I move to turn over, but the tip of a boot strikes my middle and knocks the air from my lungs. I cradle my stomach, gasping, curling into a protective ball. Another blow lands on my thigh and I cry out.
The tempo of kicks comes faster. I can’t catch my breath. A booted foot hammers my back as though stomping out a fire. A final crack to the side of my head makes what’s left of the evening light wink out. For a second, I can’t see anything, not even shapes.
“That’s enough,” one of them says. “Let’s go.”
My body is patted down, the envelope with the two hundred dollars—the only cash I have—torn from my jacket pocket.
The men’s footfalls recede and fade. My head and the rest of my body intermittently burn and pulse in pain.
I allowed my mom to manipulate me. I borrowed money for her. That was my decision, and now these men are after me.
I’m no stargazing tree root with dreams of reaching the sky. I belong right where I am, in the dirt like the rest of my family.
I should have known I’d end up here.
Chapter Four
Tyler
I should have known Mira would cause trouble.
Goddamn. I stop pedaling my Diamondback and glance down the wooded mountainside to the obsidian lake reflecting the moonlight. What the hell am I doing out here?
I was at my sister’s place, where I’ve been crashing all summer, when I heard Mira had gone missing today. I didn’t realize it until I arrived in town, but my sister’s best friend Gen is dating Lewis, Mira’s best friend. Supposedly, Mira has been causing trouble for Lewis and Gen.
Mira is heartless. This is probably some ploy to get Lewis’s attention. Nothing has changed. I’m an idiot for biking out here, in the fucking black of night, to a secluded cabin, searching for the girl I said I’d never go near again.
I shouldn’t even know about this place, but as fate is a brutal bitch that enjoys batting me around, I happened to run into the one person in town I had every intention of avoiding. During a bike ride from hell, in which I attempted to exorcise my Colorado demons through physical torture, I managed to get into off-road terrain I probably would have thought twice about had I been in my right mind. I found a cabin, with Mira, of all people, sitting on the front stoop.
It was like a black omen.
I have no idea what Mira was doing out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s none of my business, but I decided to eliminate this location from the possibilities while the others search town. It would have been a challenge to direct anyone to this spot, and on the off chance she really is in trouble, someone should check it out.
I’ve run into Mira twice now since I returned home. The first time at this cabin a couple of weeks ago, the second time a few days later at a party I went to with my sister and her friends. Let’s just say, I didn’t stay long at that party. Before those two incidents, the last time I saw Mira was my final week of high school.
Mira never went to prom with Chad. In fact, I never noticed her with him again after that encounter in the hallway, and I never discovered who she was or wasn’t sleeping with. I didn’t want to know. I’d forgotten all of it, including how terrible I’d felt for weeks afterward. Until the day I ran into Mira in this forest. Then it all came rushing back.
I push off a boulder and grind the pedals, shifting to a lower gear over the thick, barely rideable underbrush. I’m roughly where I spotted Mira out here, give or take.
After a few minutes, I catch the silhouette of the cabin in the distance. I get off my bike and cross on foot.
Approaching the cabin, I cup my hand to the glass and peer inside a faintly illuminated window. Twin cots rest beside an empty fireplace. The place is nearly barren, but not uninhabited. A woman sits at a spindly table. She’s the same woman who craned her head out the front door as I passed by on my bike a couple of weeks ago, while Mira swallowed her surprise from the porch, her gaze wide and clinging to me.
A man sits at the table along with the woman. They’re huddled beneath blankets, playing cards by the light of a camping lantern. Beer cans litter the floor. And Mira is nowhere in sight.
She isn’t here. I’ve done what I could for my sister and her friends. It was a waste of time, but hey, I’d rather someone else find Mira anyway.
Just to be certain I haven’t missed anything, I walk around the cabin and glance inside another set of windows.
Nothing. And the place is too small to miss her. Mira is definitely not here, but where could she be? She rarely strays from Lewis’s side. Though from what Cali has said, all that’s changed now that Lewis is dating Gen.
Well, I’m not going to worry about it.
Not my problem.
I make it back to my bike and climb on, taking in the cold and dark around me. It’s the end of summer, and the night air has a nip to it. I press the side of my watch, lighting up the face to check the built-in compass. The return trip to my truck would go faster since it’s downhill, but the dark makes speed impossible without risking impalement on a low branch.
I ride blind, relying on my watch compass to get me southeast to the start of the road.
