I tried to get a read on him, tried to see what Emily saw. But she was a fortress, locked down tight. She just gave me one-word answers, her eyes glued to her phone, and I knew she was texting her mom. I knew I was losing, and I hadn’t even identified the enemy. “Emily,”…
The liquid didn’t just burn. It scoured. It was a chemical fire that erased a six-month fog. The dull, cotton-stuffed weakness that had filled my skull, the leaden weight in my limbs, the hazy confusion that made me a “burden”—it all evaporated in a single, searing second. I was awake. I was truly, terrifyingly awake…
He was just… staring at me. His small body was rigid with cold, but his eyes… his eyes weren’t afraid. They were curious. The children from town, the few who dared each other to run past the cave entrance, they looked at me with terror. They saw the witch. This boy… he just saw a…
“What you found? What did you find?” I yelled, my voice cracking, drawing stares from the nurses’ station. David’s hand was a vise on my arm. “Ma’am, please, calm down. Let’s sit.” But I wouldn’t sit. “You tell me what you found in that woman’s house! You tell me why my daughter is being pumped…
Lily hesitated, her small body vibrating with fear, her eyes darting from my face to the rifle on the wall. “You’re… you’re coming?” “I’m coming,” I said. The words felt rusty, like old machinery grinding back to life. I grabbed my heaviest shearling-lined coat, my rifle, and the storm lantern. I didn’t bother with the…
“She’s… gone.” The word, spoken by my nine-year-old daughter, hung in the freezing air, a ghost I couldn’t fight. Gone. “Gone where, Em? To the store? To Grandma’s?” I was bargaining, my mind refusing to process the scene. The overgrown lawn. The eviction notice stapled to the door, flapping in the wind. Emily just shook…
But fear is a funny thing. It’s a cage, but it’s also a key. I knew what I heard. And I knew what I saw in Mr. Caldwell’s eyes. He deserved the truth, even if it came from a girl who had nothing. I tried. God, I tried. The next day, I used my library…
The tremors from Carter’s challenge still vibrated in the air as I faced him down. The class was a frozen tableau, a sea of wide eyes and dropped jaws. The only sound was the faint electronic whine from the phones still pointed in our direction. I didn’t break eye contact. I didn’t move. I simply…
The slur hit the cabin air and sucked all the oxygen out with it. It was the one. The one that’s designed to end arguments, to dehumanize, to sever. She spat it at me. “You… [slur].” Everything stopped. The sound of the recycled air. The coughing from 21A. The baby fussing four rows up. All…
The door slammed open, the metal clang echoing off the damp tile like a gunshot. I spun around, my heart leaping into my throat. My sweat-soaked shirt was still clutched in my hand. I instinctively tried to cover myself, but it was too late. It was Maddox. And two of his friends, smirking, holding mops…
Barbara’s posture, rigid and righteous, was the last thing I saw before she turned and marched briskly back to the galley. The curtain swished shut, a flimsy, pathetic barrier sealing her off from the atrocity she had just committed. Minutes crawled by. They felt like lifetimes. The tension in the cabin was a living thing,…
My eyes were glued to his hands. The biker’s hands. Hands I’d subconsciously cataloged as weapons just seconds before—calloused, scarred, covered in ink that snaked up his arms—were now moving with a gentle, practiced grace that simply didn’t compute. He was signing back. Not just a simple “Are you okay?” This was a conversation. His…
