Tyler (Blue Halo Book 6)

Eleven Years Old

Her eyes popped open. Her chest moved up and down so quickly, she couldn’t get a single deep breath in.

It was the dead of the night, but her puppy-shaped nightlight cast a dim glow over the room.

Alone. She was alone. No one was trying to hurt her. She was safe.

She swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat which felt like it was stuck together. Her gaze shifted to the side table, a trickle of unease settling in her belly when she saw the empty glass of water.

For a moment, she was still. So still, all she could do was breathe and try to figure out whether she could fall back to sleep without water. She’d tried before. It had never worked.

With a deep breath of courage, she climbed out of bed. The springs of the mattress squeaked, causing her to cringe. She paused, not wanting to wake her father. She waited for the whisper of footsteps. The creak of a door opening.

When all she heard was the lull of the wind outside and the gentle rattle of her window, she wrapped her fingers around her flashlight and stood, allowing the cold of the wooden floorboards to seep into her feet and trickle up her legs. Then she crossed the room, each step more silent than the last.

As she passed her closet, she gave it a wide berth. She’d come to hate that thing. The clothes inside had long stopped fitting her since she used her chest of drawers for everything she needed now. The closet was a dark, scary place inside. Her father had taught her that.

She swallowed, turned on the flashlight, and left her bedroom.

Waking in the night wasn’t unusual. Sometimes she preferred it to the nightmares that riddled her sleep. Sometimes she begged herself to wake up.

But it wasn’t just the nightmares. She used to awake in fear her father would enter, drunk and angry, yelling at her for whatever her last mistake had been. Sometimes it was leaving a glass somewhere it didn’t belong. Others, it was that she’d forgotten to complete a chore.

He was the man who was supposed to love her. He didn’t. She’d learned that very early on in her life.

She crept down the stairs and into the kitchen, careful to avoid any floorboard that would give her movement away. Her gaze constantly darted around the crevices of the house, searching for the man she was forever trying to remain invisible from.

When she made it to the kitchen, her fingers twitched to turn on the light. She didn’t. She’d made that mistake once. Two heartbeats later, her father’s voice had boomed from the hall.

The memory made her shudder.

With trembling fingers, she opened the cupboard door and gently lifted out a glass. The soft hum of the fridge was backing noise to her thundering heart. Then she moved over to the tap, turned it on slowly, and let the dribble of water fill her glass. If she turned it on with too much force, the groan of the pipes would churn throughout the house.

The glass was a quarter full when she shut off the water. Then she turned and took a sip, letting the cool liquid wet her dry throat. She only took a couple sips because she didn’t dare stay out of bed too long.

When her thirty seconds were up, she turned and emptied the rest of the liquid down the sink. The sweep of relief that she hadn’t woken him was just spidering through her limbs when a floorboard creaked down the hall.

She whipped around so fast that her elbow caught on a vase, sending it flying into the sink. The glass shattered, cutting through the quiet like a million little explosions.

Her world stopped, and a familiar fear broke into her chest, making her heart do an ugly thrash against her ribs. Her knees felt so weak, she was sure she’d fall. Tumble to the floor and struggle to rise again.

She almost scrunched her eyes closed, not wanting to see her father’s intimidating form appear. But she wasn’t sure what would be worse—the dark surprise of a fist or seeing it coming.

The panic was just digging its claws into her skin when a form appeared in the hall. But it wasn’t her father. It was Pixie, her new stepmother.

Little snippets of her new reality began to creep back into her consciousness. Her father wasn’t around anymore. Hadn’t been around for over a month.

She opened and closed her mouth three times before her words sliced through the air. “I had a nightmare and I forgot.”

God, how had she forgotten that he was gone? About her new life. Her new safety.

A sad expression turned the older woman’s lips down. She crossed the room and pulled Emerson into her arms. Security. Protection. It cocooned her. Slowed her heart, and let the forgotten warmth coat her skin.

“Oh, darling. We’ll be out of this house soon.”

She rested her head on the woman’s chest, listening to her heart as a new set of footsteps sounded behind her.

Her gaze cut across the room to Levi. He was her stepbrother, but he also wasn’t. If this last month had taught her anything, it was that blood didn’t make people family. It was loyalty. Trust. And love. Pixie and Levi were all those things. They were family.

The bruises on Levi’s face had faded, but he still cringed when his broken ribs were nudged. Broken ribs her father had caused when Levi had saved her. Her brother had only been released from the hospital a few days ago. He’d protected her against a monster. Because that’s what family did, they protected each other, regardless of the cost. She was alive because of Levi. Even at eleven years old, she knew it was a debt she’d spend her life trying to repay.