Page 41 of Outbreak

4 YEARS AGO.

Something’s wrong. He should be here by now.

The wind whips around my body; the night air is cool against my face. I pull my jacket tighter around me as I sit on the picnic table. I’ve been here for hours. He said midnight. It’s three in the morning now, and he hasn’t shown up. I’m worried. What if his dad found out and made good on his threats?

‘I’ll kill him.’

‘He’ll keep breathing as long as you keep your fucking mouth shut.’

“Don’t make me hurt him, Rue. You know how much I love to make it hurt.’

Every threat he’s made plays on a loop in my brain as I sit and panic. If he doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to have to sneak back home before Jimmy gets up for work. He can’t know what we have planned. He’ll kill me for even thinking about it.

Four AM.

Another hour passes, and he’s still not here.

“Where are you, Wyck?” I whisper into the night, calling his phone for the 20th time. Straight to voicemail.

“Hey, it's me again. I don’t know where you are or why you’re not picking up your phone. But I’m going back home. Call me when you get this. I’m worried.”

I hit the red button to end the call and slide my ass off the table. It’s not like him to stand me up without at least calling me. Bile bubbles in my stomach at what could be happening to him right now.

I grab the duffle bag from the table and slip it over my shoulder. It’s light. I don’t have much of anything that’s mine. And there’s not a single thing in that house I want to take with me. It holds nothing but pain and death.

On the walk back to the house, I play our last conversation in my mind, going over and over everything he said and did.

He was excited, ecstatic, even. The day we’ve been waiting for is finally here—his eighteenth birthday. He doesn’t know the extent of what goes on in my house or what I’ve done to keep him safe. But he loves me and knows I need to get out.

I don’t turn eighteen for a couple of months, and Jimmy—my foster dad—would expect that. So we decided now was the best time. Wyck knows some people who can help us disappear. I didn’t ask for the finer details, but when he climbed in my bedroom window this morning, he said everything was ready and we’d leave tonight.

But he didn’t show.

The house is dark—both of them—as I slip through the small alley between Wyck’s house and mine. We’ve been neighbors since I was placed in this house five years ago. When the social worker dropped me off and drove away, he was there, just across the short fence.

The raven-haired bad boy next door, brooding under a tree with a sketch pad and headphones.

His intense green eyes locked on mine, and time seemed to stall—until Jimmy gripped my arm so tight the bruises stayedfor days and forced me in the house. The smell—I'll never forget it. It took me days in the basement ‘learning the rules of the house’ to put a name to what it smelled like. Death.

When he finally let me come out of the basement, I ran outside and sucked in as much fresh air as I could. As I was heaving in the alley beside the house, Wyck came up. I think he asked my name, but all I could mutter was ‘death’, over and over, as I tried to rid myself of the suffocating scent.

The alley feels much smaller now than it did back then. I look up to his window, wishing… hoping he’s alright. Checking my phone for the millionth time, I sigh and slip it back in my pocket, pulling the straps of my bag higher on my shoulder and climbing up the ladder. Jimmy leaves it out here, and thank fuck—its how I’ve been able to escape when things get real fucking bad and I need to climb into Wyck’s window to spend the night.

As soon as my boots hit the hardwood inside the window, I know something’s wrong. The lamp on my nightstand flicks on, and Jimmy sits on the edge of my bed, his face as hard as stone.

“Going somewhere?” He asks, his eyes zoning in on my duffle bag as I slowly lower it to the floor.

“N-no. Coming home.” If I play it cool, maybe he will let it go. I sit on the stool at my vanity, leaning down to unlace my boots. “I was staying with a friend and wanted to come home, so I left.”

It’s a lie, and he knows it. I don’t have friends. I have Wyck.

Jimmy flies off the bed and snatches my hair, pulling me up to his face, twisted in anger. “You filthy, lying whore. I know where you’ve been.” Spittle flies from his mouth as he screams in my face. “He’s gone.”

A cold, icy fear races over my skin at his ominous words. “What did you do?”

My boots scrape on the wooden floors as he drags me to the bed by my hair, my hands wrapped around his wrist to loosen his grip.

“Me? Nothing. You’re little boyfriend left all on his own.” He shoves my face into the creamy white comforter as he pins me down on the bed. He rips my leggings down my ass, and bile rises in my throat as I let the numb wash over me.

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