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Dad muttered something and changed lanes. A car appeared out of nowhere, flying toward us.
It happened so fast that before I knew it, it had hit us. Metal crunched on metal.
“Cat?” I asked when the car came to a standstill. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Cat said.
She was suddenly much older. Gone was the pigtailed girl who’d brought me ice cream. The grown-up Cat sat next to me.
“Mom? Dad?” I called out.
The front of the car was crumpled, with no space for anyone in the front seats, but there was no one there.
“Where are they?” I asked Cat.
“Who?”
“Mom and Dad,” I said. “Where are they, Cat?”
Cat frowned at me. “What are you talking about?”
I shook my head and got out of the car. When I did, I nearly bumped into someone. Oscar stood in front of me and gripped my arms.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trembling with fear. I hadn’t seen Oscar since…
I couldn’t remember what had happened. Something was wrong—terribly, terribly wrong—but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“You can’t keep doing this, Lorraine,” Oscar growled.
“Doing what?”
“It’s your fault you’re in this mess, and now you want to drag Cat into it, too?”
“She’s okay,” I said, shaking my head. “It was just an accident.”
Oscar shook me, and my head snapped back and forth.
“This is all on you, Lorraine. Your parents, and now Cat.”
“What’s wrong with Cat?” I demanded. I wrenched myself around in Oscar’s arms to look for my sister, but the car was empty now. She was gone, too.
“Oscar, where is she?” I cried out.
“I sold her to get rid of my debts. You told me I could.”
“What?”
“When you didn’t fulfill the bargain, they needed someone else.”
“No!” I cried out, and my knees buckled.
“First your parents, and now your sister,” Oscar said, tutting.
When I opened my eyes, I lay in the bed, the quilt a twisted, tangled knot all around me. I wasn’t breathing hard, didn’t have a quick pulse and a sweaty brow the way I usually felt after a nightmare. My breathing was normal. I just felt so incredibly alone.
Alone, and guilty.
My parents had died because I’d insisted on going to a party, and I’d asked them to pick me up because Oscar had been too drunk to drive. They were dead because of me, and now my sister was in danger because of the man I’d chosen to spend my life with.
