Page 22 of Nanny for the SEAL

Actually excited, I pull my phone back out and swipe open the new text message, passing under an awning that provides enough shade from the cloudless sunny sky to read the screen.

Are you ignoring me?

The message comes through an unknown number, and I worry that I didn’t save Sam’s number. Still, I’m sure I did, and then I take a closer look at the digits in the phone number.

My stomach clenches as my heart rate skyrockets. Then my phone buzzes in my hand as two more messages come through back to back.

You can’t hide from me forever.

I will find you, Vivi.

And there goes the good mood I was enjoying.

SEVEN

Ivy

The coffee table in front of me is grimy and covered with things I’d rather not see. My skin crawls as I sit on the matted, deep brown couch, the fabric stained with missing chunks of thread that reveal an age-yellow backing.

There are more pills and powders than I can count, and yelling intensifies in the room off to my right.

My parents are fighting again. This time, it’s over money, which isn’t unusual. It’s either that or who used from the stash they were supposed to be selling that week.

We live in a trailer, and they’re about to lose it if they don’t make a mortgage payment soon. I’m not sure I would hate to be evicted.

In fact, I think it would be good. If we got kicked out, things kept in the shadows would be forced into the light, and I might get away from them.

I’m not supposed to want that, to leave my parents.

But they don’t feel like the caregivers most people get. I know they didn’t mean to have me—they’ve told me enough times—and they’ve made it clear that I’m a burden.

The screaming match gets louder and louder. I want to move, to run out the front door and never look back.

I don’t. Ican’t.

Everything presses down, and I’m glued to this disgusting couch so much that I can barely blink. Darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision, and I can feel it trying to slip under my skin, dragging me down, down, down.

I’m sinking into the cushions, my legs lifting up in front of me. I’m drowning in nothingness, and I can’t fight it in the slightest.

It’s like being a doll set up in a plastic house that’s about to come face to face with a blow torch.

The pain and screaming and fear are all trapped inside me, and I don’t move. I don’t try to get away.

I just fall into the abyss that’s swallowing me down, tears streaming down my unblinking face.

And then it’s black, just eons and eons of black.

“No!”

Shooting up in my bed, I clutch the fabric of my sweat-coated shirt. My breath rushes in and out of me as I try to look around the dark room.

The softness of the sheets beneath begins to pull me back to reality.

I scan my surroundings, noting the bed, the dresser, and the open window to my right, a breeze wafting in that smells of autumn leaves and fresh rain.

“I’m not there.” My voice is a harsh whisper. “I’m not there. I’m…I’m in the new house. In…Red Lodge.”

Slowly, my breathing calms down, along with the furious pounding of my heart. It was just a nightmare.

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