Page 1 of Shattered Souls
PROLOGUE
Curled up at the head of the bed, my arms are wrapped around my legs as my gaze bounces around the strange room I’m in. My knees knock together as another shiver overtakes me, the fear paralyzing. I don’t know where I am. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is falling asleep in my bed. I said night night to Mommy in my head and pretended she tucked me in, the way she does, where she makes sure all the edges are tucked in around me.Snug as a bug in a rug. That’s what she says to me. It always makes me giggle.
I’m not giggling now.
I’m scared.
I want my mommy.
I want my teddies.
My bed.
Why am I here?
There’s nothing in this room. No toys. The bedsheets aren’t even pink.This isn’t my bedroom.
The tears come then. Heavy and heart-wrenching as I bury my face in my knees.
My nose runs, and my cheeks are red by the time I cry myself out. I’m tired. I want to sleep, but I’m scared.
Just as they begin to droop, a flicker of movement catches my eye.
There’s a man in the doorway.
No, not a man. A shadow.
He doesn’t move, and neither do I.
“Please,” I beg, “I want to go home.Please.Take me home.”
1
GRAYSON
With one hand wrapped around the handle to keep the front door from opening, I blink stupidly at my father. My father, who is standing on my front stoop, even though he’s supposed to be in prison for another sixty-seven days.
Yeah, I’ve been counting. Although, perhaps I shouldn’t have been avoiding visiting him, or I’d have known he was being released early instead of being blindsided first thing in the fucking morning.
“So?” He arches his brow in that arrogant way of his when I don’t respond to whatever he said.What the fuck did he just say?Oh yeah, some bullshit about getting the entire family back together—what the hell that even means. “Are you going to invite me inside?”
Fuck no.
Hoping my shock is entirely explained by his unexpected appearance at my door and not his uncanny timeliness after last night’s botchedSave Auroraplan, I paste on a fake as fuck smile.
“You know what? I was just on my way out to get a coffee. Why don’t you join me?” I surreptitiously pat my pockets. Idefinitely don’t have my wallet, but thankfully, I have my phone with my cards loaded onto it.
My father’s gaze drops, his lips pursing in disapproval at the gray sweats and black undershirt I’m wearing. Yeah, this isn’t my ideal going-out outfit either, but it’s not like I’m going to change and leave my father standing here, risking him running into one of the guys—or worse, Riley.
Uncaring, I stuff my feet into a pair of trainers tossed haphazardly by the door. That’ll be Logan’s doing, and the shoes are a size bigger than mine, but that’s the last thing I care about right now.
With a forced smile directed at my father, the door snicks shut behind me, and side by side, we walk down the street toward the corner coffee shop.
He’s silent while we walk, which gives my brain time to catch up to the reality that my father is a free man—walking casually down the street like he hasn’t served a sentence behind bars for the last four years.
Like he shouldn’tstillbe locked behind those bars.
Like he isn’t a menace to society—or, more accurately, a direct threat to the broken woman I just left passed out between my two best friends after a night of crying because we failed to bring her daughter home.
