Chapter 8: Three in the Morning

I was in Soren's shirt and nothing else.

He grabbed his pants off the floor and beat me to the stairs.

"Stay behind me," he said.

"That's my sister."

"That's why."

He opened the front door on the chain.

Chloe stood under the porch light in a pale coat with her hair stuck to her wet face.

She looked about twelve years old.

There was a purple mark on her left cheekbone, the size of a plum.

"Please," she said, and her voice broke.

"Annika, I'm so sorry. I didn't know where else to go. He hit me."

I stood in the hall with my bare feet on the cold floor and stared at her.

I knew that voice.

I knew the little sob she made at the end of every sentence.

She used it when she was six and had broken my mother's good bowl, and it worked.

She used it at nine, at twelve, at fifteen, whenever she needed me to come and fix it.

For thirteen years, I had always come.

"Carter did that?" I said.

"He's so angry about the hearing. He said I ruined everything. Please let me in, I'm scared."

"You have a restraining order against me."

"I know, but I don't care about that. You're my sister."

She put her hand against the door.

"Please."

I looked past her.

Across the street, a silver car sat under a dead streetlight with its engine running.

A small red dot glowed on the driver's side window, steady as an eye.

Somebody was holding up a phone.

My stomach went cold.

It all clicked at once.

She wanted me to open the door.

She wanted me to hug her, or grab her, or shove her off the step, and the red dot would catch it.

Maybe even a tiny shove would do.

"Soren," I said, very quietly. "Take the chain off."

He looked at me.

"Do it."

He did.

I stepped out onto the porch, barefoot, in his shirt, and I stopped three full steps away from my sister.

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