Outlaw Dodge

Prologue

Adalynn

“Shh,” I breathe, a low warning to the three lives tied to mine while my pulse hammers against my ribs.

We scramble through the bedroom window into the biting night air.

This house was our shelter, but the floorboards groan downstairs as someone kicks the front door in.

The vibrations travel up through the wood, warning me that our protection is gone.

I guide Noah, my youngest brother, onto the ledge.

His eyes are wide, glassy with the kind of grief no kid should know.

That night, that execution, it cuts through my brain like a rusted knife.

I refuse to let them take us. Not as long as I have breath in my body.

“Time for the quiet game,” I murmur. The lie tastes like acid against my tongue as my eyes rake the ink black yard, watching for movement.

Each shivering limb of the surrounding trees mimics a tightening noose, and the freezing wind whispers of a looming ambush.

To disappear into the void, we are stripped of everything—our names, our safety, our very selves.

The law is a futile promise that abandoned my family to the wolves, leaving me to pursue a refuge that feels like a cruel mirage.

Carter follows, his fourteen-year-old frame stiff with the staggering weight of a man’s responsibility.

He swiftly maneuvers Noah toward the rough silhouette of a chimney, serving as a desperate hold on the shingles before reaching back for Amelia.

My sister, who’s only ten years old, gazes at me with eyes that are fractures of glass, reflecting a bottomless terror.

Her innocence perished once more the instant the threshold buckled, replaced by a waking hell she cannot escape.

These children, from the boy on the cusp of manhood to the seven-year-old, are the sole anchors keeping me from being swept away by this storm.

“You have to move,” Carter coaxes Amelia, his frantic gestures slicing through the suffocating gloom.

The menacing stomping vibrates through the floorboards like a brutal countdown to the moment they breach the threshold.

We are balanced on a razor’s edge, seconds away from a capture I refuse to allow.

“Baby girl, you have to find your courage,” I urge, my voice a low plea for her to find her inner strength. It’s difficult for me to do that considering her tender age, but if she doesn’t, everything I’ve put in place will be a moot point.

“O-okay,” she rasps, the word splintering against the suffocating terror that grips her small frame.

With limbs that vibrate like pulled wire, she forces herself through the aperture, yielding to Carter’s desperate strength as he hauls her into the void of the night.

At this moment, the extinguished streetlights are a mercy I never anticipated.

The shadows that once harbored nightmares have transformed into our solitary refuge, a black velvet shroud hiding us from the predators in our wake.

The heavy, relentless rhythm of footsteps hammering against the floorboards counts down our final seconds, and I lock eyes with Carter. “Get them to the car this instant. If they catch me, you take that wheel and you drive until the world disappears.”

“I won’t do it,” he snaps, his tone taut with emotion. “We aren’t leaving this place without you, Adalynn.”

“This isn’t up for debate,” I slice back, my voice intense, designed to sever his lingering resistance. “Noah and Amelia need you. You have to be their protector, Carter.”

His breath escapes in heavy flares through his nostrils. Following a weighted silence, he offers a solemn nod, yielding to the crushing responsibility I’ve forced upon him. “Fine,” he rasps, the single word fracturing against the thick tension surrounding us.

I don’t look back as Carter starts lowering the kids into the yard.

I can’t watch. If I do, I’ll lose it. I heave the heavy dresser across the floor, letting the screech of wood against the floorboards mask the sound of their escape.

I stack chairs and shove the nightstand against the door, desperate to buy them time.

My siblings need every second they can get to put miles between us and the monsters who tore our world apart.

The bedroom door bows under the brute force of someone slamming against it, and I know our time's up.

I vault through the window, my boots hitting the shingles with a startling crack that rings out too loudly in the quiet night.

Scrambling to the edge, I search the dark yard for Carter and the kids.

Nothing. The yard is empty. Maybe, for once, luck's on our side.

I drop to the frozen ground, the jolt jarring my teeth, and pivot toward the alley.

My escape ends instantly. A giant figure bursts from the shadows of the shed, blocking my path. Every drop of blood in me turns to ice.

A malicious sneer catches the moonlight as he springs forward, his hands locking onto my arm with a predator's crushing force. “Gotcha,” he snarls, the words heavy with a grotesque satisfaction that signals a new descent into hell.

An engine's sudden roar pierces the thick haze of my panic, a mechanical shriek signaling our salvation.

Carter has accepted the desperate responsibility I forced upon him and is now behind the wheel of our rusted escape car.

A metallic clink echoes in the alleyway as he shoves the gear shift into drive, the transmission grinding in fierce protest under his frantic, untrained control.

With lethal focus, the sedan tears toward me, its tires screaming across the icy gravel.

I throw myself onto the frozen ground in a split second, barely clearing the oncoming bumper.

Before my captor can even register what is happening, the heavy steel slams into him.

The sickening impact reverberates against the brick walls like an absolute, merciless judgment as Carter tears a crimson path through the darkness.

“Get in!” Carter roars, his adolescent voice cracking with a desperation that pierces right through my surging adrenaline.

His head juts out of the driver’s side window, eyes wild and panicked, as his white-knuckled hand grips the steering wheel with terrifying intensity.

Peering past him, the pale, spectral faces of Amelia and Noah look back at me from the back seat, their fragile frames shivering against the frayed upholstery.

My lungs burn as I scramble up from the frostbitten dirt, lunging for the passenger door.

The car is still rolling. It is a rusted beast, our only ticket away from the men spilling out of the house.

I yank the handle, the cold metal biting my palm as I throw myself inside.

Carter floors the accelerator before I can pull the door shut.

Gravel sprays as the engine lets out a guttural scream that mimics the terror trapped in my throat.

We fishtail out of the alley, leaving our old life behind and dumping a face full of slush on the man who tried to snatch me.

Reaching up, I grip the plastic oh-shit handle, my trembling knuckles turning a chalky white. “Is everyone okay?” I ask, though my thin voice is nearly swallowed by the frantic pounding of my heart and the roar of the heater fighting the freezing Colorado winter.

I watch the men who destroyed our lives fade into the shadows and exhaust. My parents' faces flash in my mind, pulling me back to the night everything ended, but I force the memory down.

We have no names, no protection, and no destination.

We're just ghosts on the run, looking for a place that might not exist. Carter hits the gas, and I swear I'll burn this world down before I let those predators near the kids again.

He gives a jerky nod, his eyes fixed on the road with a focus no fourteen-year-old should ever need.

In the rearview mirror, Amelia and Noah are huddled in a heap of limbs and blankets.

They're pale and shaken, but they're breathing.

Against all odds, they're alive. Right now, that's the only victory that matters.

An hour in, the adrenaline drains out, leaving me bone-tired.

I look over at Carter. He’s white-knuckling the wheel, his frame shaking from the night's violence. I tell him to pull into an abandoned gas station. I’m taking the wheel.

We can’t screw up now. Letting a preteen drive on the interstate is too big a risk.

If a trooper spots him, we’re done. Jail means leaving the kids wide open for the people hunting us.

We swap seats fast. The freezing Colorado air bites through the open doors until we slam them shut, sealing ourselves inside the car.

I check the mirror. Amelia and Noah are bundled together in the back, their eyes wide and terrified in the dash light.

I pull back onto the highway and stick to the speed limit.

I keep my eyes glued to the mirrors, watching for any headlights that linger too long behind us.

Carter looks small in the passenger seat. The tough act he put on to protect the little ones has faded, leaving only a scared kid. “Where are we going to go?” he asks, his voice barely a whisper against the hum of the tires on the paved road.

“I don’t know,” I respond, my eyes dropping to the fuel gauge as it hovers dangerously close to the red line.

My sweaty palms slip against the steering wheel, my mind frantically cycling through every backroad and small town from the map we burned.

“We can’t go far. There’s only about a hundred miles left in the tank, and our go-bag in the trunk holds less than a thousand dollars. ”

We’re burning through gas and cash, racing toward a horizon that doesn’t care if we live or die.

Every penny in our stash has to cover food, shelter, and fuel.

In this world, laying low costs a fortune, and every dollar we spend chips away at our survival.

I’m always doing the math in my head, but the numbers never add up to safety.

We need a real roof over our heads. We need a place where we can sleep and shower without the floorboards groaning under the weight of the past. We need locks that actually hold back the nightmares.

Instead, we’re staring at the cold reality that we’re one breakdown away from getting caught.

I scan the highway for an exit, desperate to escape this suffocating tension. “There is a rest stop coming up,” I say, my voice cracking from the dry air pouring out of the vents. “Let's pull over, check the map, and pick a small town to disappear into. We need more than just a destination.”

“Better than nothing,” Carter mumbles, leaning his head back against the cracked vinyl headrest. He looks utterly exhausted, the weight of the night’s violence still etched into the sharp lines of his youthful face.

Keeping his eyes away from me, he stares out at the blurred outline of skeletal trees whipping past us.

“Anywhere is better than staying outdoors like this. We’re sitting ducks on the interstate. ”

The silence in the car is too suffocating.

I need to break the tension before the kids drown in the quiet.

My throat is scratchy from screaming, but I force a lightness into my voice that I don’t feel.

"New names," I rasp, my eyes darting to the mirror.

"We need a new identity. What's our last name? "

"Brighton!" Amelia chirps, the sudden sound making me flinch. She’s clinging to a tattered blanket, her eyes wide with excitement.

“Smith,” Noah mutters.

“Brownstone,” Carter suggests. “It’s the closest to Brown without sounding fake.”

“What’s the verdict?” I ask them. Glancing into the rearview mirror, I catch both Noah and Amelia nodding their heads in agreement. “Brownstone it is.”