Prologue
Anna
My moon is broken.
There are no quarters.
No crescents...
There’s an ugly, formless shape where a perfect circle used to be.
When I was a little girl, monsters came awake at night, breathing life into the dark corners of my bedroom. My mom would stroke my head and whisper sweet words before opening up my curtains and pointing to the sky.
“Anytime you feel scared, honey, look for the moon,” she’d say, her voice as soft as cashmere. A decade later, the disease would take a hold of her vocal cords, scratching its six-letter name into her flawless .45, but back then it was still open arms and chocolate shakes. “The moon will take care of you, Anna. She’ll guide you to the safe and warm.”
I held that belief close to me, and then I held it to ransom the night I was taken from my apartment, six months ago, and thrown into hell; the night my world tipped upside down and shook me out, along with all my loose hopes and dreams.
The place where I was held captive didn't have windows. My hands couldn’t pray for mercy while held down to a dirty mattress…and the monsters? They turned out to be real and so much scarier than my childish mind could ever have imagined.
Moon.
Pieces.
Less than pieces... Dust and matter.
I don’t know how to fix me.
I don’t know how to fix me.
Every night since, I’ve lain awake watching a fraud burn bright and silver in the sky. It can’t control the tides of my life. As such, my breakers have grown rough and unpredictable.
Then there’s him.
The one who rescued me.
Joseph Grayson.
A soldier.
A killer.
The red right hand to the devil himself. The man who holds his secrets in his chilly gray-blue eyes, as if they’ve been frozen solid into place and nothing can defrost them.
I was just another job to him. But when he busted me from my cage, something shook and jolted between us. There was a touch. Words. A promise I can't recall, because I make it my business not to remember much of anything anymore. I know we set fire to a supposition, though. I felt it in the deep, deep places of my soul. We fused together in the flames, and now neither one of us can look away.
That night I became another of his secrets: The broken woman who can’t be touched, whom he refuses to set free. I fight destiny, but at the same time I welcome it in like a stray dog with a vicious bite. I have a sneaking suspicion I’d be even more lost without it.
We’re not friends.
We’re not lovers.
He keeps me out of the worst kinds of trouble as I make an even bigger mess of my life—drifting in and out of various rehab centers and hunting for my moon.
But my white knight rides a black horse with bloody scars and rent colors, and there’s a sheet of glass separating the damage running deep in both of our souls.
We were destined to dance in the dark forever until my world tilted for a second time, dragging my shadow into my sun.
1
Joseph
Past
“The winds of change are coming, Joe. You hear me, brother? They’re blowing through Texas like a twister, and we’re gonna be riding it straight outta this dumb fuck town together.”
Cash is sprawled out on the bale next to me, chewing on a piece of straw. He’s staring out of the open barn doors with that look on his face again, as if our one-way ticket is already blowing up the dirt road, rattling the broken white fences out by the haystack, scattering Ma’s stupid-ass chickens, and covering her rusty pickup in a thick layer of dust.
He says stuff like this all the time, but I figured out long ago that his words are a battle cry for a war that never comes.
Today is different.
Today, the air feels heavy and wet. It’s dripping down my bare arms like melted wax. Like that time in Sunday service when I sat too close to Preacher John’s prayer candle and it poured hellfire onto my skin.
Sitting up suddenly, Cash swaps the straw for a crumpled Marlboro from the top pocket of his blue flannel. He lights it with a steady hand, looking like a sixteen-year-old John Wayne, but way cooler—with an angry expression and impatient eyes that never stop searching for a way out. Pa would smack the colors outta him if he caught him smoking his cigarettes again, but Pa ain’t around right now. It’s payday, so Pa’s at the bar until closing time.
Ma calls Cash her restless boy. She’s always telling him to stop chasing after a peace he’ll never find. Pa calls him a stupid son-of-a-bitch, and tries to beat the discontent out of him every chance he gets.
I call him lucky.
Lucky that he can see an escape, where all I see are those same broken white fences closing in on me.
We all suffer Pa’s temper, but Ma takes the most of it. If Cash ever makes it past the mailbox at the end of the driveway, it’s gonna be up to me to put myself between her and Pa’s fists. I ain’t going with Cash, no matter what he says, and that certainty cuts me to the core. I made that promise to myself the night Pa broke Ma’s jaw. I ain’t leaving behind something I can’t make right. And I will make it right... Someday I’m gonna be big enough to break his jaw right back. Someday I’m gonna be big enough to buy happiness the old-fashioned way—with blood on my knuckles and a smile on my face.
Cash is stone silent as he takes drag after drag, flicking ash at the ground like he’s spittin’ on someone’s grave. He’s got more of that faraway look in his eyes, and I’m guessing he’s reflecting on that choice I’ll never make. Leaving Ma doesn’t tear him up on the inside like it does to me, but something’s keeping him tied here. Not that he’ll ever share... Cash has a river of secrets running through his veins that start and end with freedom.
“You gotta ride those damn twisters every chance you get,” I hear him muttering.
“But how d’ya know they’re the good ones, Cash?” I ask him. It’s best to humor my brother when he’s like this. “How d’ya know they're not just gonna tear up the ground and shit?”
“You just do… Listen, don’t sweat it, you’re a smart kid, Shadow.” He says it like there’s forty years separating us, not four. “You’ll figure it out.”
Am I? Will I? I watch him grind his smoke into the loose straw. Shadow’s been his nickname for me for as long as I can remember. It's kinda funny 'cos I’ll be what’s left when his shine goes away.
“I’m good for nothing,” I say, dropping my gaze to the tin soldier in my hand. “Least that’s what Pa’s always telling me.”
“Yeah, well, Pa’s full of shit. Why d’ya wanna listen to that drunk old fart for?”
I tense so hard that my shoulders start aching. There’s a note of red in his voice.
More wax drips.
Now I want a twister to come. I want it to sweep everything we hate and fear about Shitsville, Texas, into the next state. I’m done being afraid all the time—afraid of what Pa’s fists are gonna do to us next, of Cash’s looks, of Ma’s hopelessness. My heart feels sore and angry from the minute I wake up until the lights go out again. Every emotion my twelve-year-old mouth can't express gets shoved inside it. I’ve always been short on words, but I feel everything. It’s a constant drip. It’s a faucet that never shuts off.