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“Are you f*cking deaf? I said give me the keys! Do I look like I’m f*ckin’ around lady?” The man was yelling now, striding closer to Mommy and looking angrier than ever. Her eyes broke away from mine as she straightened her shoulders and faced the man once more.

“No,” she said, her voice sad.

Why was she so sad?

“Your choice, then,” he said, raising a hand up from his side and pointing a gun at Mommy’s face. Before I could make a sound, he fired a single bullet into her forehead and watched silently as she crumpled to the cement.

“Stupid bitch,” he muttered.

I sat frozen in place, unable to look away from Mommy bleeding in the parking lot, watching with wide eyes as he pried the keys from her hand and slammed the trunk hatch closed.

Racing around the SUV, he hopped into the driver’s seat, Mommy’s seat, and quickly started the engine. He peeled out of the parking lot without a backward glance at the bloodstained pavement. I turned slowly back around in my booster, trembling with fear and disbelief, and watched as he tossed the gun on the front passenger seat, followed by a duffle bag that was overflowing with crumpled money. Tears blurred my vision and tracked slowly down my face, but I remembered Mommy shaking her head at me and somehow managed to stay quiet.

For her.

Never once did the man look behind him and notice the small girl whose world had just ended, crying in the backseat.





Chapter One


The Barren Moon




The panicked scream that burst from my throat was a tribute to a long-remembered terror – one undimmed by the passage of time. The six year old within me cried out in desperation as I was ripped from the nightmare. The dream had been my nightly companion for fourteen years, a constant reminder of the day everything in my life changed.

As if I could have forgotten.

There was no doubt that the events would remain etched permanently into my memory, an unwanted tattoo I hadn’t requested and could never remove, even if the nightmares had stopped. Somehow, though, I knew they wouldn't. If anything, they were getting worse, becoming more vivid and frequent with each passing year.

I wiped the gathering beads of perspiration from my brow, pulled my damp hair up into a loose ponytail, and untangled the twisted sheets from my legs. The small glow from the nightlight beside my bed warded away shadows that otherwise threatened to consume me. Focusing on the warm mellow light, I tried to push the memories from my mind. Although I was well practiced in driving away the nightly terrors, it took more effort than I liked to admit for my mind to settle and my heart rate to stop thundering in my chest like a goddamned cavalry charge.

Dragging a shaky breath into my lungs, I swung my legs to the floor and padded out of my small room. The kitchen’s icy linoleum tiles were uncomfortable under my bare feet, and I hurried to pour myself some water from the tap before tiptoeing back to the warmth of my bed.

I sipped my water after slipping back beneath the covers, searching for the book I always kept within reach on my nightstand. Any hopes of more rest tonight were futile; after the nightmare inevitably hit I could never relax my mind enough to sleep. Sometimes I’d get lucky and the dream wouldn’t rear its ugly head until near dawn, allowing me a few solid hours of rest. Other nights, like tonight, I wasn’t so lucky.

A glance at my cellphone informed me that it was only 2:37 AM, leaving me with almost six hours until my first class of the semester began. Great way to start sophomore year, Brooklyn, I thought bitterly. Overtired and grumpy. Oh, and dark under-eye circles are so in this year.

The near constant bruise-like circles that lined my eyes were usually manageable with the help of some quality foundation. Most people would never notice them at all, and those who did would never discover their origin. Holding people at arm’s length was easier and, in the long run, saved everyone a lot of unnecessary hurt and heartache.

I’d never been one to reach out to others for companionship or comfort. Those who gravitated in my social orbit were either blissfully self-involved or simply uninterested in my past. Anyone who pushed me for more was dropped like a bad habit.

I wouldn’t really say that I had friends – acquaintances, maybe, but not friends. Friends usually wanted to know personal information; they liked to ask questions. And that made friends something I really couldn't afford to keep.

There was one exception to this rule, and that was Lexi. Then again, Lexi didn’t follow any of the rules she made for her own life, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when she broke all mine as well. She’d spun into my life like a tornado, uprooting everything in her path and creating chaos from the fragile illusion of normalcy I’d tried to reconstruct after my mother’s murder. In the second grade, on my first day at a new school, Lexi had declared she liked my blue sparkly backpack, and that we would be friends.

And so we were.

It’s rare that Lex doesn’t get her way. People are drawn to her as if she exudes some invisible magnetic force, pulling them in and making it impossible to deny her anything. She’s tall, with fiery red hair and light blue eyes that constantly glint with mischief. In many ways, she’s my opposite.

While she towers at 5’10,” I barely hit 5’5” in my tallest pair of stilettos. Her bright copper mane bobs around her shoulders like a halo of light; my dark brown-black loose waves tumble almost to my waist. Her freckled skin glows with pale luminescence; my natural olive tones leave me looking slightly tan even in the heart of winter.