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A mumble I could barely make out in the languor that lapped through my brain.

“I don’t know how to let you.”

THIRTY

TREVAN

SIXTEEN YEARS OLD

Trevan’s eyes flicked open. Disoriented. Unclear of what had pulled him from sleep. He squinted at his window as the faint flash of red and blue lights spun through his room.

Confusion held him in a dazed grip before dread slicked through him on a foreboding shiver.

The Mercers.

Fear blasted through him, and he threw off his covers and ran down the hall. Barefoot and only wearing a tee and basketball shorts.

His heart stampeded out in front of him.

His mother was at the living room window as he busted out at the end of the hall, the drape held back and a nasty sneer on her face.

“Look at that,” she croaked in her raspy voice. “Those snotty bitches think they’re so much better than me, and look who has two cop cars sitting at their curb in the middle of the night. Serves them right.”

Trevan didn’t take the time to defend them. Didn’t take time to tell his monster of a mother that the only thing they deserved was every good thing in this life.

Because he was already out the door. His blood close to frozen as he ran out into the strobing roll of lights of the two cop cars on the other side of the street.

His bare feet slapped across the pavement, and he was halfway across when he heard the piercing scream.

A wail, he realized.

Pain splintering out on a thunderclap that shocked through the middle of him.

He stalled for one second before he pushed himself harder. Flying around the backside of one of the cars and racing up the sidewalk.

Two sheriffs were at the door and Meems was on her knees.

Her arms crossed over her chest like it was the only way to keep her heart from spilling onto the ground.

Sobs tearing out.

He pushed through the officers, shouting, “Meems!”

Desperation hacked through his spirit. “What’s happening?”

“Christina,” she choked and clawed at her chest.

Terror swarmed, and he slid to his knees in front of her, trying to get in her line of sight but unsure she could even see him with the torrent of tears that poured from her eyes.

“What about her?”

Frail fingers clutched into his shirt. “She’s gone. She’s gone. And Silas was shot and we don’t know if he’s gonna make it.”

A cold awareness crawled out from the deepest place inside him.

“What do you mean?”

“They were shot. Mowed down.”