Chapter 2
TWO
HARPER
The front door of Z’s trailer slams open so hard it bounces off the wall.
But moments later, when I expect my father, it’s Z’s stepfather who suddenly storms into Z’s bedroom—wait, where the hell did he come from?—and the temperature in the room drops twenty degrees.
He’s a big man: six-three, barrel-chested, with hands like cinder blocks and a face that looks like it was carved from a slab of craggy, not-quite-set concrete. His work boots are caked in mud.
Z’s breathing changes beside me. I feel it before I see it—that tell-tale hitch that means he’s scared.
“The fuck is going on out there?” he barks, not even looking at us yet. Just talking to the air or whoever’s unlucky enough to be in his path.
Z’s whole body goes rigid. Again, we’re so in tune with each other, I feel it—the way he stops breathing and his muscles lock up like he’s bracing for impact.
I move in front of Z without thinking about it, sitting up and blocking him from Frank.
Which immediately pulls Frank’s gaze to me. His gaze crawls over me like something with legs, and goosebumps erupt all over my skin.
I hate Frank with a fire that burns through my belly.
He’s the reason for Z’s bruises, the reason Z sleeps out in the woods sometimes, even though he gets eaten alive by mosquitoes, and the reason Z’s so scrawny, because Frank barely feeds him and gets angry if Z eats any of the food Frank literally labels with his own name.
“What the fuck is this?” Frank jerks his chin at me, but he’s talking to Z over my shoulder like I’m not even human enough to be addressed directly.
“Harper,” Z says, voice flat. Carefully neutral. “You know Harper.”
Most of all, I hate the way Z immediately goes into zombie mode around Frank.
“I know you ain’t supposed to have bitches in your room.” Frank takes a step closer, and the smell of stale beer and sweat rolls off him in waves. “Especially not little sluts like this one.”
The familiar insult stings, but I don’t flinch. I learned a long time ago that flinching just makes men like Frank meaner. And anyway, the longer he stays focused on me, the less he’s fucking with Z.
“She’s leaving,” Z says quickly. Too quickly. I turn and shake my head at him. The last time Frank caught me in here, he went after Z with his belt after I left. But Z ignores me. “She was just—”
“She was just what?” Frank’s voice climbs. “Fucking you? That it? You think you’re man enough to—”
“Hey, Frank.”
The voice comes from outside Z’s bedroom, cutting through Frank’s tirade.
It’s Silas’s voice. I knew he was heading in this direction.
No. No, no, no. If there’s one way to make an already bad situation worse, it’s to have my father show up in the middle of it.
Frank’s head snaps toward the door. “Who the fuck—”
Silas Tucker steps into view, filling the doorway with that same easy confidence he’s always had. Like he owns every room he walks into. Like the world owes him something and he’s just here to collect.
He looks different. Cleaner than I’m used to seeing him. His hair’s trimmed, not the shaggy mess I remember. His jeans actually fit, his button-down isn’t stained, and his boots look like they cost more than Mom’s car, when she had one.
He looks like someone who has his shit together. He’s still a goddamn giant, though.
It makes me want to scream.
“Silas fucking Tucker,” Frank says, and it’s not a greeting. It’s an accusation. “Thought you were still locked up.”
“Got out a couple years ago.” Silas’s eyes flick past Frank, landing on me. Something flashes across his face—relief or anger—before it smooths back into that cool, unreadable mask. “Heard you were still making life hell for everyone around you.”
“What the fuck are you doing in my house?”
“Came to get my daughter.”
Frank’s eyes cut to me, then back to Silas. “I forgot this trash was yours.”
Silas’s jaw tightens. It’s the only tell. “Watch your mouth.”
“Or what?” Frank takes a step forward, chest puffed out like a rooster spoiling for a fight. “You gonna do something about it, Tucker? ’Cause last I checked, you’re still the same two-bit con man who got his ass locked up for running a shitty insurance scam.”
“Last I checked,” Silas says, voice dropping to something dangerous, “you’re still the same piece of shit who beats on kids half your size.”
The air in the trailer crackles.
Z grabs my hand, squeezing so hard my fingers go numb.
I squeeze back, trying to telegraph: We need to get out of here now. We should run. But Z is just staring at the two large men invading his room, frozen like a deer in headlights. I know no one terrifies him like his stepfather.
“Harper,” Silas says, not taking his eyes off Frank. “C’mon. We’re leaving.”
“No.” The word rips out of me before I can stop it. I can’t just leave Z here defenseless.
Both men’s heads turn toward me.
“No?” Silas repeats, like he’s never heard the word before.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.” I pull my hand free from Z’s and stand, but only so I can plant my feet in front of him. “You don’t get to just show up after five years and tell me what to do.”
“Harper—”
“I’m not leaving Zedekiah like you left me!” My voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate that he can still do this to me.
“Harper.” His voice goes soft. Gentle. And somehow that’s worse. “Darlene called me. She told me about Todd. About what he’s been doing.”
My stomach drops. Bitch. The only reason she did it now is because Todd must not be giving her enough attention. She’s jealous… of her own goddamn daughter.
“So instead of kicking out a pervert, she called you,” I whisper, not shocked by Darlene—never shocked anymore. Although that’s not to say it doesn’t still have the power to hurt...
“She should’ve called me a hell of a lot sooner.” Silas’s eyes are hard now, locked on mine. “But she did, and I’m here. I packed all your stuff in the back of the truck. Let’s go home.”
“I don’t have a home.” The words taste like ash. “And even if I did, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with you.” I want to reach back for Z’s hand, but I don’t want to bring attention back to him. He’s the only home I’ve ever known.
“Too bad.” Silas steps into the room, moving past Frank like he’s not even there. “’Cause you’re still seventeen, and I’m still your legal guardian. You’re coming whether you like it or not.”
“The fuck I am.” I back up, but there’s nowhere to go. Z’s bed is behind me, the wall to my left, and Silas advancing like a freight train. “I’m staying here. With Z.”
Silas’s eyes cut to Z, taking him in for the first time. The bruises. The way he’s pushed up back against the wall on the bed like he’s ready to bolt or fight, even though we both know he’d lose.
Understanding flashes across Silas’s face.
“Not happening, kid,” he says to Z, not unkindly. Then back to me: “Harper. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
“Harder?” I laugh, and it comes out jagged. “You want to talk about hard? Where the fuck were you when I was twelve and begging you not to leave? Where were you when Darlene started drinking herself to death and I had to raise myself? Where were you when—”
I don’t even see him move.
One second I’m yelling, and the next I’m upside down, draped over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry like I weigh nothing.
“Put me DOWN!” I scream, slamming my fists into his back. “Put me down, you son of a bitch!”
He doesn’t even flinch.
“Z!” I reach for him desperately, our eyes locking. “Z!”
But Z just sits there. Frozen. Helpless.
Because what the hell is he supposed to do? Fight Silas? Fight Frank? We’re both just kids playing at being adults, and the real monsters always win.
“Frank,” Silas says calmly, like I’m not actively trying to murder him. “We’re leaving. And if I hear you laid a hand on that boy—”
“You’ll what?” Frank sneers. “You ain’t shit, Tucker.”
“Don’t you dare touch him!” I shriek, past having lost it.
Silas stops in the doorway, me still slung over his shoulder, still beating at his back uselessly.
I have to get him to put me down. Z and I have to get the hell out of here. We’ll run away, and get married, and then neither of these men will have any claim over either of us.
But Silas is moving again before I can argue any more, carrying me out of Z’s trailer, past the barrel fire where people are staring, past Ms. Hernandez’s gnomes, past everything that’s been my whole goddamn life.
“Let me GO!” I’m sobbing now, and I hate it. I hate that I’m crying and that I’m so weak and that he’s so much bigger than me. “You can’t do this! Z needs me! You can’t just—”
“When Darlene told me Todd was putting his hands on you,” Silas says, voice tight, “I drove straight here from Dallas. Soon as I hung up the phone, I got in the truck and drove.”
“Oh, so now you give a shit?” I spit the words at him between sobs.
He stops walking, just for a second. His grip on me tightens.
“I’m here now.”
It’s not an apology. Not an explanation. Just a statement of fact.
And somehow that makes it worse.
He deposits me in the passenger seat of a shiny new Ford F-150. How the fuck did he afford a truck as expensive as this? It’s the kind of truck someone with money drives. The kind of truck a con man would buy to look legit.
I immediately try to bolt to get back to Z.
But Silas catches the door, holding it shut with one hand while he leans in. “Harper. Stop.”
“Fuck you!” I claw at his arm, at the door, at anything I can reach. “Let me out! I need to go back. Z needs me!”
“That kid needs a hell of a lot more than what you can give him right now.” His voice is maddeningly calm. “And so do you.”
“I don’t need anything from you!” My voice breaks on the last word, and I hate myself for it.
“Yeah, well.” He reaches across me—I try to bite him, but he’s too fast—and clicks the seatbelt into place. “Tough shit.”
Then he closes the door and locks it.
Child locks.
Of course.
I throw myself at the door, pulling the handle over and over, even though I know it won’t open. I pound on the window. Scream for Z until my throat is raw.
Silas walks around to the driver’s side like I’m not having a complete meltdown. Gets in. Starts the engine.
“You can’t do this,” I whisper, but the fight is draining out of me. Exhaustion settles into my bones like concrete. “You can’t just take me. I was going to marry him. We were going to get out—”
“Marry him?” Silas glances at me as he pulls out of Grass Alley. “Jesus Christ, Harper. You’re seventeen. Just a kid.”
“So? It would’ve emancipated us both. We could’ve—”
“You could’ve what?” His voice sharpens. “Run off to some shithole apartment and worked minimum wage jobs while you both tried to survive? That’s not a life, kid. That’s just survival.”
“It’s more than you ever gave me!” I cry, fat tears rolling down my cheeks.
I’m half hyperventilating and hate the tears, so I pour everything I’m feeling back into my anger, pounding and kicking uselessly to try to open the passenger door even though we’re on the gravel drive leading to the main road now.
And I watch the world I know disappear behind us, mile by mile, until there’s nothing left but highway and the horrible, crushing weight of not knowing if Z is okay.
I always swore I’d never be anything like the father who abandoned me when I needed him most.
And look at me now.
I’m sorry, I think, hiccupping on another sob and pressing my forehead to the window. I’m so sorry I left you there.
But sorry doesn’t change anything.
It never does.