Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Meems had told her it was right. Called it taking out the trash.
But when the trash had come back, pounding at the door and demanding to be let inside, his momma had called the police.
They told her that she had no right to keep him out.
He was on the lease, and she had no papers saying he couldn’t be there.
Silas knew to his guts it was bullshit. Wrong that she had to let him back in. Wrong that he’d won again.
“Don’t sit there and act like you’re better than me,” his father sneered. “You got my blood running right through you. It’s time to use it. Now get out before I beat the man into you.”
Hatred boiled in that blood. The blood that Silas hated. He clenched his teeth, sucked for a bunch of breaths, and tried to shove off the fear.
But it chased him like a swarm of bees as he finally shoved open the door. His ears rang with adrenaline. A concoction of terror and hate and disgust.
He ran across the road and bashed the window of the car rather than his daddy’s head.
Glass shattered, little splinters that went everywhere.
But he wasn’t prepared for when an alarm started blaring. Shocked, he jolted back, eyes skating back and forth to see a bunch of people turning to look at him. Panicking, he started to run back for the truck.
But not before a guy came busting out from a store, right behind him in a flash.
Tackling him to the hard pavement below. His chest pressed so hard to the road that he thought it was going to cave in as the man pinned him down.
“You little shit. Did you just try to rob me? You bust my car window? You’re gonna pay for that.”
Silas struggled to break free, and for once, he was thankful his dad was there, that he could get this guy off him because he was crushing him bad.
Putting so much weight on him it was hard to breathe.
Only his attention cut to the opposite side of the road when the engine of his dad’s old truck suddenly roared, tires peeling out, the tail of his truck disappearing as it swerved down the street.
His momma stormed with him out of the Crimson Creek police station. She had his hand locked in hers, like he was four and she was marching him out of a store after throwing a tantrum.
The sun shone bright, and he blinked against the jarring rays. Jarred from sitting on a hard chair in a dark office for what had felt like an entire week, then the next released into the cool spring air.
He wanted to fall to his knees from the relief, but he tried to force his chest and chin up. To pretend like he hadn’t been the most scared in his life. That his heart hadn’t felt like it’d been stretched and mashed like Play-Doh.
The worst part was his mom. The way he could feel her entire body quaking. Her head held high too as she rushed with him down the five steps of the big building and around to the side of it.
There, she whipped him around, and she bent the smallest fraction since he was almost as tall as her, getting right in his face. “Tell me what happened.”
“I already told you.” He basically stammered it, though he tried to make it sound hard. Mean like his dad’s voice.
He wasn’t great at telling his mom lies. But no way was he going to let on that his dad had forced him to do it.
Not when he knew she would confront him, which would turn into a big fight, and she’d end up getting hurt.
He would never be responsible for that. Would never let it happen. It was his job to take care of her.
It was what he’d been made to do. He knew it all the way down into his soul.
“Don’t lie to me, Silas. I know you’re not telling the truth.”
Redness flushed his skin, and the scrapes on his face from being pushed down onto the pavement burned, but not as hot as his shame.
“I told you. I saw that there was a wallet in the cupholder, and I figured there had to be money in it.”
Air huffed out of her mouth, and she inched closer to him, but her words came out soft. In all the belief that she always gave him. “You’re not a thief, Silas. I know you didn’t come up with that plan yourself. You can tell me whatever you need to.”
He wavered, looking away and gnawing at the inside of his cheek like it might be able to keep the truth from bleeding out.
“Please tell me, baby.” Sadness oozed out with it, and he looked that way just as she whispered, “I know it was him, wasn’t it? Did your dad put you up to it?”