Made of Stars (24 page)

…

Chance’s room is a mess. Clothes, books, junk scattered on the floor. Chance himself is messing with the camera. He’s breathless. Eyes wide.

Footsteps. Someone is rushing down the hallway.

He jerks upright, muscles tense, poised, ready to run. The door flies open and—

It isn’t Zeke, but Tabitha.

She bears bruises around her throat like a black-and-blue necklace. She slams the door shut, fumbling with a lock, leaning her shoulder into it.

“He broke the lock already.” Chance hops onto his bed as though being higher, above her, somehow helps him lord over the room. Makes him feel less out of control of the situation. He sounds calm. More irritated than anything else. “Get away from there, Mom.”

Tabitha doesn’t move in time. Zeke shoves the door open with enough force it sends her staggering back and landing on the floor. Intimidating enough in his rage, but added to that is the fact that in his hand is a gun.

Zeke goes for her. Chance—with the reflexes of someone who has done this time and time again—springs off the bed and gives his dad a shove for no reason other than to draw his attention.

“Leave her alone!”

Zeke swivels and cuffs him on the side of the head with the butt of the gun. Chance reels, catching himself against the wall and trying to keep his balance. But it worked. His dad’s attention is focused on him now. Tabitha, the weeping, cowering woman on the floor, is unimportant.

“You always gotta get in the way!” Zeke snarls. “You think you’re so fuckin’ smart…”

Chance stumbles out of the room. Tabitha is only momentarily forgotten while Zeke is screaming after his son. Then he remembers her existence. He grabs her up by the arm while she wails and is dragged from the room.

“You know who you’ve been protecting, you little shit?” Zeke bellows. Heard, but unseen. The room is still. Uninterrupted while the fight continues elsewhere in the house. There’s a scuffle. Bodies hitting walls. Punches being thrown. The camera is witness only to the sounds of it.

Zeke says, winded, “Put it
down
—she was gonna leave us both! Bet you didn’t know that, did you?”

“We were going to get the hell away from
you
,” Chance sneers. “We were going to get the money and get as far away from you as possible, and if you tried to follow—”

“Is that why I found her packing her shit? Huh? Didn’t see you getting ready to leave.”

Silence.

“Tell ’im, Tabby. Tell him. Were you going to bring him along?”

Tabitha whimpers, her mumbled explanations falling on the deaf ears of her husband and son.

Chance’s words are laced with disbelief. With pain. Betrayal. “You were really going to leave without me?”

“No… I wasn’t… It isn’t… I would have come back for you!”

The end. The truth.

Tabitha Harvey finally had enough of her husband and she was truly, really going to leave. And she’d planned on abandoning her son to deal with the disaster left behind.

Chance lets out a low, hollow laugh. “No. You wouldn’t have.”

Something happens. Someone tries to run or someone tries to gain control of the gun but there is—

So. Much. Shouting.

Glass breaking. Tabitha screaming. Zeke hollering threats at her. Only Chance is silent.

Then a gunshot that shatters the chaos and everything, everyone, goes quiet.

…

Chills prickle my back like a thousand tiny spiders making a pilgrimage down my spine.

The video feed continues. There are muffled, heated words. Footsteps. Panicked, frightened. Doors slamming. No one returns to Chance’s room. The camera films on.

And on and on.

Until the battery goes dead, and the video blacks out.

My sister and I haven’t moved. We haven’t spoken. She has her hand over her mouth. Her eyes, when she finally turns her gaze to me, are wide and glassy.

“What just happened?” she whispers.

My mouth is dry and wooly, and my tongue won’t cooperate.
I don’t know
, is what I want to say. It isn’t working.

Before either of us can think or say anything further, my phone rings.

Chance

As soon as Hunt and Ash were gone, I pitched myself out of bed.

I unplugged the machines from the wall before yanking out the IV and unclipping the heart monitor from my finger. Whoever thought hospital gowns—especially ones tied in the back where your ass is hanging out—were a brilliant idea needed to be punched.

My clothes, folded on a table nearby, were filthy. So what else was new? I’d have to ditch them and get some new ones somewhere. Somehow.

I rushed to pull them on. My limbs still weren’t cooperating like I wanted them to. They moved at the speed of death. Hypothermia, was it? Whatever it was, my body needed to get over it.

My room was on the first floor. Thank the stars for small favors. I pocketed my phone, yanked on my shoes, and pried open the window. I slung my legs outside and dropped to the brush and grass below. Got the hell out of there before the monitors alerted the nurse’s station. Or before the cops showed up.

If they thought I was going to lie around while the police came in and handcuffed me to the bed like a common criminal, they had another thing coming.

They don’t know. They don’t understand. And how could they?

There is no happy ending after this.

I wish Hunter and Ashlin had believed me when I tried to tell them that. It would’ve made this a lot easier.

The stars are out. Bright and beautiful.

I wish Hunter were here to see them with me. Draco is the brightest, but he never believes me when I say that. I had an amazing view of the stars from the island. Although I’d only intended to be there for awhile, the longer I sat…the more I thought I could have stayed there and watched the stars through a broken window until the cold overcame me.

Obviously, Hunter had other ideas.

I pick a direction and run. Pretty sure this road will eventually lead me to the freeway. What a nice word.
Freeway.
Go this way, and you shall be free. This is the way of the free. I hope that’s true, because freedom sounds pretty nice.

Not as nice as going home to the Jacksons. But what could ever be nicer than that?

It’s not that I’m afraid to stick around. It’s not like there’s anything on that camera they shouldn’t see.

You were going to leave me here…

It’s not like Hunter wouldn’t understand. After everything Dad has done, after everything Mom failed to do—

Put down the gun. Put. It. Down.

It’s hard to be sad. Truly, honestly sad. Mom is gone and it is sad, sure. A sad event. Death, as an event, is sad. People matter, and the end of a life is a thing to be mourned. But how do
I
, me, myself, find it in me to feel anything at all?

I wanted to protect.

I wanted to
be
protected.

I just wanted to get the hell away. From him. From that house. I wanted to live with Hunter and Ash, with Mr. J and even Isobel. A big happy family. With them, I could be normal. I could be—better. A good person. I could love and be loved.

There aren’t words to explain how fucking amazing that feels.

What have you done? What have you…

Where did that dream go wrong? Or have I sabotaged it myself, subconsciously? Because, let’s face the cold hard facts, I’m not worthy to be a part of their lives. Not like that. I was able to orbit the bright warmth of the Jackson family for years.

All dreams must be set aside eventually. Reality sets in.

My reality is this: I can’t stay here. Hunter and Ashlin will be okay. Mr. J will take care of them. Hunter might not agree that my leaving is for the better, but it is. I’m only ever going to drag them down. This way, they’ll go to college, do something great with their lives. Maybe someday I’ll see them on TV or on the cover of a magazine. Maybe they’ll mention the boy they knew when they were younger.

After all, I don’t want them to look for me, but I don’t want to be forgotten, either.

It was dark and the freeway was desolate save for the occasional truck rumbling past. I’d done plenty of hitchhiking around town, but never here. Never farther than a few blocks.

My phone was like lead in my pocket. Could the police track me by it? Who knows. It’s possible. But more than that, keeping it on me is a tie to them. Right now, any ties to them are unfair. Selfish.

Hunter answers his phone on the first ring. “Chance?”

“I just called to say good-bye.” Which sucks. Good-byes in general are sucky. “Did you finish what was on the camera?”

“I…yeah. We did.”

“Good.” That makes me smile. He wanted honesty, and what they found on that camera is as honest as it gets.

What the hell did you do? You killed her…

Memories of that night burn vivid, painful, in the back of my mind. I struggle to fend them off.

A truck growls past, prompting Hunter to ask, “Where the hell are you?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Keep walking. Keep putting distance. Every step makes it easier, right? Right. “It’s been fun, but things are going to get messy. You two really should’ve stopped trying to follow me. So…I’ll make it so you can’t anymore.”

“Don’t do this.” His voice absolutely wrecks me. How can a guy who comes across as so impervious to life as Hunter does break my heart with such a simple inflection in his tone? I would do anything for him when he sounds like that. I would do anything…if it meant protecting him.

That is what I’m doing. Protecting.

“I need to go, Hunt. Don’t worry about me, yeah? Give those pictures and videos over to the cops. Let them throw his sorry ass behind bars, even if only for a while.” And please don’t tell me they won’t, because I’m relishing the thought of Dad rotting in a cell for ever having touched me.

I start to pull the phone away from my ear.

“Wait! Tell me one thing.”

Really, I should hang up or he’ll keep me talking for days until he manages to convince me to turn back. And yet, damn him, I pause. “One thing.”

Hunter takes a deep breath. I hope he realizes the severity of this. He has one question. One thing I’ll answer, and that’s it. A line has to be drawn.

He settles on, “Was anything you’ve told me true?”

Truth.

Ahh, what is truth? Truth is in the eye of the beholder. Aren’t lies just variations of the truth? Taking a fact and stretching it out, morphing it until it becomes something else?

Even the stars are lies.

They sparkle so brightly, but their shine takes years to reach us. For all I know, Draco could be dead now and I may never know it. How can I say anything in my entire life was
true
, including the things I’ve told Hunter and Ashlin?

Oh. Yes. There is one thing.

The one thing I can say with absolute certainty: “I love you. That has been true since the day we met.”

Which is why I don’t give him a chance to say anything further. I hang up, turn, and throw the phone as far as I can over into the field running parallel to the freeway. Gone.

This is me, severing ties from everything that has ever hurt me.

And from everything that I have ever hurt.

Seeking my freedom for however long I can.

I lift a hand, thumb out, to flag down a truck heading up the road.

Maybe I, too, am a star that has already burned out, and nobody has realized it yet.

Acknowledgments

Made of Stars
has been a ride of a different variety in comparison to other books I’ve written. For the first time, I had a full synopsis and outline done before stepping into the story. I knew my beginning, my middle, and my ending. I also had the help of my miracle-working editor, Stacy Abrams, to help guide me in a good direction and hammer out all the details early on. She helped make this process run smoothly, and I hope we get to do it again.

Another thanks goes to my critique partners for encouraging me and holding my hand through all my self-doubt. Nyrae Dawn in particular.
Thank you
for always being the first person to see what I type. I know if I can get her to like my characters, I’m golden, because I certainly do not write stories she picks up on her own. Bless her heart, she still sticks with me and gives every one of my ideas a try.

As always, the biggest thank-you will go out to my readers. Thank you for giving my books a chance. Thank you for loving my characters, whether they’re quirky or happy or vicious or unbearably broken. I’m all too aware I don’t write things that fit in with the mainstream market, and the fact that you choose to pick up my stories amongst all the others never fails to astound me in the best of ways.

This is Chance’s story above all else, and he is a larger-than-life character I hope everyone will love despite his enormous flaws. Thank you, readers, for letting me tell his story. You’re wonderful. You’re beautiful. You are all perfect.

About the Author

Kelley was born and raised in central California, where she still resides with her lovely wife, daughter, and an abundance of pets. She dreams about moving to Ireland, has a fascination with bells and snow globes, and adores all things furry—be them squeaky, barky, or meow-y. Her non-writing time is spent playing video games or visiting cemeteries and taking lots and lots of pictures.

You can visit Kelley on the web at

http://www.kelley-york.com
.

Kelley York’s

haunting thriller

H
USHED

Eighteen-year-old Archer couldn’t protect his best friend, Vivian, from what happened when they were kids, so he’s never stopped trying to protect her from everything else. It doesn’t matter that Vivian only uses him when hopping from one toxic relationship to another. Archer is always there, waiting to be noticed.

Then along comes Evan, the only person who’s ever cared about Archer without a single string attached. The harder he falls for Evan, the more Archer sees Vivian for the manipulative hot-mess she really is.