Page 2

Two Weeks Earlier

I watched as a single snowflake danced on the early winter wind, drifting down until it fell on the back of my hand. For a fleeting moment, I admired its intricate pattern and beauty before the warmth of my skin melted it away, destroying its future in an instant. I tracked the droplet of water as it dribbled onto the table next to my food tray, then vanished through the cracks in the wood, never to be seen again.

The metaphor was hardly lost on me.

Images of taillights fading as the river swallowed them whole played over and over in my mind while I stared at the table, oblivious to anything around me.

Until a faint voice broke through the haze. “Ky?” Someone jostled my shoulder hard enough to pull me from my macabre fixation. “ Earth to Kylene Danners !”

I snapped from my memory to find Garrett staring at me, concern bleeding into his expression, and I realized I’d zoned out during a conversation yet again—apparently right in the middle of a rather heated lunch debate, the subject of which I’d totally missed.

“Well?” Tabby demanded from across the table. “What’s your vote? We need it to break the tie.”

“Yes,” I said with the confidence of someone who had totally been paying attention. “Absolutely.”

Tabby’s expression soured in an instant. Her boyfriend, Mark, however, threw his hands up in triumph as he jumped up onto the bench seat. “That’s what I’m talking about! Holiday mullets for the boys!”

It was at that moment I knew I’d fucked up.

“Wait, what ?” I said as reality slammed into my gut like a cheap shot after the bell.

“Were you even listening?” Maribel asked, annoyance (or sheer terror) tainting her tone. She glared at me with those deep brown eyes like she wanted to rip my tongue out. “The boys want to grow mullets over Christmas break, Kylene—and you just gave them the green light!”

Oh shit .

“Um, I think I misunderstood the assignment—”

“Clearly,” Tabby muttered under her breath.

“I’d like to claim a do-over due to mental distress.”

“Nope,” Garrett said, shooting me an amused look, “no takebacks. No re-votes. What’s done is done and cannot be undone—”

“Oh, not that again,” Maribel said with a sigh as she buried her head in her hands, trying to escape her secondhand embarrassment. “You really have to stop quoting those high fantasy shows—”

“But I thought you loved that there’s a D that was his burden to bear. Accepting that truth was mine; and it seemed an impossible task.

Reheating dinner was not, though, so I tossed it into the microwave, sans note, and watched it spin around in a circle as the timer ticked down, wondering how I could ever come to terms with the fact that I would never hold my father again until he was older than Gramps—and that was only if he even survived the length of his incarceration. He’d had three ‘incidents’ last I’d checked, and though he said they had all been resolved, I didn’t believe him.

I wasn’t the only Danners capable of a bald-faced lie to serve a greater purpose.

The shrill beeping of the ancient microwave ripped me from my downward spiral, and I pulled my dinner out, grabbed a fork, and plopped down on the couch in front of the TV where my bookbag lay on the coffee table like a bad omen.

With a heavy sigh, I opened it up and pulled my physics textbook out, along with my phone. As if touching it had brought it to life, the screen flashed with an incoming call from Logan Hill Prison.

I stared at it for a moment, heart in my throat, then swiped it away. Taking a call from my father was more reality than I could bear at that moment. Instead, I tossed it down next to the dinner I didn’t eat and the book I never opened, curled up under a blanket, and fell asleep.