PROLOGUE
ASHA
AGE SIX
“That kid is so weird. Look at him. He’s skinny and pale, and those eyes… He looks like a zombie,” Preacher says to Remy.
“What’s wrong, kid? You look like you’re going to be sick or something,” Remy chimes in.
I look over my shoulder from my spot on the swings to see him for myself. There, sitting atop the monkey bars, is the new kid, hunched over slightly, legs swinging, eyes on the dirt. They’re not wrong; he does look sick. It’s the end of summer in Kentucky, and we’re a bunch of country kids with endless creeks, farm ponds, and pastures to run through, yet he looks like today is his first day seeing the sun. His hair is almost as black as the coffee my father drinks every morning, and his dark eyes match the color of the chocolate chips Mom puts in my pancakes. His words might be mean, but what Preacher says is kinda true.The kid does look sick.
His pale skin does nothing for the circles under his eyes. He looks tired, like he hasn’t slept in days. He looks the way I look when I stay up too late on Christmas Eve.I quickly look back at the ground in front of me and shuffle my feet in the dirt so he doesn’t catch me staring.
“He’s probably stuck up there. If he jumped down, those twigs he has for arms might snap,” Preacher taunts some more, trying to get a rise out of the boy, but he keeps his eyes pinned down on the ground.
“If I looked like that, I wouldn’t be at school. My mom would take me to the doctor,” Remy says, not so much as a joke but a fact. However, it only eggs Preacher on.
“Yeah, well, your mom isn’t embarrassed by you. Could you imagine having a zombie for a son?” Preacher chuckles.
I flick my head over my shoulder once more, waiting to see if Preacher’s and Remy’s comments will earn them any type of response, but this time, when I look at the kid on top of the monkey bars, I see something different. He doesn’t look sick; he looks sad.
I hop off the swings and turn around.
“Leave him alone,” I say with my hands firmly planted on my hips.
“Asha, what are you doing?” my friend Gabby asks, bringing her swing to a stop. “Do you know him?”
I peer up at the monkey bars, and for the first time, the boy looks up, and his dark eyes lock on mine. My hands get clammy, and I clench my fists. When I hopped off this swing, it was to get the boys to back off, but I can’t be sure if the eyes staring back at me are grateful or annoyed. I suppose it doesn’t matter. My momma always taught me to be kind and to stick up for what’s right, even if it’s hard, and Preacher is being a jerk.
“No, but neither does Preacher,” I say.
“Go away, Asha,” Preacher dismisses me like he’s not scared of me, but he should be.
“Okay.” I shrug my shoulders and crack my knuckles. I didn’t think I needed to remind him about our little incident in pre-k, but I guess I do. “But you know I don’t like it when you pick on me.”
On my first day of pre-school, I sat in my chair and cried for the first hour of the day because I missed my mom. I hated being separated from her. Until that day, I’d been her mini-me, her shadow, and then she left me all alone with a bunch of snot-nosed kids. Preacher was one of the first kids to talk to me, except he wasn’t trying to make a friend. He asked me if I was crying because I missed my mom in the most whiny, irritating voice imaginable. To this day, I remember it so clearly. Bright-red hair and a face full of freckles, going out of his way to poke fun at someone who was sad. What I did next came without thought. I punched him square in the nose, and then I was no longer the only kid in class crying.
His face turns into a scowl. “Whatever, if you want to catch cooties…” He waves his hand toward the monkey bars. “Be my guest. It’s your funeral, Fairfield.”
I roll my eyes and put one foot in front of the other, stomping past him. He’s not going to turn this around on me with cooties.
“Asha, don’t do it,” Gabby pleads.
With one foot on the bottom rung of the bars, I grab the sides and turn to my friend. “I’m not going to catch cooties. We already got our shots…remember?” I say, eyes wide. Gabby puts her finger to her lips and looks at the ground like she has to think about it, but I don’t give her time to think it through before I reach the top and crawl the three bars it takes to reach him. “I’ll give him the shot, and then no one has to worry about him being sick.”
When I turn to the boy right in front of me, his forehead is all crunched, and his eyes look worried, like he's trying to figure out if I'm really gonna help him or if I'm gonna be scared and jump down now that I'm actually up here with him.
“Hi,” I say hurriedly, my nerves getting the best of me. “I’m Asha...Asha Fairfield.” I carefully settle into my spot beside him before asking, “What’s your name?”
For long seconds, he’s quiet, and for a moment I wonder if I made the wrong choice sticking my neck out to save a boy that didn’t want to be saved. But then he says, “Trigg.” My eyebrows rise slightly, surprised he gave me a response, and my journey up these bars wasn’t for nothing. He thins his lips, like he messed up and gave me the wrong answer, and then adds, “Trigger. My name is Trigger Hale.”
“Hale?” I ask, unable to keep my nose from crinkling. “As in Hale Ranch?”
“Yeah, you’ve heard of it?” he says somewhat timidly.
I look over toward Gabby. Of course I came up here and risked my own hide for the enemy.
Preacher’s amused glare catches my eyes as he moves to cross his arms. “Well, get on with it, then—unless you’re afraid to touch him.”
