Page 31 of Say it Ain’t So

Like when he found us and took care of us until our parents came to help.

I started to nod but the pain was too much. Tried shaking my head, but couldn’t do that, either.

Dakota rushed to my side, helping me to sit up while gingerly taking my hand. “I think it’s broken. I’m sorry, Joslyn. Billy thought Peter went to the bathroom and didn’t realize he snuck out the back. I never should have left you here alone.”

“It’s not your fault.”

He brushed off my feeble attempt at protest. “You need to get out of here, do you understand me?”

“Where’s Cheyenne?”

He brushed that away too. “I sent her away when Billy called. She’ll be fine. Now, leave your things. Get in your car and drive away. No matter what happens to Peter. No matter what happens to me. Promise— Are you listening to me?”

I nodded and immediately wished I hadn’t. I bit down on my tongue, trying to hold back a wail.

Dakota took me by the shoulders, staring down into my eyes like he had when he first arrived. “Promise me, you’ll go. Promise⁠—”

“I promise.” I gripped his hand with my good one, squeezing as much to assure him as to find some comfort there. “I’ll⁠—”

Dakota’s head whipped to the side and his body followed before he tumbled to the floor. Peter, bloody and battered, stood at the end of the bed holding his baseball bat with a wicked scowl on his face.

I scrambled to my feet, half tempted to rush to Dakota’s side. But I knew I couldn’t. Peter wouldn’t hold back this time. If I wanted to live, if I wanted to survive, I had to uphold the promise I hadn’t had a chance to voice.

Without more than a glance at Dakota, only enough to see that he was struggling to climb to his knees, I turned and ran. Leaving my belongings, I did nothing more than grab my purse from the hook by the door as I raced to my car. I climbed in and struggled to put the key in the ignition and turn the engine over.

As if it was conspiring against me, my car fought to start. It sputtered and spewed exhaust before finally—fucking finally—the engine caught.

My car roared to life just as the door to the house flung open. Peter came racing out, waving the bloody baseball bat over his head while he screamed and yelled. I slammed the car into reverse, zooming down the driveway. I plowed through the garbage cans set up alongside the street, knocking them over in my race to get away.

My head throbbed and my hand was in agony, and fear ripped through me as my attention was torn between driving on the road in front of me and what was going on behind me. Right before I turned the corner, I saw headlights flash to life, and I could only pray the brief flicker of light behind that was Dakota coming through the door from the house.

I didn’t know what I’d do if Peter killed Dakota. I didn’t know if I could withstand the guilt of being responsible for something like that. Cheyenne was the only friend I had left, and I couldn’t lose her.

Not because of this.

I hit a straight-away and gunned my engine, gaining speed, but not enough. Headlights flashed in my rear view, and they were coming closer, much faster than they should. I sped up, trying to get away, trying to make it closer to downtown, to where there were people, witnesses. To where Peter would be less likely to carry out his abuse.

That wasn’t going to happen.

Not after another set of headlights flashed in my mirror, seconds before crashing into the first car and sending it careening into the night.

It was then that I realized, that first set—that first car—wasn’t Peter’s, it was Cheyenne’s. The second was Peter’s, and now he was coming after me.

Gripping the steering wheel as hard as I could with my right hand, I pressed the wrist of my left into the fake leather-wrapped plastic to try to hold on. But it was no use. The minute he pulled up alongside me, driving in the wrong lane on a two-lane road, I knew I was dead.

There was no coming back from this. There was no happiness left for me.

Peter took it all.

He tore me away from my family and my friends, and now he was going to take my life right out of my hands.

Suddenly, ahead of me, there was a flash of red and blue. Peter’s car slowed just a fraction, but not enough. He gave a hard turn to the wheel and the front bumper of his car hit the back bumper of mine.

I was going too fast.

There was nothing I could do.

My car swerved, then hit a bump. The next thing I knew, Peter’s car was flying past my head, and I was tilting sideways, like the ground had been swept out from under my feet.