I cocked my head and fought the urge to roll my eyes.
“How long will it take you to pack your shit up?”
I shrugged.
“Will it fit in the car?”
I nodded.
“Will that POS get us to California?”
I nodded.
Rule’s grin was slow and sly, and there was a twinkle in his eyes when he downed what was left of his beer and got to his feet.
“What do you say we get on with the rest of our lives?”
He didn’t have to tell me twice.
* * *
Laikyn Quinn
Six years ago…
“I’m on my way, Monica. I’m leaving the house right now.”
“You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” my mother insisted, her tone shrill.
That was Monica Quinn, the queen of melodrama.
“No. I’m supposed to be there an hour from now. But you got your way, like always. I’m on my way.”
“Don’t talk back to me, young lady. Hurry up.”
“Be there in twenty minutes.”
That was the last thing I remembered as I came to, lying on the hard, cold ground. I grabbed for my dress to drag it over my legs but fumbled around and felt nothing.
Nothing but bone-penetrating cold.
Nothing but icy concrete.
Nothing but skin.
In a panic, still curled up on the floor, my hands shifted over every inch of my body from my neck to my toes. A sob tore free from my constricted chest when I realized I was naked.
What happened? Where the hell am I?
A loud noise drew my head up fast, my eyes searching the near pitch blackness for the source. I pressed one hand to the frigid stone floor and pushed myself up to a sitting position, but I didn’t get further than that. My arms felt like they were weighed down. My head throbbed. Nausea blazed a righteous path through me when I peered around, trying desperately to penetrate the darkness for something to ground me.
“Wakey, wakey, princess!” The voice echoed in the space.
The only light came from a sliver underneath a doorway at the top of the stairs. The golden glow didn’t reach far enough to show anything except a sea of blackness beneath.
The sound came again—like a steel pipe being banged against metal—serenaded by whistling. The reverberation was as deafening as the initial strike, growing louder by the second.
“About fucking time. Thought you was dead.”
