AVERY

“ H ow much longer, Mom?” Ashton asked.

“Another ten, fifteen minutes,” I said as the Georgia wilderness streamed by on either side of the highway.

“ Great, ” he said, his voice laced with the sarcasm only a fourteen-year-old boy could conjure.

“You might really like it,” I said. “You never know.”

Instead of answering, he sighed, reached over, and turned the radio on.

“ When Moses came down from the mountain, he saw that his people had turned away from God ? —”

He rolled his eyes and changed the station.

“Job knew that God loved him, even as his life fell apart around him. That’s how we should all ? —”

“Oh my god, Mom, don’t they have music in Georgia?” he asked, turning the radio over to Bluetooth and syncing his phone. “Is that all that’s on the radio down here?”

I shrugged. “It’s the South. What can I say?”

“Harbor Mills does at least have cell service and Wi-Fi, right?” He looked beseechingly at me. “I don’t know that I can survive otherwise.”

Reaching over with my free hand, I ruffled his hair and made a pouty face. “Aww, is Mr. Man going to die without his social media?”

Laughing, he swatted my hand away. “ Maybe . I want to be able to text my friends and stuff.”

It had been a while since he’d laughed, and hearing it now warmed my heart.

There hadn’t been much laughter after what happened a couple days before.

The bruise on my cheek and Ashton’s black eye were fading, but they were still stark reminders of what went down.

As Ashton’s eyes slipped down to my cheek, his smile faded, and he turned to gaze out the window as his music began to play over the speakers.

I never thought it would come to this. Never, in a million years, would I have believed I’d be going back to Harbor Mills. But Perry had made damn sure I had no other option.

I could still see it, like it was happening that very moment. Ashton was supposed to play a basketball game, and I’d told my fiancé Perry we’d be back in three hours since the team was going for pizza after the game. He’d kissed me goodbye, and all had been well.

Little did I know thirty minutes later, my whole life would be flushed down the toilet.

Halfway to the gym, Ashton’s coach called to let us know that both referees assigned to the game had come down with a stomach virus, so the game was being postponed until the following Wednesday.

The news had disappointed us both—Ashton really wanted to play, and I loved seeing him happy on the basketball court—but we made the best of it and picked up Chinese food, then went home to surprise Perry.

What a fucking surprise that had been.

I’d heard the moaning and panting the second I stepped into the house.

Before it had even registered what I was hearing, my stomach sank, and the food tumbled from my hand as I rounded the foyer to find my soon-to-be husband—Ashton’s soon-to-be stepfather—balls-deep in the next-door neighbor’s wife, Shawna.

She saw me first, shrieking in surprise as she threw an arm across her breasts.

“What the fuck are you doing home?” Perry demanded, hastily pulling his pants back up.

“ Excuse me ? What do you think you’re doing, Perry? Jesus fucking Christ.”

Shawna, having managed to get fully dressed in record time, sprinted out of the house, rushing past a gape-mouthed Ashton.

“Don’t you raise your goddamn voice to me!” Perry bellowed, pointing a finger at me, looking as though he’d caught me fucking someone else instead of the other way around.

“We are done , Perry,” I said, tears filling my eyes. All the things I’d hoped for were suddenly slipping away.

“Who are you talking to right now?” Perry hissed, grabbing my arm and digging his fingers into the soft flesh until I squealed in pain. “You don’t talk to me like that.”

His free hand swung forward, crashing into my cheek. Hot, searing pain burst across my face. My lower lip split, and a high-pitched whine began in my ear as I fell to the ground, clutching my cheek and gasping in pain.

Perry had always had a temper, but I never thought he was capable of violence. Not like this.

“Hey, asshole!” Ashton cried, lunging forward. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

Before I could do anything, my son’s fist swung forward, hitting Perry dead-on in the nose.

The strength and anger of a fourteen-year-old was usually nothing against the rage and belligerence of a burly forty-year-old man.

But Ashton wasn’t a human boy. He was a shifter and had just begun puberty.

His full strength hadn’t come in yet, but he was much stronger than any human kid his age.

His fist struck Perry right in the face, and the larger man rocked back on his heels, blood spurting from his nostrils onto his upper lip. He staggered back but kept his footing.

Perry rounded on Ashton, fire in his eyes. “Little shit! You touch me?” blood and spittle flew from his mouth. “Think you’re a big man, do ya? Huh? Come on, then. Hit me again, you prick.”

Then, without warning, he backhanded Ashton.

My son’s head snapped around, and an angry red welt formed almost immediately below his eye. Ashton stumbled backward, putting a hand to his face, and the anger in his eyes filled me with terror. If we didn’t get out of there, things would get much worse.

“Enough!” I scrambled to my feet and pulled Ashton back.

“No, Mom,” Ashton said, tears beginning to form in his own eyes. “This guy hit you. He can’t do that.”

“It’s fine, baby,” I said, tugging him toward the door, though it was anything but fine. “Let’s go.”

“Go on, then,” Perry said, waving at the door. “Get out. I don’t need you. Get the fuck out of my house, you stupid cunt. We’re done! You hear me?”

“Your house?” I asked, gaping at him in shock. “Last time I checked, it’s my name on the mortgage, not yours. But you know what?” I added with a sneer even as I tasted the blood on my lips. “You stay. I don’t want to spend another second here.”

Perry waved a hand at me. “Whatever, you dumb bitch.”

Ashton, growling, tried to go for him again, but I managed to hold him back. Barely.

I’d gotten him outside and back to the car, and we spent that night at a hotel. I didn’t sleep, though, and had lain in bed for hours, thinking of what I could do. At three in the morning, I’d snuck out of the room so as not to wake Ashton while I called an old friend.

Stormy Wallace, my best friend since childhood, had moved back to our hometown of Harbor Mills only a month prior, after her husband Marcus died.

I’d told her she was mad for going back to that little place, but she insisted that being away for so long had given her a newfound respect for the town.

It was late, but she answered on the third ring, her voice groggy and worried.

“Avery? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but all that came out were sobs. It took her almost five minutes to talk me down and get me calm enough to speak. When I told her what had happened, she didn’t hesitate.

“Come home,” she said. “You still own your grandmother’s house. It’s sitting there, waiting for you. I drive by it every day. You have a place to go. Come home. We’ll figure it out from there.”

The old house was still in my name. I’d planned to sell it and use the proceeds for Ashton’s college fund. Now? It was the only refuge I had in the shit storm that had become my life. I agreed with her and told Ashton what we were doing when he woke at the crack of dawn.

The expression on his face almost made my heart shatter more than finding Perry with someone else. Realization and understanding painted my son’s face. He’d be leaving everything behind—his friends, his basketball team, his school—if we moved to a little town in Georgia.

But my boy was more of a man than the person who’d almost become his stepfather. Instead of arguing, he nodded sadly. “Okay, Mom. Let’s go.”

I choked back tears as I hugged him, and then we headed back to the house.

Perry had left for work, and I already had seven texts and three missed calls from him.

Ashton and I packed a few bags, only what we could fit in the rental car I’d arranged to be delivered while we were there.

My car had been a gift from Perry nine months ago, so his name was on the title.

I didn’t want to go through the headache of him being a dick and possibly reporting it stolen.

It would be expensive to rent a car for a couple weeks, but better than dealing with the police.

I tossed my engagement ring in the toilet, then we left. Before we got into the car, I blocked Perry’s number. In less than twenty-four hours, my life had been turned completely upside down.

Now, here we were, on the worst road trip of our lives, heading toward a new and unplanned future. For his part, Ashton was making the best of it.

“Is Aunt Stormy gonna be there when we get there?” he asked as we took the exit for Harbor Mills.

She wasn’t his actual aunt, but it was what he’d called her since he was a baby, and Stormy and I loved hearing it.

“She’ll be at work, but she’s going to come by as soon as she can,” I said.

“Cool. I miss playing with Shiloh,” he said, then rested his head against the window.

Shiloh was Stormy’s one-year-old daughter.

My best friend had been through the wringer herself.

Her husband dying in a car crash six months after having a baby was possibly the most stressful thing she’d ever gone through.

It made my issue with Perry small by comparison.

She’d returned home to be near her mom, who wanted to help with the baby.