Prologue
After tugging the window open, I popped the screen that was too easy to move, having been popped out many times before. Damp night air had me instantly sweating. The slatted roof scraped against my shoes as I scooted along it to the tree limb that rested on part of it. Debris scattered to the ground once I shimmied onto the thickest branch of the old oak. The rough bark snagged at my clothes as I climbed down the tree to our damp grass.
As I ran across the perfectly manicured lawn, the trimmed grass squishing beneath my shoes, the moonlight kept me much too exposed. Getting across the entire estate would be a mission in stealth and caution if I wasn’t going to get caught. My heart pounded, my legs and lungs screaming in agony. If only I hadn’t been smoking to spite my parents, maybe done a few laps around our enormous pool every once in a while, I might have been in better shape. Might have been able to run across those few acres in much less time.
I finally got to the ten-foot-tall fence, as far away from the surveillance gate as possible. Climbing the wrought iron fence was only possible in the one spot because I had made it so many years before this night. The only reason my parents had never seen the pieces of rope tied to make lattice steps on the fence was because they didn’t keep the grounds. Our gardener always overlooked them, or at least pretended he didn’t see them. I never knew why, but it could have been that he knew how stuffy my life was, how suffocated I was, and thought I needed a bit of freedom from the estate.
I thumped to the ground on the other side of the fence, steadying myself just before I toppled over. The familiar damp, mucky scent of the creek hit me right before I got to it. My pace didn’t slow even after I ran over the worn log that was my bridge to get across the creek, which was still part of our property, only outside the fence. Then I was off for the highway, leaving the luxurious plantation behind me.
No more would I follow their rules. No more would I dress up for Mother’s popularity contests. No more would I allow them to decide my fate.
My fate would be my own.
Delia was parked at the edge of our property in her Volvo station wagon, just as she had promised. The Rankins’ “Movin’ On” assaulted my eardrums when I opened the door. My heart squeezed in my chest, tears pricking at my eyes, but I shoved all fear away when I climbed in that front seat. Delia held a lit cigarette out toward me the second I shut the door.
“Ready, sha?” she asked as I took a long drag of that Joe, nerves and excitement thrumming through my veins.
“Damn right, I’m ready!”
We screamed in excitement when she squealed away from my life trap. “I got an entire album made up for this getaway.” She waggled her dark brows at me, her springy brown hair bouncing as she wiggled to the beat of the song.
We danced and sang, even while tension grew in my chest as the state border came closer and closer. Since this had been planned for weeks, all my things were in the back of the. I had slowly moved anything I knew my mother wouldn’t notice—and the housekeepers wouldn’t mention to her—into Delia’s car. Now we were heading for that state line like a runaway train, and there was no turning back.
At least not for me. Delia had to go back. But her family was easier to live with, easier to love. If I didn’t know my mother would go straight to their house the second she realized I was missing, I would have run away to Delia’s family. But that was exactly where she would go first. The plan wouldn’t work if Delia were missing, too. My mother would destroy her family to get me back, and I couldn’t allow that. Not like I had allowed all the other things she’d done. No matter how badly I wanted to take my best friend, my soul sister, on this journey with me, I couldn’t.
The second her car went over that line into Mississippi, I felt like I could finally breathe.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I whispered, tears trailing down my cheeks.
“You’re freeee, Chloe,” Delia wailed at the top of her lungs before we joined The Dixie Chicks in their chorus of “Wide Open Spaces.”
1
Kate
David pushed me up against the wall of the hallway—at least I think his name was David. The music pulsed through the bar, every person dancing, drinking, not a care in the world. Lights flashed, making David's eyes glint as he tried fishing a hand up my top. He wasn’t even attempting to make it to the bathroom before we had our fun.
But that was where I drew the line. I had lots of sex with plenty of guys. This here was just another guy, another face in a sea of faces I was now not only using to forget my past but to forget a certain soldier who had wiggled his way into my life through his sister.
No matter what I was trying to forget, I was never up for doing it in front of a crowd. Though I was determined to go through with it this time. Because every time I had tried since that one afternoon after Thanksgiving eight weeks back, I couldn’t let it go anywhere. Said brute was messing with all my plans and control, and he didn’t even know it.
The humidity in the air made David’s dark hair curl around his ears, which meant mine was probably a frizzy joke. His beard scratched my face when he smashed his mouth to mine. He was a bit rougher than I usually liked, his hand still inching its way up, grazing the wire of my bra.
My head spun. Sweat built up on the nape of my neck, and my hands that clung to his belt began to tingle. When he shoved his tongue into my mouth, I about choked on it, gagging. It was hot, much, much too hot. His hand made a lazy stroke there at the bottom of my bra, but the touch only aggravated my skin.
I jerked back, my head smacking the wall. I shoved against his chest, batting his hand away from my breast. His eyes shifted back and forth, a smirk playing at his lips. “What is it, doll?” he rasped, the scent of booze shoving its way up my nostrils.
The hallway spun. He spun. Everything spun. What the hell is wrong with me? “Don’t call me doll,” I snarled. Or slurred. Same thing.
I gave him another shove when he didn’t move.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked the question that was playing through my mind. But I couldn’t think.
“Out,” I gasped when my stomach rolled. “I need air.” I pushed past him, scrambling through the crowd to get to the exit.
When I burst through the door, the thick air did little to ease my nausea, this hot flash. There was no way I had drank so much that I was getting sick. I was so careful, only had a few shots. My hands went to my knees. Hunched over, I breathed deeply.
Hot hands gripped my shoulders. “Drink too much?” David asked, sounding rather disappointed.
I stood so quickly, jerking away from his grasp, that everything spun again. Then I heaved, vomiting all over his boots.
“Shit!” he exclaimed, staggering backward.
Rancid tequila burned my throat, probably ruining my choice of drink for a while. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “I need a cab” was all I said before stumbling away from him.
He must have been one of the more decent men I had ever been with, since he walked me to the curb without griping at all about the vomit on his boots. He even called me a cab and waited with me until the car got there, making sure I was in and on my way to the apartment.