PROLOGUE
SAM
The crunch of fractured bone under my fist feels really damn good. The squelch of bloody flesh is barely audible over the roar of approval from the onlookers. The crowd is already drunk, partly off of liquor they’ve been chugging from bottles wrapped in brown paper bags, but mostly from the high that always comes with placing a bet on something illegal, like a cage fight.
I jump back, ducking to miss the return swing from my opponent. Bruce is from out of town. He drove ten hours to fight me, and the odds were in his favor. He’s a disgraced pro wrestler, banned from the UFC for illegal strikes and failing a piss test for steroids.
In this ring, which is run by old cowboys with tobacco-stained teeth and nothing better to do, there are only two simple rules.
One, no dick shots.
And, two, no killing.
One guy did die a few years ago, but it wasn’t until six hours after the fight. He went home, fell asleep—still covered in blood—and never woke up. The autopsy revealed blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of death. The cops chased the trail for afew months, but they were somehow “motivated” to let it go cold and stop the search.
Star City is a small town in central Texas. It’s known for being a place where the rate of crimes solved is staggeringly low. There was a prison about five hours west of here, near Midland, Texas, back in the 1970s. They were severely understaffed due to the economic crisis going on nationwide, which led to a prison break. One of the biggest in Texas history. It’s rumored that many of the prisoners who weren’t caught settled in Star City, the first quiet town with minimal police presence and a nice lake.
I raise my forearm to wipe the sweat off my brow. I survey my opponent, whose chest is rising and falling rapidly. He’s big—too big. Steroids might make them stronger, but the added muscle slows them down.
I bounce around him, still full of energy and adrenaline. The lights of the abandoned high-school gym, powered by generators, illuminate the spatters of blood on the free throw line. He spits a streak of red to add to the puddle of mystery liquid.
I roll my neck to the side, loosening the tendons. My best friend, Duke, yells above the noise from the others from the sidelines.
“Go for the left uppercut, Seymour! His ear is bleeding!”
I see it now—a slow trickle on the left side. I don’t hesitate, lunging forward with all my strength, my left fist surging through and punching the left side of his face. He tries to block it, but I manage to get in two solid hits before he rolls away from me.
I exhale, the sinking weight of hopelessness starting to creep in as the fight ends.
My grandfather had a heart attack and passed away tonight. Physical pain is the only way I know how to cope with theemotional trauma of losing the man who saved my life and raised me from the age of seven.
Bruce grits his teeth and wipes a hand over the side of his face as he rises to his feet again, clearly feeling a renewed sense of determination to beat my ass. I flash him a grin.
He charges like a bull, running straight into my gut. I grunt as he picks me up and slams me back against the mat. Stars swim above me, blackness coating the edge of my vision as I slowly drift out of consciousness.
Maybe I won’t wake up. Maybe this nightmare will be my last.
1
DOLLY
This is what I get for trying to do something nice for my brother’s grouchy best friend. The flat tire, caused by a broken beer bottle in the driveway, has left my vintage butter-yellow Ford Bronco leaning to one side. I huff out an exhale, wiping the sweat from my brow.
“Damn you, inferior nearsighted eyeballs.”
I didn’t wear my glasses or contacts to bring Sam Seymour anI’m sorry your grandfather died and he was your only living relativecoffee cake. I can’t see without my glasses on, but my contacts make my eyes water. I’m prettier without them both.
I’ve had a ridiculously huge, tragically pathetic lifelong crush on Sam. It started the day we met. He looked at me with his lonely ocean blue eyes, reddish brown curls flopped over on his forehead, and I knew a little piece of my heart would always belong to Sam Seymour. He was skittish at first, until my older brother Duke asked him to skip rocks over the pond at Moonlight Ranch.
After that, they were nearly inseparable, and I was always trailing behind them like a shadow. Duke was annoyed by me, but Sam never seemed bothered.
When Duke told me Sam’s grandfather passed away, I decided to bake him my award-winning signature coffee cake. The award was from the county fair when I was fifteen, and I’ve never let my four older brothers forget it.
Not only do I want to offer my condolences and check up on him, I’ll jump on any excuse to see Sam when Duke isn’t around.
I open the passenger door to the old Bronco that belonged to my mother, extracting the still-warm dessert. I check my lip gloss in the side-view mirror, comb down a few flyaway dark hairs, and push my boobs up a little bit. They’re not huge, but they fill out my B-cup bra nicely. The pale pink corset baby-doll sundress makes them look perky.
I smile at myself in the mirror to check my teeth for any stray artifacts. I have to lean in close enough so that my vision focuses, noting that there’s nothing amiss and my lip gloss isn’t too obvious.
