“Come here,” my father orders, motioning to me with the gun.
My brain has stalled out. I glance at Stephen, but he’s gone white in the face. It takes me a long moment to get my legs to work, and I stumble across the sparse living room. I stop out of arm’s reach, although really—if he wanted to hurt me, he wouldn’t have to reach. He could just shoot me.
Dad pulls a phone from his pocket.
Everything about him is soul-crushingly familiar. All the details I wanted to forget about him are still there, exaggerated by a hundred. It makes me realize that my memory did its job and dulled him. And the real him is so much worse.
“I got you a new phone, babydoll.” He tosses it to me.
I fumble for it and stare at the sleek model in my hand. It seems brand-new, an upgrade from mine.
“I moved your photos over so you wouldn’t lose them,” he continues. “There are some safety features on this one, of course. Only approved numbers you can call, app restrictions.”
He stole my phone. My music. My clothes.
“Did you watch Steele and I jump—”
“Steele,” Dad spits. “You shouldn’t be messing around with boys like him.”
Stephen clears his throat. “Messing around—”
“Fucking.” His gaze snaps to Steele’s father. “Your child and mine have been intimate.”
My stomach knots, but Stephen doesn’t react. He just stares impassively at my father with blood trickling down his temple—courtesy of a little mouthing back on my part.
Another thing I needed to pay for, he said.
“Now.” Dad focuses on me again. “Call your mother and tell her we need to see her. That everything is fine, but you need her help.”
I stare at the phone. It lights up, revealing the same lock screen I had. I swipe it open, and it’s the same passcode. Same everything—the configuration, the wallpaper. Some apps are missing, and there’s no Wi-Fi.
“If you do anything other than call your mother, I’m shooting him.” Dad lifts the gun, aiming it at Stephen.
“No,” I whisper.
I can’t call her. I won’t drag her into this, and I definitely won’t bring my sisters anywhere near his madness.
“Aspen.” Stephen has his hands up, some sort of surrendering instinct when looking down the barrel of a gun, but his voice is steady. His expression isn’t panicked. Instead, he seems oddly calm. “Don’t you dare call her.”
I nod.
The phone falls out of my hands.
Dad lunges for me. He wraps his hand in my hair and yanks me backward, and I crash into his body with a sharp exhale. The gun rises in slow motion, and my heart skips.
He’s going to shoot Stephen.
Without question.
He’s just doing exactly what he threatened, like he’s done all along.
I lurch sideways, ignoring the searing pain through my scalp, and shove at his arm. The gun goes off. It’s so fucking loud, the crack rattles in my skull. I scream without looking at Steele’s dad. The last thing I want to see is him dead. To see that I failed.
I kick at my father, batter at him with my fists, my elbows. Everything I have. I fight harder than I’ve ever fought before, urged on by wild defiance and horror.
He smacks me in the face with the butt of the gun. The force cuts my cheek against my teeth. The pain explodes across my skin, and the taste of blood spreads across my tongue. I let it pool in my mouth. He’s still got hold of my hair, and he uses it to swing me back toward him. My chest hits his again.
I spit at him.
He closes his eyes on instinct, protecting them from the bloody saliva. My hair slips through his fingers, free at last, and I push away from him. I go straight for the door, knowing that he’d rather follow me than finish anything with Stephen.
It’s safer if I lead my monster father away.
I catch sight of someone against the wall as I pass, and my heart kicks.
Dad is in pursuit—but the moment he comes through is when my savior acts.
Steele swings a metal bar down. It collides with Dad’s forearm with a mighty crack. Bones probably broke, and his hold on the gun loosens. It drops out of his hand as he turns on Steele, roaring with pain.
Steele swings again, his expression determined.
I’ve stopped running.
Stopped moving entirely.
Dad jumps at Steele, knocking away the hooked bar like it’s nothing. Like his arm isn’t in screaming agony. They go down, and I cover my mouth.
What do I do?
Dad punches Steele in the face, straddling his chest.
No.
My gaze drops to the gun.
Before I can register what I’m actually doing, I crouch and pick it up. There’s no safety on it—it’s one of those small double-trigger handguns. I pull back the slide and check that it’s loaded.
Of course it is. Dad wouldn’t have just put one cartridge in.
Steele bucks, blocking Dad’s hits with his forearm and slamming his fist into Dad’s side. Hard, repeatedly. But it’s not much good, when Dad so clearly has the upper hand. And in fact, it seems like whatever control my father was maintaining has snapped, too. He stops hitting Steele and wraps both his hands around his throat.
“Hey!” I scream.
Dad glances over at me, but he doesn’t so much as let up the pressure.
“Get off him.” I hate how wobbly my voice is.
Dad’s lip curls. “This will all be over soon, Aspen. Just close your eyes. Call your mother.”
Just close your eyes, babydoll. His voice echoes in my head.
And suddenly I’m six years old again, my hands being dragged up over my head. My body immobilized. The flash of the camera, the silence. It all echoes in my head. But more than that—it’s the helplessness. The panic wells up inside me, freezing me from the inside out.
What can I do against a monster who’s everywhere? He’s the shadows. He lurks in the corners of my mind, in my darkest memories.
“Aspen.” It’s a gurgle. Steele’s choking. Suffocating.
And it snaps me out of my nightmare, back into reality.
Steele has a hold of Dad’s wrists, but he can’t seem to break his grip. And there’s no way I can imagine a world, a future, without Steele O’Brien in it. And right now, Dad’s killing him.
The six-year-old inside me is screaming, and it echoes and echoes and echoes.
I squeeze the trigger.
