College is right around the corner. The knowledge blankets my skin and sinks deep, curling into the marrow of my bones. It causes an ever-present, almost jittery sense of excitement. A hum at my breastbone that sets me alight.
College is around the corner, and I’m holding the response letters from my universities of choice. I’ve only just fished them out of the mailbox, and I’m so distracted by weighing the letters—trying to determine whether they’re acceptances or rejections before I get to opening them—that I don’t notice the things that areoffabout the outside of my home.
The couch on the porch has been overturned. There’s a strange SUV idling on the dirt road right in front of it. The front door is ajar.
In the back of my mind, I chalk these irregularities up to my father coming home drunk, and forgetting to lock up,again.
Dad isn’t a bad person. He isn’t cruel, abusive, or unloving… his only flaw is that he loves the poker table more than he loves me. I know he has a deep affection for me, he took care of me all alone even after Mom left… but her loss left him with a hole in his chest. One that I couldn’t fill; one that could only be filled by hitting the tables. It’s tragic, but it’s true, and it’s the reality I’ve come to accept and find peace with.
When I toe open the front door, I don’t look up from the letters clutched in my hand.Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, UPenn… and that constitutes my second mistake of the day. One I pay for quite dearly when I feel something cold press against the back of my neck, followed by a chilling presence at my back.
My lips part, but no sound escapes. The letters slip from my fingers and fan out over the floor, scattering while my heart claws at my ribcage, hard, loud, and fast. I’m too frozen to move my head, so my eyes dart around the room, frantic and wide, trying to make sense of the living room… and the sight that punches a permanent hole through my chest.
My father is in the middle of the room, tied to one of our kitchen chairs by his arms and legs. His face is so bloodied he’s barely recognizable. One eye is swollen shut; his lip is split and glossy with fresh blood. He’s been beaten to a pulp, and from the shallow, rattling rise and fall of his chest, it looks like he’s barely clinging to life.
My stomach heaves. I want to run to him, but I can’t even twitch.
At first, my mind latches onto the most normal nightmare it can conjure. This must be a home invasion, or a robbery, Something random that has nothing to do with us.
But there’s nothing here worth stealing. Dad and I live on the property of the wealthy family he works for—the employers should be the target of a robbery, not us.
Then, clarity strikes as my eyes land on the figure of a man sitting on our raggedy, beaten-down sofa. He wears a dark suit more expensive than my tuition. His posture is casual, regal, yet predatory. His hair is platinum blonde. His eyes, startlingly empty, are colored a muddy, innocuous brown. His cheekbones are high, his full lips are curled intoa sneer, and he carries an air of menace that thickens the atmosphere around him, making it teem with uncertainty.
“Ah,” the strange man says, eyes falling to me. He gives me a short, relatively uninterested up and down. “You must be the daughter.”
I’m frozen in place, stunned with shock and fear. Nausea threatens to take over, and I feel the peanut butter toast I had for lunch churning around in my stomach. A fine sheen of sweat gathers on the back of my neck, and goosebumps break out over my skin.
I’ve been in many strange situations throughout the duration of my life, but they haveneverbeen anything likethis. Anything this lethal, this skin-crawlingly terrifying. I feel like the ground is about to drop out from beneath my feet. I don’t know what’s happening, but I have a vague sense that it has something to do with my father insisting that I need to apply for scholarships. With the late nights and the phone calls I hear him occasionally take, where he whisper-shouts at someone on the other end of the line.
“Ember.” Dad’s voice is roughened with pain and panic. “Get out of here. Go to—”
“Not so fast,” the man says. He waves his hand, indicating for me to move closer, and the cold pressing against the back of my neck—a knife?—increases in pressure, forcing me to stumble forward. I feel all the blood drain out of my face as I hear theclickof a gun cocking, and I realize it’s not a knife.
There’s a gun pointed at the back of my head.
Whoever the man on the couch is, he’s a criminal, and a powerful one. He reeks of wealth and cruelty, and he’shere. In my home. Next to my barely-alive father.
“Ember, was it?” the man says, giving me a more careful up and down. He looks to be somewhere in his early thirties, but his eyes tella tale of ageless cruelty. He reaches into his suit pocket, and I gasp, half-expecting him to pull out a gun.
Instead, he pulls out a cigarette case and an ornate lighter. His eyes don’t move from me as he opens the case, withdraws a cigarette, and pops it between his lips, lighting it up. He inhales a deep drag and releases a plume of smoke, pinching the butt of his cancer-stick between two fingers.
“I asked you a question,” the man prompts, sounding vaguely amused.
A blinding blow lands on the back of my neck, jarring my entire body, and sending pain blaring through my head like a thousand alarms and shooting down my spine. I let out a cry, dropping to my knees.
“Enough, Bradley,” the man says dismissively. “The child’s no threat.”
“I’m not a child.” I don’t know why I say the words, why I use my voiceat all, but the correction is instinctual. I may be short and limber, but I’m no longer a kid—I’ve had to be my own parent and a reliable adult for several years now.
“Is that so?” the man asks, sounding vaguely bored. “Well,girl, since you’re no child, let me tell you a grown-up story.” He leans forward, eyes locking on my own, and something in my soul shrivels under the weight of his stare. “Your dearest daddy has spent all of his money and most of his time at my casinos, instead of giving both assets to you—as any decent parent ought to.” The man throws a disgusted sneer at my father. “In fact, he’s spent money hedoesn’thave, taking on quite a debt. A debt that he’s used your college fund to repay—and still, he came up short by half a million.”
My lips part. Half a million is an obscene amount of money. I can’t even imagine having that much… and Dad spent it without having it? How could he beso stupid?
My college fund… if I don’t get a full-ride somewhere, then I’m screwed. I’ll be stuck going to a community college and working two jobs to put myself through it.
That is, if I don’t die here today. Which seems an increasing likelihood.
“So, let’s test that grown-up brain of yours,” the man says. “I need to recover the 500k your father owes me. Having people indebted to me just doesn’t sit well.” He takes another puff of his cigarette and blows it right into my face, chuckling when I grimace. “I could, of course, kill him. But then, Istillwouldn’t have my money, and my only means of recovering it would be you.” He stares hard at me. “Would you happen to have five hundred thousand dollars lying around somewhere?”
