Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: Check the Axle
In a Florida storm, Carly steps out to check the RV and her boyfriend drives off; his map leads her to a dead end, her best friend laughs about the bet, and the video of her running after the RV is already online.
"Check the rear axle, Carly. I think we hit something."
Vincent's voice came through the RV intercom, fuzzy with static.
I was in the back, curled on the bench seat with my camera in my lap.
Rain was hitting the windows so hard it sounded like gravel.
"It's pouring," I said.
"Two seconds. Just look. You're right by the door."
I could hear Skylar in the front with him. She was laughing at something on her phone.
We were three days into her Coast Run series. Palm Beach to Pensacola in a borrowed RV, fourteen days, three friends.
I'd said yes because Vincent wanted to go.
I set the camera on the seat and pushed the heavy door open.
The storm hit me in the face.
I jumped down onto the shoulder of the highway, and my sneakers sank into wet sand.
I hadn't even reached the back tire when the engine roared.
Exhaust blew over my legs.
"Wait!"
The RV pulled out onto US-19.
Gravel sprayed my shins.
"Vincent! Wait!"
I ran after it.
I ran until my lungs hurt, shouting his name into the rain.
The taillights got smaller and smaller, and then there was just the gray road and the pine trees and me.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket.
Vincent's name was on the screen.
"Motel three miles away. Skylar and I will wait there."
Another text came in right behind it.
"Skylar's right. If we don't push you, you'll never learn the way."
I read it twice with rain dripping off my nose.
Everyone who knows me knows I can't find my way anywhere.
I don't mean I'm bad with maps.
I mean I can visit a place ten times and still walk out the wrong door.
North and south mean nothing to me. Left and right barely do.
Last fall, Vincent spent a whole week drawing me a map of our campus.
No compass on it. No street names.
Just the things I actually notice.
"Here," he'd said, sliding it onto my desk in the library.
"Coffee shop with the golden retriever. Food truck with the terrible hot dogs. Big ugly statue of the guy on the horse."
"You didn't have to do this."
He'd rubbed the top of my head with his big rough hand.
"What would my girl do without me?"
I'd kept that map in my wallet for a year.
Now he'd left me on the side of a highway in a Florida storm.
I started walking.
I walked for an hour.
The rain got into my shoes and then into my socks.
My thin jacket stuck to my arms.
The phone chimed again.
A photo this time.
A map, drawn in Vincent's blue pen on the back of a gas station receipt. A road, a turn, an arrow.
A little smiley face in the corner.
"Follow the map. Twenty minutes."
I almost cried at the smiley face.
That was Vincent.
He always came back for me.
I followed it.
I turned where the arrow turned.
The road went from asphalt to cracked concrete, and then weeds were growing up through the cracks.
Rusted chain-link fences leaned on both sides.
Old warehouses with their windows punched out. A forklift with no wheels.
A heron made of sheet metal, spinning on top of a pole in the wind.
The road ended at a gate.
That was it. A dead end.
No motel. No RV. No Vincent.
I called him.
It rang three times.
"Vincent?"
My voice cracked in the wind.
Someone laughed on the other end, high and bright.
"Carly, baby! Congratulations on getting lost!"
Skylar.
My best friend since freshman year. My roommate. The girl whose whole feed I'd been shooting for free for three years.
She'd flown home from her European tour two weeks ago, and I'd driven to the airport to get her.
"Put Vincent on," I said.
"I bet him you wouldn't notice the arrow was drawn backward," Skylar said. She wasn't even listening.
"He said you'd at least check. I said you'd just follow it. And I won."
She giggled.
"I guess I just know you better."
My jaw locked.
"Where is he?"
"So for the rest of the trip," Skylar went on, in her sweetest voice, "Vincent's only taking me around."
"Honestly, babe, dragging a high-maintenance heiress like you around is just too much work."
"Vincent," I said loudly. "Are you there?"
A deep voice chuckled in the background.
A voice I'd known since I was eight years old.
"A bet's a bet," Vincent said. "Whatever you say, Skylar."
Vincent Benedetti grew up covered in bruises from the rugby pitch.
He used to show me his scraped knuckles and swear his rough hands would only ever protect me.
I hung up.
I didn't scream.
I didn't cry.
The call just ended with a tiny click, and I stood there at the gate with the rain running down my neck.
My phone was at nine percent.
I opened Skylar's profile to find where they were.
Her newest post was at the very top.
Twelve minutes old.
"Day 3: We Lost the Heiress."
It was a video, filmed through the RV's back window.
A small, soaked girl in a white jacket was running down the highway behind it.
"Wait!" she was screaming. "Vincent! Wait!"
Somebody off camera was laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.
The video had three hundred and eighty thousand views.
The top comment was pinned.
It was from Vincent.
"She'll find us. Eventually."
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