“You can do this, Sierra,” I murmured as I turned around with the intention of walking back up the hill.
A twig snapped behind me, and I spun around. “Hayden, I told you?—”
“You.” His voice—one I’d heard piercing through my nightmares the past five years—dripped with vitriol. He looked different, as though his time in prison had aged him. I wouldn’t have recognized him if I hadn’t heard his voice.
I couldn’t move. It was like my feet were frozen to the ground, my muscles completely devoid of any feeling. Pins and needles pricked my fingers and toes as he stepped toward me.
“This is new.” He reached out to grab a strand of my hair, letting it slide through his fingers before it fell back over my shoulder. “But still, there’s no mistaking it. You look just like your mother, Sierra.”
“What do you want?” I backed up slowly, as if the man in front of me was a wild animal and not my father. “Why are you here?”
Maybe if I stalled long enough, Hayden would catch up to us. He had to have been coming after me, right? He was too stubborn to actually let me go.
“I’m here because you ruined my life! I spent five years in prison because of you and your sad excuse for a mother. Five years in that hellhole because you were tooweak.” He spat out the words like they were poison on his tongue. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but you didn’t listen to my warnings. Youneverlisten, do you?” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a revolver, the metal glinting under the street lamps as he flipped it in his hand. “You should have quit in August when I set your trailer on fire.”
My eyes widened, images of the incidents that had occurred over the last few months flashing before my eyes.
The trailer fire. Pancho. The fear that I’d lost him to the smoke gripping my heart like claws.
The cut strap on my saddle. Thinking it was Michaela trying to sabotage me.
The nail in the tire of my pickup.
The lingering smell of cigarette smoke and the sensation that I was being watched.
Thebrickthat he threwinto Hayden’s window.
Broken glass shattered on the floor, blood dripping down my hand. White, searing pain jolting through my face.
“How did you…”
“You’re all over social media. I figured it would be harder and you’d be more careful, but it was so easy to track you down. You ruined my life. I had dreams! Goals! And now…” He laughed, the sound sinister and grating in my ears. “Now, it’s only fair that I make sure yours never become a reality. We can make this easy, or we can do it the hard way.”
He cocked the gun, a wicked grin spreading across his features.
“Go to hell,” I hissed, against my better judgment. I should have stayed calm. Letting my emotions get the best of me would put me in a compromising position. I knew that. Getting mad at him would only provoke him.
He sighed as though he was disappointed in my response. This was the first time he almost seemed fatherly. But the sentiment vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I see.” Taking a few steps closer to me, he raised the hand holding the gun. “The hard way it is.”
Before I could react or run, a hard metal object came crashing down onto my temple and the entire world went black.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
sierra
MAY, SENIOR YEAR
Graduation was only a couple days away.
All I had to do was survive the next couple days, walk across the stage to get my diploma, and then I was done. Free. I was one step closer to finally getting out of this shithole and leaving the past, and all the pain it caused, behind me.
I had a little bit more pep in my step as I came home from school, tossing my backpack on the couch without thinking too much of it. I had nothing to hide.
I ran upstairs and threw on some more comfortable clothes—leggings and a tank top. I planned to go over to Hayden’s house anyway for dinner under the guise that I was going to work. It had worked for me the past few years; I didn’t see why I would ever stop.
As I pulled my hair back into a braid, the front door slammed shut. I could hear my father’s heavy steps across the hardwood from upstairs, but I took a deep breath. I wasn’t going to let him ruin my last week of high school. I was so fucking close to freedom, I could practically taste it.
A nervous ball of energy settled in my stomach, but Ipushed it aside. I would go downstairs and grab my backpack to take up to my room, do my homework, and then I’d leave.
