Betrayed, I Rise novel · Chapter 27 of 32

Chapter 27: Below the Estate

My father went upstairs at six and didn't come down.

I heard his door close. Then nothing.

I ate cereal standing up in the kitchen, out of a chipped bowl I'd dropped when I was seven.

My old room was exactly how I'd left it in May.

Tacked to the corkboard over the desk was a photo booth strip from senior prom.

Vincent and me, four frames.

In the last one he was kissing my cheek and looking past me at someone off the edge of the booth.

I'd never noticed that before.

I took it down and put it in the trash can by the desk.

At nine-forty my phone buzzed.

"At your gate. There's a man here who says he needs your say-so."

I ran down the front stairs in my socks.

The gate lights were on.

Troy's rust-red truck was idling outside the bars, and Vincent's father was standing at the call box in his clean church shirt.

"He says he's with you," Vincent's father said.

"He is."

He pressed the button.

The gate swung open.

Troy pulled through and parked on the gravel beside the station wagon.

He got out.

He'd showered and changed. He had on a plain white T-shirt and jeans, and his hair was still damp at the ends.

The dog jumped down after him and went straight to Vincent's father and leaned on his legs.

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