“Big enough?” Violet gathers her hair at the base of her neck. “It’s huge. It’s the secret they’re keeping from you. It’s the reason you believe that they are rays of merry fucking sunshine when they aren’t.”

“What?” I press. “What is it that’s so huge that my mom would be okay with you running away?”

“My mom’s the one that drove your mom out of Snowflake. The one who helped you two escape in the night. My mom kept the secret of where you went when Eli went to prison. That’s right, everyone’s precious Eli went to prison for eight years and it’s your mom who turned him in!”

Violet’s chest is moving rapidly and a strange sound leaves her throat as she goes white.

The blow slams straight into my stomach and I stumble back and land on the bed. There’s a buzz in my head and my eyes flicker in front of me as I try to understand.

“Shit,” Violet whispers as she shoves her hand through her hair. “Just shit. I didn’t say that. Please, Emily, I didn’t say that.”

But she did. Violet said it and it’s there and my gut twists in a way that feels like I’m snapping in half. “What did he go for prison for?”

“Emily...”

I push off the bed and get in Violet’s face. “What did Eli go to prison for?”

Her lips thin out. “Attempted murder...aggravated assault.”

The room spins. “Who? Why?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Because I’m liking what I’ve heard so far?” I shout. “Tell me, Violet! You cannot get this far and stop!”

She closes her eyes and whispers, “It was your mother’s brother. Your uncle. Your mother’s family didn’t want her and Eli together and when her brother tried to break them up...”

A spark of anger propels me out the door of my room.

“Emily!” Violet is hot on my heels, but I’m faster. I jerk open the front door, my hand smacks the screen and the moment I’m on the front porch, there are two walls of leather vests in my way.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Emily,” says one with a long drawl. “The McKinleys said that you aren’t allowed to leave the house.”

“What are you going to do?” I yell. “What the freak are you going to do to stop me?”

They look at each other. For too long. Long enough that I have my answer. Nothing. There is nothing they can do to me. I slip past them and I’m down the stairs. Loud footsteps behind me. My name from their lips. From Violet’s lips. But I don’t care.

Eli served time in prison. He almost killed someone. My mother’s brother. My uncle. An uncle I didn’t even know existed. They’ve lied. They’ve all lied.

I’m halfway toward the crowd when a hand clamps down on my arm. I swing around and it’s the prospect. “I’m sorry, Emily, but you’re not allowed out here.”

He’s bigger than me. Taller than me. Weighs three times more than me. Anxiety shoots into my veins and I struggle to escape. “Get off.”

“No,” he says. “I’ve been given strict instructions that you stay in the house so I’m going to ask nicely for you to return to your room. If you don’t, I’ll pick you up and put you there myself.”

It’s there in his eyes. He means what he says. He wants me in that house and he’ll force me to comply and what I’d finally begun to see as friendly isn’t friendly anymore. It’s big and it’s scary and I wrench harder at his hold. “Let me go!”

His grip tightens and I’m pulling back with all my might and the words tear out of my throat. “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”

Oz

RAZOR EXTENDS HIS arms like he’s gripping the handlebars of a motorcycle and he mimics being thrown to the ground. “And I said holy fuck, asshole, that wasn’t a pothole, that was a damned canyon.”

The guys around me burst into laughter and I join them then take another swig of beer. Pigpen walks by, fist bumps me and asks, “You out?”

I check the bottom of my beer then down the small amount remaining. “Yeah.”

“I got it, brother.” He’s off for the bar and I’m buzzing hard. Tonight will be the only night I won’t have to buy a thing. As Eli said, it’s my night.

“You know what else is taken care of?” Razor smiles and a flood of sixth-sense concern swamps me.

“Do I want to know?”

More guys join our group and each of them have a shit-eating grin on their face. There’s a whiff of strong perfume and my stomach twists. A month and a half ago, I would have been all over this, but there’s a girl across the yard who won’t understand and will end up hurt.

A delicate touch across my bicep and I look to my side. Early twenties, short pixie-cut brown hair and her tits are hanging in the breeze. “I hear it’s your night.”

Not anymore.

She waves a fifty in the air. “And your friends have bought you a lap dance.”

Razor tips his chin at her. “We’ll keep paying, too. Let us know when.”

Her hand is on my chest, trying to guide me back into the chair behind me. Fuck me. Just fuck me because I don’t know how the hell to get out of this. I gently attempt to remove her hands, but she’s a damned octopus snaking her arms around mine.

“Get off!”

My head jerks in the direction of the faint voice.