My dad screamed at me to run without looking back… and five seconds later, I heard the gunshot that silenced him. But that wasn’t even the worst part: when I made it through the woods, the man waiting for me already knew my name and was holding my mother’s necklace in his hand.
I couldn’t do it. My legs were full of thorns, my throat was tight, and that gunshot was still echoing inside me as if it hadn’t finished happening. The man in the black hat still had the door open, my mom’s chain dangling between his fingers, watching me with that calm that’s scarier than screaming….