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When 17-year-old Arbor Hayes' best friend turns up alive after a mysterious six-month disappearance, she must piece together the fragments of her story to make sense of what happened. But as clues e...
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The moment I reach the staircase, Stef's arms are around my waist and my knees slam into the steps with a violent thud. The impact shudders through me, pain cracking like lightening up my thighs and down my shins.
"Get off me!" I thrash against her hold and force myself toward the first landing, the tang of warm copper oozing down the back of my throat.
Stef's voice is high-pitched and pleading. "I'm not letting you ruin this! After everything I've been through, I deserve a new life—don't I? Emma didn't want it anyway. All she ever did was complain. I did that girl a favor."
"A favor? You sold her into a sex ring!"
As I crawl toward the final step, a surge of adrenaline shoots through my limbs. I fling myself across the landing, trying to gain the upper hand, but when I attempt to roll away, Stef is on top of me, her bony fingers pinning my wrists above my head.
Her bottom lip is split open, and blood smears across her chin. "Weren't you listening? I said Emma was nothing but trouble," she hisses through her teeth. "We barely made it out of the state before I needed to call Benicio."
The blood runs cold in my veins. "Benicio was with you?"
"He was nearby in case things went south—which, of course, they did. Exactly like I told him they would, the pinche estúpido."
My heart beats faster, like a hummingbird trying to break out of my chest. "Did he hurt her?"
Annoyance flickers across her face. "No, he didn't hurt her—"
A swell of relief weakens every muscle. I go limp. If Emma's not hurt, then maybe she'll be okay? Maybe it's not too late to fix whatever damage has been done.
"—she was already dead by the time he got there."
No. No.
The words hit me like a sledgehammer, pulverizing the walls of my chest. My entire world tilts, and the rest of what Stef says gets muddled by the rush of blood in my ears.
Emma's dead. She's been dead all along. The entire time we searched for her. And all the while Stef's been here, trying to take her place.
How did I not know she was gone? Shouldn't I have sensed something? Some sort of internal warning? And if not me, what about her mom and dad? Aren't parents supposed to have an unearthly connection to their children; a super-sensitive instinct they can feel inside their bones?
Instead, we clung to the hope that Emma was alive. We played the game exactly how Stef knew we would, so eager to believe whatever lies she fed to us. How stupid I've been. How stupid we've all been.
"We had some fun at the motel, but when the drugs started wearing off, she pieced together what was happening. Only it was too late. We were already heading back to Florida when that crazy bitch grabbed the steering wheel and we ended up in a cornfield."
