putting my head down and letting my father do whatever he wants because that was the easiest route. If I didn’t talk back to him, he’d hit me, but if I did, he’d hit me harder and for longer. And it’s like… I get it, I’m twenty, fuck, I’m as tall as him, but I still have it ingrained in my head to do whatever the hell he wants. And while he doesn’t hit me like he did when I was a kid, it’s always that thought that he will or something that makes me just give in and let him do what he wants. But I don’t want to be like that anymore.”
“Man, we’re a fun pair,” Shepherd says.
I grin at him. “We are, aren’t we?”
“It just makes us better than everyone else, don’t you know that?”
“Oh, it does?”
“Yes, because we try harder, we fight harder, and we know how to judge asshole people and use our brain. I do, at least. I’m not sure if your brain works,” he teases.
“I’m not going to deny that. You sure as shit know a whole lot more than I do. I’m like a dumb little puppy dog.”
“Trying to hump my leg and everything.”
I glare at him as he grins, far too proud of himself. “Nope. Not that. Now teach me whatever else I need to know to be a gunslinger.”
“You have to call me master, though.”
I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Yes, master. Teach me,” I purr.
He starts laughing as he points at the next target. For the rest of the morning, we spend a lot of time working with the gun before we break for lunch.
Age Sixteen
The moment the clock strikes one, I slip out of bed and climb under it before grabbing the bag I’d packed. Inside is money I’d been borrowing or taking from my father or mother every chance I could. When I’d ask for money for a book, he’d hand me a hundred because he thought money would fix everything. He thought it’d make me happy and keep me quiet.
Instead, I kept collecting the money until I had enough. Now it’s split between my backpack and my body. I pull open the door and listen carefully. Obviously, Father will notice something’s up if I just trudge down the stairs with my backpack full. So I move quietly through the dark house, heading toward the front door while hoping that Father is in bed, oblivious to what I’m doing.
When I hit the first floor, I turn toward the front door when I hear a noise. Startled, I slip around the corner of the stairs and tuck myself back into the dark corner. If the lights get turned on, I’ll instantly be noticeable.
“Cindy?”
Silence.
“Killian, is that you?”
Quietly, I shrug off the backpack so when my father finds me, he might not notice it. I’ll tell him some lie about coming down for a glass of water, and he’ll probably yell at me about something. I listen to his clothes rustle far too close to me before I hear him head back into the kitchen area.
There’s no way I could leave now. The alarm will need to be undone and when it is, it beeps twice. He wouldn’t hear it from upstairs, but he’d sure as hell hear it from fifteen feet away. So instead, I sit in silence, waiting for him to go to sleep.
As the hours pass, I’m left sitting in agonizing silence. Every moment I wait, I feel like he’s going to pop around that corner to find me tucked back here and the thought makes my stomach ache. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but I know I’ll hear when he eventually reaches the stairs. When he does, my watch shows that it’s past three. Still, I wait until almost four before I get up.
I walk up to the front door where I reach the keypad for the lock system. I’ll have to turn it off to leave the house, and I don’t want to reset it because it audibly beeps when anyone leaves. So I type in the numbers and pull the door open before slipping out onto the porch. I pull the door shut behind me and take a breath.
Okay. One step down, now on to the next. This was the hard part—just forcing myself to break away. At this point, the trains will start running around five. I’ll take one to the far end of the city, grab a bus,