CHAPTER 1
Penelope
My head pounds. My eye is swollen shut, and the copper tang of blood lingers on my lips.
This is it. No more. I have to get out.
I shift carefully, every move slow, afraid to wake him. His arm is draped over me, a chain I never agreed to, as if it could erase what he did last night. His words echo in my skull, slurred, pitiful, cruel:“I’m so sorry, baby. But why can’t you just do as I say? You made me lose my shit again.” Then he passed out, stinking of bourbon, leaving me caged beneath the weight of his body and his lies.
Mark seemed perfect at first. He brought me flowers every day, offered late-night study help, the kind of small attentions that made a girl who’d been invisible for years feel seen. Six months in, he asked me to move in with him. By then, I was twenty-one, and the thought of someone taking care of me was like water in a desert to a love-deprived girl like me. Of course, I said yes. At first, it felt like real love. He showered me with attention and compliments.
What began as small, loving gestures slowly twisted into something I couldn’t anticipate. The little things started to shift. The way his smile tightened when I forgot to do something, the sighs that followed small mistakes, the way his voice could cut sharper than a knife over something so trivial. I tried to keep up, to anticipate every need, to please him in every way I could. I juggled school projects, keeping our home spotless, convincing myself that if I just worked hard enough, if I just triedharder, I could keep him calm.
A burnt chicken, and his voice rose, sharp as a whip. Coffee spilled on the counter, and the mug sailed through the air, shattering against the wall. Laundry forgotten, and all our clothes were tossed across the floor as he slammed doors and pounded his fists on the walls. Each time, I braced myself, counting the seconds until the storm passed.
Then, after a year of living together and doing my best to keep him calm, he hit me. Hard. My head slammed against the floor, his hands wrapped around my throat, and everything went black for a while. I realized nothing would ever be enough to keep him calm.
After that first hit, I started planning. I learned his habits: when he passed out drunk on the couch, when the smallest noise would set him off, which doors creaked and which didn’t. I moved carefully, carrying only what I could, making no sound that might wake him. Each time I managed to slip by unnoticed, I felt a tiny spark of freedom, a small proof that I could survive outside the walls of this house, outside of the life he’d tried to trap me in.
Every coin he left lying around, every forgotten dollar lying on the table after he passed out drunk, I collected. A year later, I had one hundred and ninety-seven dollars and five cents. Not much, but it was mine, my first real stake in my own life, a fragile lifeline I could cling to when the walls of that house felt like they were closing in on me.
Yesterday, he hit me again. His fist smashed into my face. My head thudded against the wall. His hands closed around my throat, crushing, unforgiving, and he only stopped squeezing when I blacked out. I woke up sore and hurt on the floor, it hurt to breathe and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer.
Now, I creep downstairs, shaking. The jar of money hidden in the fridge feels heavy in my hands. I grab my camera bag, a hidden backpack with a few clothes, toothbrush, granola bars, and my documents. Everything I need to disappear. I take one last look at a house that never truly felt like mine and open the front door. I’ve just turned twenty-three, and this time, there’s no turning back.
The air smells like summer turning into autumn when I walk outside. It is mid September, and days are getting shorter. At five in the morning, it is still dark. I slide into my old, beat-up Honda and start the engine without turning the headlights on. I try to be as silent as possible.
Please don’t wake up.
My hands tremble on the wheel. Tears sting my eyes. I keep glancing in the rearview mirror while I drive down the street, half-expecting him to chase me. When the house finally disappears behind a turn, I exhale and flick on the headlights.
I don’t know where I’m going, only that Mark hates the south and anything country, so to me, south is freedom. My tank is full, and I’ll drive until it’s empty.
Five hours later, the gas gauge dips low. I spend almost half of what I’ve saved to fill the tank. Food and shelter can wait. Distance is all that matters right now.
Another five hours. Another gas station, and my money is almost gone. I nibble the granola bar I packed while I drive. At the next stop, I use my spare change for a coffee, then keep driving.
The farther I drive from Illinois, the lighter my chest feels. I open my car window, and my lungs fill with air, I feel like I haven’t breathed right in years.
“You can do this, Penny”, I whisper, nodding along to the music. Pop songs fade into country ballads, twangy voices singing about broken hearts. I start to believe I might… just might… survive this.
And then I hear a pop. My car starts to swivel on the road. I stop and get out.Of course, there it is: a flat tire.
I look up at the sky.“Hey! I know you don’t really like me… but I could use a little help here!” I exhale, shoulders slumping.
I walk over to the trunk to find my spare tire. There is none.Mark must have taken it out.“Bastard!” I kick the car’s tire and walk over to the front not wanting to see the damage anymore. I slide down, my butt on the cold pavement. The sun is starting to set, and I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere.
CHAPTER 2
Casper
“Would you stop doing that!” I yell, smacking my partner Chris on the shoulder. We’re in our patrol truck, parked off the highway, watching cars roll by. It’s Saturday, and Lord knows the young ones like to drink and drive after a football win.
“It’s a slurpy! You’re supposed to slurp it, Cas!”
I give Chris my best side-eye and choose not to go into this discussion. We’ve been working together for the last four years. I joined the department straight out of the police academy at twenty-two, and just a month ago, I became sheriff here in Lander at twenty-six. Now he’s my deputy.
I check the time on the dashboard and sigh.Another half hour, and I can finally go home to Max, my German shepherd.
