No Shelter Left novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: She Needs It More
Aisling wakes a year before the wreck that killed her with 365 days under her skin, records Colby demanding her song for Kaitlyn, fires him and walks out. On the step her number reads 366.
Aisling Larkin died on the interstate while her whole family ran past her.
Broken windshield lay all over the road. Her mouth was full of blood.
Past the crushed car door, her sister Kaitlyn was screaming.
"Kaitlyn!" That was her mother's voice.
Then her brothers called out. Then the man from the record label did, the one who had been riding in the car behind theirs.
Aisling lifted one hand. It barely moved.
She wanted to say his name. She wanted to say she couldn't breathe.
He ran straight to Kaitlyn and never looked back.
By the time anyone remembered Aisling, the paramedics were shouting that they were losing her.
Her last thought was very small and very clear.
So that was what she had been worth.
"Aisling! That new song. You're giving it to Kaitlyn."
Her eyes opened.
She was lying in her old bedroom in the Larkin house, with gray morning light on the wall.
Then everything came back at once, and she sat up slowly.
The phone on her nightstand showed a date one year before the wreck.
The door swung open, and her brother Colby came in without knocking.
"Did you hear me? Jude Ransom put Kaitlyn on the Starling showcase, and she needs that song for it."
Aisling looked at him.
He had the same pressed shirt and the same impatient face he always wore when he wanted something.
This time she knew how it ended.
Her left forearm began to burn.
She pushed up her sleeve. Pale light was printed in the skin there, in numbers only she could see.
365 DAYS.
She remembered the dark place after death, with no hunger and no sleep and no light.
A voice there had offered her one chance to come back and let go of her anger.
It had not promised forever. When the numbers reached zero, she would go back to that place for good.
Colby snapped his fingers. "Aisling."
"I heard you. The answer is no."
His brows pulled together. "No?"
"I wrote it. I'm keeping it."
For two years she had been whatever the Larkins asked her to be, and she was done with it.
She had cooked their dinners and remembered their birthdays. She had given up every chance that Kaitlyn wanted, because her mother said that was what family did.
Colby recovered fast.
"Don't be dramatic. Kaitlyn's career is at a turning point, and this song could win her an award."
"It could win me one too."
"She needs it more."
On her desk sat the little recorder she had used last night to make the demo.
The red light was still on.
She slid it into her pocket. Colby didn't notice.
"Be reasonable, Aisling."
She got out of bed. "Whose songs are on Kaitlyn's last two albums?"
"That isn't the point."
"It's the whole point."
He lowered his voice, as if she were a child having a tantrum. "Kaitlyn is your sister."
"She's the one you keep choosing over your sister."
"Not this again." He breathed out hard. "I'm sick of this real-daughter, raised-daughter routine. You are both family."
Kaitlyn was family whenever she wanted something from Aisling.
Aisling was family whenever the Larkins needed her to give something up.
Colby stepped closer. "If Kaitlyn could write like you, we wouldn't be having this talk."
There it was.
Aisling smiled. "Exactly."
"What?"
"Then I'm the one with something worth paying for."
She pulled a backpack out of the closet.
He watched her put in her laptop, three shirts and her notebooks.
"What are you doing?"
"Leaving."
His face changed. "Stop being ridiculous."
"And you're fired."
For a moment he said nothing.
"You can't fire me," he said. "I manage your career."
"I know."
"I'm your brother."
"You've been bad at both."
"Aisling."
She zipped the bag. "As of today you don't manage me."
"Aisling!"
She walked past him.
Two years under her blood family's roof, and one backpack held everything she cared to keep.
At the top of the stairs, Kaitlyn was waiting in a long-sleeved sweater, though it was July. She tugged the cuffs down over her wrists.
"Colby told me," Kaitlyn said softly. "Let me carry that. Please don't leave angry. I'll talk to him."
"Thank you," Aisling said. "I've got it."
Kaitlyn's eyes were wet. She squeezed Aisling's hand.
"Promise you'll come back. Whatever happens, I'm on your side."
She was the only one who had followed Aisling down the hall.
In the dining room, her mother, Marianne, sat over coffee. Brodie studied his plate.
"I'm leaving," Aisling said.
"Don't be dramatic," her mother said, not looking up. "You'll be back by supper."
Nobody said her name.
She opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch.
The numbers under her sleeve flickered.
She looked down.
It no longer said 365.
It said 366.
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