She has no idea how much time passes as she lays there, pinned to the mattress, trying to breathe through the fingers still pressed to her face, but eventually the weight lifts away. There’s a rasp and then a flare of light, the brief flame of a disposable lighter, and for the first time, she can make out Terry Blevins’s face hovering above her, slack-jawed and slick with sweat.

“You want a turn, bro?” he asks thickly, still straddling Christy-Lynn as he smokes. “I’ll hold her.”

“Let’s just get out of here before the old man wakes up.” It’s Todd, the younger brother, the one who has her mouth covered and her wrists pinned. He sounds scared, as if he’s just realized what they’ve done.

“Come on, man. She’s right here. Or are you scared?”

“Ain’t scared,” Terry grunts sullenly. “Just don’t want to.”

There’s a moment, a fraction of an instant when the pressure over her mouth goes slack. She wrenches her head free and opens her mouth to scream. The sound is cut short as an open palm connects with her cheek. Lights dance, and she tastes blood.

“Hold her still, dumb ass,” Terry growls at his brother. He sucks on his cigarette again, then aims the smoke at Christy-Lynn’s face. “As for you, you stuck-up little bitch, you’re going to lay there and listen. Got it?”

The grip on her wrists tightens again, and her fingers begin to go numb. She lies still and dazed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.

“You ain’t gonna tell anybody about this,” Terry says with vicious softness, his face so close she can smell the beer on his breath. “You’re gonna pretend it never happened. ’Cause if you don’t, if you even think about making any trouble, we’re coming back.”

He leans closer then and takes another pull from the cigarette. The tip glows hot orange in the dark, sinister and coming closer—so close she can feel the heat of it against her cheek. She closes her eyes and struggles to pull away. She isn’t expecting the blinding sting that suddenly sears the underside of her wrist. She begins to buck and thrash, anything to get free, but there’s another slap, and then another sting as he presses the cigarette to her flesh again. Somewhere above her head Todd lets out a groan.

“Jesus, Terry . . . leave her alone. You got what you wanted.”

“Shut the hell up, boy,” Terry barks. “I ain’t done.” He leans in then, crushing the cigarette out against her wrist, holding it there until the reek of burning flesh fills her nostrils. “Now, you remember what we talked about,” he slurs menacingly close to her ear. “Not a word. Or I’ll be back—and next time I won’t be nice.”

When Christy-Lynn finally eases herself up off the bed, she isn’t sure if one hour has passed or four. She has wept herself dry and knows what she has to do. She has seventeen dollars to her name, the last of her tips from the doughnut shop. Not nearly enough. But she can’t stay.

She dresses in the dark, ignoring her wrist and the dull ache between her thighs. She empties her backpack—she won’t be needing her schoolbooks—then rolls up a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a denim jacket and stuffs them inside. It’s all she can fit in the backpack, but she’s afraid her duffel will be too heavy. And too conspicuous.

Her hand is on the knob when she remembers the envelope in the stand beside her bed. It’s a silly thing to care about at a moment like this—a meaningless trinket—but somehow she can’t bear to leave it behind. After retrieving the envelope, she folds it into her back pocket, slides her pack up onto her shoulder, and steps out into the hall.

She holds her breath as she creeps down the stairs. In the living room, Dennis Hawley is still snoring in his faux-leather recliner, his face flickering an eerie shade of blue in the glow from the TV. She eyes the front door then decides not to risk waking him. Instead, she turns down the hall and tiptoes into the Hawley’s bedroom.

On the dresser is a wallet, a handful of change, a set of car keys. For a split second, she thinks about the Pathfinder parked in the garage but quickly discards the idea. She settles for the wallet instead, hoping it contains some cash, then moves to the window near the bathroom. It takes only a moment to slide the sash up and kick out the screen, then throw a leg over the sill and drop down into the hydrangeas.

In the east, the sky has gone pink, the stars already winking out. The sun will be up soon, and by the time it is, she’ll be far away from the Blevins brothers.

FORTY-FOUR

Christy-Lynn stared down at her hands, clenched and bone-white. “I’ve never told anyone about that night. Not even Stephen. I thought I was past it. Then I met Iris. When Rhetta told me she could end up in foster care, it was like someone kicked in the door to my memory. Everything started seeping back in, only this time, my story was all jumbled up with hers, until I couldn’t tell the two apart. My past seemed like her future.”

“And you felt like you had to fix it,” Wade said gently.

“Yes. I wanted to believe the trust would be enough, that Stephen’s money would protect Iris from the things I’d gone through. But today, when Ray showed up, I realized money won’t change anything. She’ll have nice things and go to a good school, maybe even an Ivy League college if that’s what she wants, but all the money in the world won’t buy her what she really needs.”