Rhys and Blair are next, and I hope you’re ready because their story is messed up and twisted. There may not be a more broken character than Rhys.
I’m ready, and I hope you all are too!
Thank you so much, girls of the Class of ‘05 that are reading my books now! Amanda, Sara, Amber, Nicole, Jeanna: you all are amazing, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you support me.
Thank you so much, Jeanna, for being so strong and always being there. Thank you so much to Ari, Elle, and Emma for keeping me going. For forcing me to finish this damn book even when I didn’t want to.
And Ari, thank you for not letting that bitch Corona take you down. You’re amazing, and I would have been so pissed if it had!
I love you three more than words can ever say, but I don’t want to get too gross.
Thank you, Dena, Veronique, and Elizabeth, for making my books beautiful and legible.
A big ole thank you to my girls and Bryant for putting up with me being tired and cranky so I could complete the summer of Sterlings.
And finally, to my readers and the Novelties, you all are amazing! Thank you for always making me feel like a superstar.
Now if you haven’t met Logan and Quinn, please flip to the next page and enjoy a little taste of them. Then go grab them on Amazon and get to know them before Rhys’s book!
Sample of Redemption by Nicole Dykes
LOGAN
Thirteen years old
What the hell was that?
I jump up from my twin mattress tucked away in the dining room of the one-bedroom, rundown, raggedy-ass apartment my mom is renting. She is currently “entertaining” a guest in the only bedroom, but at least there’s a closed door between us. I’ll take it.
I rip the earbuds from my ears that I’m using to block out the godawful sounds coming from my mom’s room and listen for what I thought I heard.
I look out the window, yellowed from age and the elements, and jump back when I see a small hand grasp the top rung of the fire escape. I sigh a breath of relief when my best friend, Quinn’s, face appears next until I notice the state of her beautiful features.
Not again.
I slide the window up, letting her climb in like she’s done so many times before. It’s bitterly cold out, and Quinn is clad only in a ratty, old hoodie she’s pulled over her long blonde hair and a pair of ripped jeans.
“Quinn.” I close the window and stand in front of her, waiting for her sapphire eyes to meet mine. This is nothing new.
I’ve known Quinn since I was four and wound up in a temporary foster home after my mom was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer for a blowjob in exchange for her choice of drug, meth with a hint of danger.
Good ole’ mom.
I was only in foster care for a few days that time, for as long as it took my mom to wiggle her way out on a technicality. But in the short time I was there, a bond was made with Quinn that I’m sure can never be broken.
She offered me her Goldfish crackers when she noticed me sitting alone in the corner, skinny and shivering with fear, crying to go home. Her big, blue eyes were the first thing I saw as her little face poked into my space, and then she held the small pouch of crackers out and told me, and I quote, “Toughen up, Buttercup.” And that was it. I wiped my pathetic tears, straightened my back and acted like she was crazy before taking some of the crackers to satisfy my growling stomach.
Quinn, it turned out, had been in foster care since she was two, when her junkie mother overdosed, and Quinn became a ward of the state of Kansas. She was in the temporary foster home because she set off a couple of fire alarms in a store and ran away from her last foster mom, and they needed a place to stash her until they could find a place for the little hell-raiser.
After that, she and I couldn’t escape one another. On my first day of kindergarten, the little girl in pigtails sitting at the desk next to mine was none other than the Goldfish-eating, devilish angel herself, Quinn Foster.
Ironic last name, right? It was destiny. This girl was set up to live her life in the system. And after that, our paths have been nearly identical, along with Rhys and Sean, two other lifers we met along the way.
All of us had the same thing in common, shitty parents who couldn’t care less about us or more about getting high.
Quinn’s chin tilts up and her eyes meet mine, confirming what I thought I’d seen when she was climbing up the fire escape. Her right eye is swollen and watery, the impact from a fist more than evident.
“I’ll kill him.”
She shakes her head sadly, not saying a word. Not having to. We’ve been through this so many times.
Her foster father is a mean drunk. Well, he’s a mean sober person, but he unleashes holy hell when he’s had a few. And his target is always Quinn.
She walks to my mattress, scooting to the corner and leaning back against the hard wall, lifting one of my earbuds and placing it in her ear, listening to my playlist before tossing it back down. “I need to teach you what real music is.”
Quinn loves the classics and doesn’t have much tolerance for newer music of any kind. I lay down on the bed, my head next to her legs that are pulled up to her chest as I look up at the dingy ceiling. “School me, oh wise one.”
I grab the old, battered acoustic guitar next to my bed and hand it to her. It was a gift from me, Sean, and Rhys for her thirteenth birthday, and we may have obtained it in a not so legal way. Okay, a totally illegal, risky, stupid way, but we’re street kids, right? Who among us doesn’t have one or two shoplifting escapades under their belt?
Besides the owner of that pawn shop has been ripping people off for decades, and this guitar belongs to Quinn. The asshole was going to throw it out until he realized Quinn wanted it and then tried to charge her two hundred dollars for it.
Fuck him.
The strings were busted, and the body was cracked, but Sean is really handy with that kind of stuff. He’s a savant in fixing and tuning instruments. His grandmother taught him before she died, and for whatever reason, it stuck with him.
Not the best skill to have when you literally come from nothing, but in this case, it came in handy.
She loves this guitar and keeps it here with me because she knows I’ll protect it with my life. We all know to keep as little with us as we can when we go into the system because the chances of coming out with any of it are slim.
Quinn strums the strings with fingers that are still blue from being out in the cold winter night. She stops, shaking her fingers in front of her. “Too cold. My fingers won’t work when they’re freezing.”
It’s not much warmer in the apartment than it is outside. Getting high is a hell of a lot more important to my mother than paying the gas bill. I sit up and take Quinn’s small soft hands in mine, cupping them and pulling them to my mouth. Her eyebrow quirks up, but she doesn’t pull away as I blow hot air between my hands that are encompassing hers.
I lift my eyes, meeting hers. A strange expression is playing on her pretty face that I can’t decipher as our gazes lock while my breath warms her icy hands. “Better?” My voice is low and husky.
She nods her head, but still doesn’t pull away. “Thank you.”
I pull back from the weird trance I was in with my best friend and slowly release her before lying back down.