continued to grow and flourish even after their temporary break.

Maybe they were strong enough to take control of their lives

again, revive themselves from their approaching death, force

themselves to start breathing again…” Kayden stops reading and

looks up at me with an undecipherable look.

I take my journal from his hands and cuddle it against my

chest. “I know it’s not really a story, just my thoughts. But it’s all I can come up with at the moment.”

He nods and doesn’t say a word. He drapes an arm around

my shoulder and steers me with him as he lies down on my bed

and rests his head on my pillow. I nuzzle my face against his chest,

breathing in the scent of him as I hug my notebook. I listen to his

heart in his chest and shut my eyes and inhale and exhale with the

sound of it.

“Callie,” he says after a long stretch of silence has gone by.

I inch my face closer to him and place a kiss on his chest.

“Yeah.”

“I think the leaves made it back to the trees.”

Epilogue

Three Weeks Later…

Kayden

Virginia is a pretty nice place, green, with lots of trees and

wildlife roaming around. It’s a little warmer than in Wyoming. At

least from what I can tell. I’ve only been here for about an hour

and most of the time I was stuck in the airport. I flew out alone,

even though Callie wanted to come with me. As much as I wanted

her to, I didn’t need to disrupt her life and her progress. “I’m only going out for a week,” I told her. “And I think it might be

something I need to do alone.” She seemed a little hurt, but she

understood and let me go without any more discussion of it.

After a very strange, somewhat awkward reunion with my

brother at baggage claim, we got in his midsize SUV and headed

out to the freeway. He looks a lot like me, only older with thinning

hair and fewer scars on his face. He’s dressed in slacks and a polo

shirt and the inside of his car smells like fast-food.

We keep the conversation light for about the first ten

minutes, talking about school and his family, and then suddenly I

have to know.

“Why didn’t you ever call?” I ask, holding onto the handle of

the door for support.

He looks at me with the same green eyes as mine. “I tried to,

but mom and dad changed the number when I left. And then when

I did get it, they would never answer and if they did they would

hang up. I wanted to get ahold of you after you moved out… but I

don’t know… life just kind of got in the way.” He pauses and his

hands grip the steering wheel and he forces a lump down in his

throat. “How bad was it?”

I shrug, staring out at the warehouse lining the side of the

freeway. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t press me for the details, but he can tell by my

tone that it was bad. And he knows about what happened in the

kitchen, when my father stabbed me, and that story tells a lot.

“Have you heard from them at all since they took off?”

I shake my head and place my hand over my side on the last

scar my father ever gave me. “No, but I wonder why… and where

they went. It’s like they were running away from something.”

He nods, with a pensive look on his face. “Yeah, I know… I

think it might be that they were worried you’d speak up.”

“What would it matter if I did?” I question. “Even if I did,

there isn’t a whole lot I could do. Even if the police believed me,

and I could press assault charges, he could get off by only paying a

fine. And he probably would, knowing him.”

Dylan shakes his head as he turns the car for an off-ramp.

“Try attempted murder or even manslaughter. He stabbed you,

Kayden—beat the shit out of you. He beat the shit out of all of us.”

He touches his cheekbone and runs his finger over a small straight

scar on his cheek. “Someone should have spoken up a long time

ago and not let him get away with it.”

Silence takes over as we both drift back to our childhood. It’s

weird being around someone who understands what it’s like.

“We were all scared,” I say quietly and he nods in agreement,

his eyes focused on the road. “How do you get over it? How did

you move on with your life?”

He shakes his head and slows the SUV at a stop sign. “I

haven’t yet, but it gets easier with more time away from him. That

stupid fucking power he has over you will go away.”

I suck in a deep breath and then let it blow out. I tap my

fingers on the door, watching the houses move by in a blur and

wonder what his place will look like. I know he’s married and

doesn’t have any kids. His wife is a teacher too. It seems so normal

and strange to me, considering how Tyler turned out. But I guess

that’s life. Not everyone ends up the same way, even if their

circumstances are the same, because not everyone thinks and

reacts the same.

Finally, he pulls the vehicle to the side of the road in front of

a field and shoves the shifter into park. I’m surprised though by

where we are, not by houses but by a prison that’s hidden behind

a tall chain-link fence with coils of barbed wire.

“Ummm…” I glance at Dylan, perplexed. “What are we doing

here?”

He turns down the stereo and takes his seat belt off. He

stares at the building for a really long time before he speaks. “You

remember dad talking about his dad sometimes and it always kind

of sounded like he pretty much treated dad the same as he did

us?”

I nod, staring at the guards outside. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, you want to know the truth?” he asks and looks at me.

His eyes are a little glossy and I wonder if he’s about to cry or

something.

“I guess so.”

“He was actually worse, if you can believe it. Dad had a

brother and his dad—our grandfather—killed him… beat him to

death.”

My heart stops beating inside my chest and for a moment

I’m thrown back through time into the kitchen. The knife enters my

side. It hurts. Not just the pain. It hurts because he’s my father.

He’s not supposed to do this to me. He’s supposed to protect me,

not destroy me.

“And now he’s here,” my bother says, nodding his head at

the jail.

I pause as I take in the building and the fence around it.

“How did you find this out?”

“I wanted to know… where we came from. Why we had such

a shitty life. Was it just a freakish fucking coincidence that we were born into a crappy home with crappy parents? Or was it