Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,9

my mom. She might have been willing to make a phone call if she thought kids were in danger. But would Nora want that? Once alarm bells were sounded with the police, it was hard to silence them. And what’s to say the cops would have done anything anyway?

By the time I left that night, her dad still hadn’t come home. Her brother and the Sparrow girl were sitting on the porch, holding hands, and talking, but Nora was nowhere to be seen. She’d appeared all fine and dandy when she’d gone inside, two grocery bags still wrapped around her wrists, but I had a sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night.

God knew I wouldn’t be.

Ramsey woke me up just before eight to see if I wanted to spend the day with him—and, of course, Thea. Our dad had miraculously made it home overnight, and my brother flat-out refused to leave me with him after the way things had gone down the night before.

It wasn’t all that shocking, to be honest. My dad and Ramsey’s brawling was pretty much business as usual.

We didn’t talk about it.

There were no words left to say.

It was horrible and awful and wrong on so many levels.

But that inescapable hell was our life.

I hated that Ramsey had to worry about me so much.

But most of all, I hated that I needed him to.

While I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I filled him in on my newfound job at Mr. Leonard’s. He laughed his butt off when he learned I was collecting worms all day.

I strategically didn’t mention Freaking Camden Cole. My spending the day with a boy he didn’t know would have no doubt led to a million questions—none of which I had the answer to. Besides, after the way we’d left things, I wasn’t even sure if Camden would show up again.

When Ramsey and I got to the kitchen to make breakfast, we found the bread left open and stale, the ham sitting on the counter for who knew how long, and my father passed out in his recliner, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on his chest.

It was only four dollars’ worth of food, but the devastation of seeing it wasted was staggering.

It didn’t matter how often he’d done it to us; it felt like a betrayal each and every time. Tears welled in my eyes, but I held it together, knowing Ramsey was beside me. It wasn’t his fault, but he’d still spend the day feeling guilty if he knew I was upset.

While he made promises to bring home dinner that night, I slapped on a smile and toasted two pieces of the stale bread, smearing the last bit of peanut butter on them before passing one his way.

It was just another morning in the Stewart household.

Camden wasn’t at the creek when I arrived, and the wave of disappointment that washed over me was startling even to myself. With a fresh set of patience, a boatload of guilt, and a set of piercing blue eyes on my brain, I realized I had no right to be mad at Camden. If the roles were reversed, I wouldn’t have told him where I’d found my secret stash of a million worms, either. After all, I was his competition.

Mr. Leonard’s feud with Old Man Lewis wouldn’t last forever. But until it ended, Camden and I would be spending every day across the creek from each other. Having someone to talk to might make that miserable job slightly less horrible.

While I pondered the least humiliating way to apologize to Camden, a beetle big enough to have been related to squirrels ambushed me from the side. A scream tore from my throat, so loud that the echo off the trees alone was enough to deafen anyone in a five-mile radius.

Ducking and weaving, I ran to the edge of the water and frantically unwound my hair. I’d learned my lesson the day before about forgetting a ponytail holder and put my hair in a braid that morning. A freaking braid my attacker had gotten its gag-inducing feet tangled in, and now, I was seconds away from peeling out of my skin and living the rest of my life as a skeleton.

“Get off me!” I shouted, violently slapping at my hair. My panic skyrocketed when I heard the buzz beside my ear.

My freaking ear.

My exposed, open, and inviting ear the flying monster could crawl inside.

I’d have had to die.

Right then and there.

If that beetle got into