They nod in agreement and it’s settled.

She will come back with us. Period.

I wasn’t even home for an hour last night before we were on the road.

Being winter break for Brayshaw High, there’s no class for a few weeks, but we still have games to be played, so the quicker we get back, the fucking better.

“This is the exit,” Raven tells Captain and we pull off the highway.

We put the address we had on file into the GPS, but Raven said it wouldn’t get us to her side of town without taking us all the way around since there were no official roads to her mom’s place. Apparently, the trailers are just thrown down on a random lot at the edge of the city, so we let her navigate. At least, Cap pretended to. I’m sure he figured out and memorized the way before even sliding into the driver’s seat.

We take a left on a broken-down gravel road, turning into a dirt lot gated off by large sheets of mismatched tin, something you’d see on a cheap shed roof or surrounding a junkyard.

It’s night fall, but barefoot kids still play out in the cold, nobody bothering to tell them to get out of the way of our SUV as we roll toward them.

Captain slows at the sight, almost to a full stop, but I pat the back of his seat and he meets my eyes in the mirror.

His features tighten as does his grip on the wheel and I know he’s thinking about Zoey and where she could have ended up if we hadn’t learned of her existence just in time.

Come on, brother.

It takes a few seconds, then he lets out a deep breath and continues forward.

A little farther down, we spot a group of men sitting around a beat-up, parted out car. They jump to their feet as we edge closer, cigarettes hanging from most of their mouths. Their eyes fall to the blackout rims before lifting back to the tinted windows.

“I told you we should have gotten a cheap rental or borrowed someone else’s car.” Raven keeps her eyes on the group as we pass.

“Which one?” Cap asks her.

She looks ahead. “Last one on the right, up against the fence.”

My eyes follow her direction and brows dip low.

I never stopped to consider what the place Raven grew up in looked like, but even if I did, I’d have missed the mark. There’s no little porch with an overlaying awning like the trailers we’ve seen. No space in front of it with a table and chair set for when you need to step outside.

It’s nothing but a fucking rectangular box with tin foil in the windows and alayer of dirt so thick not even rain could wash it away. It’s basically an RV without the fucking engine.

The ‘fence’ she mentioned is not a fucking fence, but an old wire wrap tied loosely to a few rotted wood posts.

On the other side are train tracks with a few broken down carts laying at the edges of them. There’s laughter and lights coming from one of them – I’m guessing it’s used as a squat house for homeless or maybe where teenagers get fucked up. I can picture Raven going out there to smoke at night or just to get away. Maybe this is where her love for riding trains came from, her own fucked up playground she shared with dozens of others.

“Lights are on,” Royce notices first.

Raven sits forward, her face tightening as she drops back against the seat. She sighs. “It’s candles.”

Captain rolls closer, stopping right in front of it.

“She’s not alone,” Raven tells us, staring at the door.

“How do you know?”

“Because when she’s free for the taking, she leaves a pink boa tied to the door to let everyone know they can come play if they’d like.”

My stare slices to hers, but she’s not looking at me.

“And people just walk the fuck in, ready for her?”

Her tongue runs along her teeth as she glares at the piece of shit in front of us.

“And you’re the first thing they’d see?”

Finally, her eyes come to mine. “Thank hell for my knife, huh?” she snaps.

My frown deepens at her accusing tone.

“This is why you don’t fucking sleep, why you stare at the door all the time.” My eyes meet Royce’s for a quick second and his tighten. “Because people pop in at any hour and you never know when or what they’ll do.”

Her stare hardens and she forces her eyes forward.

Shit makes sense now.

The headphones she’s always wearing at night, that’s how she’d block out the noises. Her flashlight allowed her to see who would walk in, and her knife made her feel safe. Or fuck, safer than having nothing.

She couldn’t have always been this fucking tough, so at some point, she was nothing but a helpless little girl.

This is why she’s as hard as she is. She had no fucking choice but to be, there was no one else there to protect her.

She was on her fucking own...until us.

“What do we do?” Captain asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

“We wait,” she tells him. “She won’t spot us out here, not that she’d pause if she did, and she charges by the hour. It won’t be too long.”

I grind my teeth and force my eyes closed.

I can’t fucking let myself think about Raven in this place with a piece of shit like her.

“What are we doing here, RaeRae?” Royce turns around to look at her, a mix of worry and anger covering his face. “For real, the fuck’s this all about?”

She holds his eyes a moment before glancing away, but he keeps at her.

“We didn’t ask any questions, brought you like you wanted, avoided talking about the last few fucking weeks on the drive and now here we are, waiting outside your mom’s and we have no fucking clue what we’re getting into.” He watches her. “I’m not sure I’m up for any more fucking bombshells.”

No surprise when she gives him nothing and he glares my way.

None of us are okay with what’s happening right now, and we’re sure as fuck not used to doing things without knowing every detail included, but this is Raven and we’re trying to figure out why her brain works the way it does.

So, we’re bending a little.

A real fucking little.

Raven called it right, less than an hour goes by and a big burly fucker with a long, braided ponytail steps out.

He pauses at the sight of our SUV, but then quickly starts tucking his shirt in as he walks away.

Raven pauses a moment, then slips her hands between the seats.

I frown when she pulls out her knife.

She flips it open, turning it to inspect the sharpened blade, and I meet Cap’s eyes quickly, looking back when she snaps it closed. She squeezes it, her eyes stuck to the old metal before she slides it up her left sleeve, discreetly holding it there.

“Why do you feel the need to take that?”

“I take it everywhere,” she says flatly.

“Fine. Then why ready and waiting like it is instead of in your pocket or waistband like normal?”

Her eyes hit mine. “You think I’m unpredictable? She’s ten times me.”

“No. You are ten times anything she will ever fucking be.”

Her face contorts, a softness lining her eyes, but she washes it away just as quick as it slips. “She’s uncontrolled in a different way than I am.”

“You’re not convincing me to let you go in their alone.”