Prologue
Stormi
Six Months Ago
Silence. Complete and utter silence is all around me. Silence such as only these predawn hours can hold. The screen of my tiny, gold-plated watch is smashed, so I don’t know exactly what time it is, but I’m sure it’s almost day. The summer sun is probably starting to rise outside. I wish I could see it, but there are no windows in this small, bare, wood-floored cell that smells of piss, shit, old blood and fear. The only time I see dawn is when I’ve stayed up all night and today’s dawn will be no different. Yet, it’s worlds different, because as soon as they let me out of my smelly, windowless cell, it will be the last dawn I’ll ever see.
And this is the last peace and silence I’ll ever get to enjoy. Soon they’ll come and drag us out of this smelly room in this stuffy shed they’re keeping us in. Soon, they’ll kill me. My best friend since forever, Brenda, is curled up in a ball in the corner of the room. She might be sleeping, but I doubt it. She hasn’t spoken in hours. Josh’s screams from earlier are just a distant, echoing memory.
The memory of his screams is the only thing marring the silence. That and the refrain of Abba’s Mama Mia, the song that was playing in its modern, dance remix version when they burst into our motel room in Vegas early last night. I wish the last song I’ll ever dance to had been a better one.
Both straps of the gold-tasseled dress I was gonna wear to the club last night are torn, and the bone of my ruined strapless bra is poking a hole in the soft flesh of my left breast. Luckily, the dress is tight enough to stay up with no straps and no bra. Both got torn when they dragged me outside and tossed me into the back of the waiting van. Or maybe that happened later, when Horse tried to tear it off me before taking what I wouldn’t give him willingly, in the back of the van on the long ride from Vegas to San Diego. His brother and one of the other men took a turn too.
This ruined dress is the last thing I’ll ever wear.
It’s the dress I’ll be buried in. If they bury us.
If I’d known this would be the last dress I’d ever wear, I’d have chosen a nicer one.
I wish it was at least still whole.
I wish they’d hurry up and get on with it.
The silence and the waiting is growing unbearable with every moment that passes, every breath I take.
I shouldn’t focus on that. Not when these are the last minutes of my life.
The bruise on my left cheek where Horse punched me feels like a heavy stone resting against my face. Blood stopped flowing from my split lip a while ago, but the metallic taste is still lingering in my mouth. I got both of those for not telling them where my share of the money I stole was.
I lied. I told them I spent it all. They didn’t believe me. But it’s the only answer they’re gonna get. Brenda and Josh both returned their share of the money, and yet they’re right here with me, waiting to die.
My sister has my share of the money we stole. It’s good that I didn’t tell them where it was. At least that way my death won’t be for nothing.
I wish I could speak to my sister one last time, to say goodbye to her, because I sure as hell won’t see her in heaven. We came into the world together, but we never thought we’d leave it together. She was always supposed to go first.
The panic that overwhelmed me when they locked us in here has subsided, but it’s rising again. I screamed at first, and my hands are still sore from banging my fists on the door of this cell. But I didn’t cry. I feel like crying now, but I won’t. Tears are useless and I won’t die crying.
Thudding footsteps—leather soles stomping across badly laid wooden flooring—are approaching now. There’s more than one set of feet coming, the stomping accompanied by muffled, gruff male voices. They’re coming to kill us. I wish I had more time.
“Brenda. Brenda, wake up,” I whisper while shaking her shoulder roughly.
She gasps and leaps up, then stands there swaying. It’s a rough awakening, but still better this way than if I’d let them wake her. I think. I hope.
The door to our cell slams against the wall as it opens, and Brenda shakes and jerks again. I think I do too, but I don’t know.
“Good, you’re awake,” the old guy in the doorway says. Horse is standing behind his right shoulder, glaring at me like he’d like to choke the life out of me, slowly. I think he might get the chance.
