Chapter 1
Sloane's POV
The night my sister, Quinn, got her registered nurse license was supposed to be Jude's big moment—down on one knee, proposing.
Instead, Garrett showed up. The same animal who assaulted Quinn in the redwood forest six years ago and drove our mother to her death in the ocean.
Her future mother-in-law took back the ring on the spot, and her fiancé trailed after her like a kicked puppy.
The entire town of Hawkins went from pity to disgust when they looked at us.
Seven days later, the deputy sheriff stood in my kitchen, staring at the twenty-second batch of bubbling meat sauce...
The only French restaurant in Hawkins was half-booked by Jude’s family tonight to celebrate Quinn getting her RN license.
Under the crystal chandelier, the youngest doctor at the state hospital got down on one knee, pulling a velvet box from his tailored suit.
"Quinn, will you—"
A violent kick to the door shattered the rest of his sentence onto the carpet.
Garrett Hale was wearing the cheap gray jacket issued upon his prison release, his head shaved. Even in decent clothes, you couldn’t mask the stench of a junkie that seeped out of his bones.
Six years ago, this piece of trash ruined twenty-year-old Quinn in the redwoods behind our house—and drove our mother into the freezing ocean.
I jumped up and stood in front of Quinn. Garrett didn't even glance at me. His eyes bypassed my shoulder, pinning the trembling Quinn to the spot.
"Dressed like a slut. Looking to open up shop in the woods again?" He grabbed a handful of crushed ice from the bucket and crunched it loudly. "Playing innocent? With the way you moaned under me, you want me to describe the details to your boyfriend here?"
"Shut up." I gripped a butter knife, my knuckles turning white. "I’m calling the cops right now."
"Call 'em." He smugly threw his hands up. "I live in the low-income housing less than two blocks from you anyway. See ya around."
"Jude."
The councilwoman slammed the table and stood up. Jude's mother, who valued their family’s political reputation above all else, looked at Quinn with pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Put the ring away. The Callahans are not getting mixed up with a woman haunted by this kind of filth."
"Mom—"
"Get in the car."
Jude slowly stood up. Without meeting Quinn's eyes, he snapped the ring box shut and, like an obedient dog, followed his mother out in a hurried retreat.
The restaurant fell dead silent. Only Garrett’s arrogant laughter echoed under the chandeliers.
The neighbors who were just warming up to Quinn were now whispering with their heads down. They looked at her not with sympathy, but as if they were examining something rotten.
I held my sister tight. She was freezing, her eyes hollow—a shell drained of its soul.
The torment didn't end with the dinner.
Before dawn, our manicured front lawn was littered with signs spray-painted with red, obscene slurs. Throughout the day, whispers filled every corner of town. Garrett hovered around our house like a ghost.
At night, the temperature plummeted.
"Come out, you little bitch! Didn't get enough six years ago?"
The vulgar shouts, mixed with the sharp crash of beer bottles smashing against our porch, sounded too demonic for a quiet neighborhood. I held Quinn tightly on the sofa in the second-floor bedroom. She was too quiet. So quiet I could barely hear her breathing.
By 3:00 AM, the outside finally fell silent.
I got Quinn settled and dragged myself to my own room.
By the faint glow of the streetlamp outside, I walked to the bed. I barely reached to unbutton the shirt when—
I froze.
The moonlight stretched a bizarre, elongated shadow across the hardwood floor.
The shadow was coming from behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains.
My eyes moved down slowly.
From the gap at the bottom of the drapes peeked a pair of mud-caked black combat boots.
—Garrett had been wearing those exact boots at the restaurant tonight.
I forced myself to look away, pretending I hadn't seen a thing. Slipping a hand into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and texted Quinn, who was just one wall away:
He’s in my room. Run. Call 911.
The second it sent, a massive force yanked my scalp backward.
"Who ya texting, bitch?"
The next second, my face was smashed brutally into the wall.
Garrett’s calloused hand clamped around my throat like a vice, pinning me off the ground.
"I was going straight to the little slut," he snuffed at my neck greedily. "But since you can't sleep... I don't mind starting with an appetizer."
The air in my lungs was squeezed out inch by inch. My legs kicked in the air, the edges of my vision going black.
Right as I was about to pass out from lack of oxygen—
"Sloane? What’s wrong?"
From outside the door came Quinn’s sleepy voice.
She hadn't looked at her phone.
She didn't know.
I used my last breath trying to scream "Run," but my windpipe cracked under the pressure. Nothing but a faint wheeze squeezed out.
Then, a soft click.
The doorknob slowly turned.
