Prologue
The rain falls in torrents, sheets of it coming down so heavy and thunderous, the sound is an echo through the woods behind me. Mud covers my sneakers, and what’s remaining of my clothes sticks to my skin, but despite the rain and the howling wind that rattles the trees around me, the fire still blazes.
It hisses where the water touches but roars louder every passing second, as if angered. I don’t feel the pain in my body, but I do smell it, where my skin is burned, my hair singed. My clothes are barely holding on, but all I can do is watch.
Someone is holding me, but I don’t know who, someone else is crying but all I see is the flames as they devour everything, including the car and my brother inside.
I tried.
I tried so fucking hard to get him out, but I couldn’t. His screams are still ringing inside my ears, the cries of agony and fear working their way through my body, tearing apart my very soul.
I feel it physically breaking, shattering into thousands of tiny pieces.
He was the only family I had left; he was my best fucking friend and now he’s dead.
Burned alive.
Sirens wail in the background but it’s too late now.
He’s gone and someone is going to need to pay.
Chapter One
9 months later…
The wind whips through my hair, pulling at the ribbon tied around my ponytail as music blares through the speakers inside the car. It’s early evening but the air is still warm, the sky a beautiful bright blue, not a cloud to be seen.
I laugh when Zara, my best friend, hits the gas hard the moment we’re out of the streets we call home. There’s a sense of freedom when we cross that invisible line, like the rules that bind us so strictly no longer exist when we are on this side of the tracks.
There are no watching eyes or disappointed glares, we’re free in a way we can never be when we’re in the cages we call home.
It gets tiring pretending to be perfect all the time.
As the town mayor’s daughter, there are expectations of me, I should be good all the time, presentable, polite, I should smile, and nod and only talk when I am spoken to. I can do no wrong, according to them anyway, and I understand that myparents have an image to uphold, but at twenty-one, with no real experiences under my belt, I wonder how I’m supposed to truly live.
Zara understands, at least some, but she’s far more rebellious than I have ever been.
Not tonight though, tonight I want to live a little.
I’m tired of being locked behind gilded bars. My brother has all the freedom while I’m left to rot at dinner parties and social events.
Music blasts through the car, joined by the wind roaring passed our heads as we take the country roads toward the edges of town. I can already see the carnival on the horizon, these huge pop-up tents and fairground rides that stretch toward the sky, surrounded by trees and open space.
I don’t come out here all that often but when I do, I take it all in like it’s my first time. I may live in a small town, but the divide between the two halves is obvious.
Zara pulls the car into the parking lot which happens to just be a field, and despite all the dry weather we’ve had, the ground has been tore up by all the traffic, causing mud to squelch beneath the tires.
“I’m regretting my choice of shoes,” She winces as she looks down at her white sneakers.
I scoff and cringe at myself since I’m in a pair of sandals. “Same.”
She grins at me, “You ready for this!?” Her brows wiggle as she looks from me to the carnival across the way. Lights flash and blink on the rides, but they’re dulled with the sun, I can only imagine what it’ll look like when night falls.
We don’t have things like this where we are from, it’s deemed far too beneath us to have any kind of fun that isn’t dinner parties or galas, as if living a little is a crime.
Appearances are all that matters.
I glance toward the carnival, apprehension sinking in, “You think they’ll know?”
