brings.
As the city lights of Birmingham disappear in the rearview mirror, the busy highway begins to turn into long stretches of empty roads lined with pine tree forests, with only black skies and memories to keep me company.
"Look at the water, Millie." I can hear her mother's voice, so warm and real, it's like she is beside me in the passenger seat. "You see how the water moves? It moves freely, never asking for permission."
Elena is my real mom. Not Constance Whitmore with her bourbon breath and cutting smile, who had spent my entire childhood reminding me that I was an unwanted consequence of her husband's indiscretions.
Elena was always different. Gentle, caring, and a secret Theodore Whitmore kept hidden away, only to be acknowledged in private.
The lake house was the only place I ever saw my mother, the handful of times my father allowed me to, anyway. I never went back to the lake house again after the accident happened that killed my mom, but it's the only place that feels safe right now.
The asphalt road eventually turns into gravel, then dirt. Trees crowd close to the narrow road until the forest opens. The lake looks black beneath the moonlight. Sitting at the edge of the water like a ghost waiting patiently for my return, stands the house.
The relief I feel is so strong that it nearly takes the breath from me. That is, until a man steps out of the shadows holding a shotgun pointed directly at me.
“Get out of the car.”
My heart stops. How could I have escaped one dangerous man only to run straight into another?