Prologue
It was raining so hard I could barely see my hands as I wrapped my fingers around the tree house step and started to climb. Even the shelter of the leaves still clinging to the branches didn’t offer much relief from the downpour. I was climbing blind, the lack of visual cues making the swaying of the massive trunk and the groans lurching from deep inside the tree even more disturbing.
It was a horrible storm, worse than it had been the first time around. Freezing wind whipped through the valley behind my house, cutting through the tightly woven fabric of my fleece v-neck, plastering it to my skin with another layer of cold and wet.
But still I climbed, shouting his name as I went. I had no choice but to go to him. He hadn’t heard me the first or second or third time I’d called from the ground.
Or maybe he was just ignoring me.
“I’m coming up!” I screamed again, the act of forcing my stiff lips to form words helping keep my mind off the fact that I was six . . . seven . . . ten . . . twelve feet in the air. I shivered, fingers clawing into the damp wood, fear of heights throbbing through my body in new and powerful ways.
I could feel the empty space behind me growling, a hungry void that wanted my slick hands to slip, wanted to watch me fall and gobble up my fear as I dropped. I licked my lips, tasting salt and sticky, and thought for a second I must have bitten myself.
Cramped fingers dared a brush up and down my face, swiping away water and something hotter that rolled down into my mouth. The blood was coming from my nose, from the place where the locket’s chain had scraped away my skin.
The locket . . . . It had drawn blood.
Bringing both hands to cling onto the ladder once more, I turned and brushed my face against my shoulder, leaving a spot of black on the gray fabric.
“Go away,” he yelled above me, his voice slurred and thick.
“I’m not going away. You shouldn’t be drinking up here,” I said, shouting to be heard over a sudden gust of wind. The tree rocked back and forth, moaning, while my pulse raced and my hands gripped the ladder step so tightly my knuckles snapped and cracked.
For the first time since that night in Isaac’s truck, I felt the obscene weight of holding the future in my own hands. I had to get us both out of this tree before something bad happened, before someone was seriously hurt, before anything else was lost or broken . . . .