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A high, pained noise escaped my throat.

The smell of him was thick in the air. Like rotting meat. Which was exactly what he was.

I gagged and stumbled outside, backing away from the sticky, slick gore coating the kitchen, and sank to my knees. The deck was warm from the afternoon sun, and the groovesof the wood pressed into the palms of my hands, leaving red tracks. Time slowed to a trickle, to a drip.

It dawned on me then, way too late, that maybe whoever had done this was still in the house. That maybe they were waiting for me, I was next, and all my senses went on high alert at the same time.

For long seconds, I breathed silently through my mouth, listening as hard as I could for any noise, any hint that there was someone hiding around the corner. But there was nothing. Just a car passing by on the road, a few hundred yards away.

The Creep was dead.

Really, really dead.

Reallyviolentlydead.

And though I knew the right thing to do would be to call the police – honestly? Fuck the police. The Creep didn’t deserve the police.

A calm settled over me like a baptism of cool water. Like blessed relief.

The Creep was dead.

And I had to get out of here. Right now.

The kitchen door was still ajar, and I got to my feet, then nudged it open farther with the toe of my shoe. I edged along the hallway of our single-story house, past his mangled body, to my bedroom, relieved when nothing looked different from how I had left it that morning. My bed was still unmade, my clothes still piled on the floor, the makeup I used to cover up bruises and scars still scattered in front of the mirror.

My duffel bag was at the bottom of my closet, and it didn’t take long for me to pack it. Underwear. Socks. A handful of random T-shirts. A couple pairs of jeans. Sneakers. Makeup bag.

What my mom and the Creep didn’t know was that I’d been squirreling away money for years now. Since the first time the Creep had squeezed my arm too tight, kicked the back of my knee to make me stumble, backhanded me across the face. He’d left bruises all over my skin.

I stole money from him: ten bucks from his wallet, more if he came home drunk and didn’t know how much he’d spent at the bar anyway. It all added up. A little here, a little there. Babysitting money. Working at a coffee shop over the holidays. I kept all the cash locked away in a box in the bottom drawer of my desk, hidden under piles and piles of schoolwork. I knew they would never think to look for it.

The cash was the first thing I put into the duffel bag, hidden inside a pencil case.

I dumped my school stuff out of my backpack to give me space for more underwear, toiletries and a hairbrush. Then I took off my school blazer and hung it in the closet, put on a denim jacket and grabbed my sunglasses.

I went through to the kitchen and pointedly didn’t look out into the hall. I didn’t need to see that again. I didn’t want to look at him.

I could still smell it.

But I ignored that. I had to.

His wallet was on the kitchen counter, where he’d dumped it after walking in the back door, like he alwaysdid. I pulled out his credit card and a handful of cash, shoving both in my pocket and leaving the now empty wallet on the counter.

My mind had never been this empty of thoughts.

It was like I knew that if I stopped, if I contemplated what was happening for even one second, I would fall apart. I was going to completely lose my shit, and if I was honest with myself, I’d never done that before. I didn’t know what losing my shit would look like, and it probably wasn’t the best time to find out.

I took a deep breath, used my sunglasses to push my hair off my face, and walked out the back door.

‘And then you picked me up.’

Brooke didn’t say anything, just stared at me, wide-eyed.

‘I picked you up?’

‘Yeah. On Third Avenue.’

‘Are you telling me,’ she said slowly, ‘that instead of calling the police and telling them about the dead body in your house, you got into my car and ran away?’