Rule #1: Don't talk to strangers.
Rule #2: Never leave the house.
Rule #3: Keep quiet and stay out of sight.
When Price moved in next door, Kylee couldn't wait to meet him. Finally, someone she could talk to without breaking her stepfather's rule of...
Kylee leaned against her bedroom door, her heart beating erratically. Even from here, she could hear Bill swearing and yelling in the living room. She squeezed her eyes shut. Why was he still going on? He should have forgotten about her by now.
"Please stay in the other room. Please stay in the other room," she chanted to herself. She glanced down at her throbbing arm, noting the small rivulet of blood collecting in the corner of her elbow.
Her mom's shouting mingled with Bill's, and something large crashed into a wall. The single-story house rattled as Bill's thundering footsteps approached."Kylee!" he roared, the full extent of his fury echoing in the one word.
She whimpered. Her eyes landed on the chair scooted against the wooden desk next to the closet. She lunged for it, intent on propping it under the doorknob like she had so many times in the past.
Barely had she vacated her spot by the door before it banged open, slamming into the opposite wall with its force. Kylee shrieked and spun around.
"I'm sorry," she sputtered, her hands splayed out in front of her for protection. "I should have stayed out of it. I-"
He cut the rest of her apology off with a left hook to her jaw. Kylee stumbled backwards and went down to her knees, a little surprised she hadn't seen that coming. Bill was angrier than usual.
"What did I-" she began, but this time his punch knocked her into the desk. A searing pain lanced through her forehead. The sudden instinct to flee powered through her limbs. She had to get out. Bill blocked the exit to her room, which left her window as the only retreat.
Kylee shot forward, putting all her effort into getting to the window before Bill could get to her. But he was faster. His hand closed around her ponytail, whipping back so hard her head spun.
"No!" she cried as Bill grabbed her shoulders.
"Shut up," he said.
"Let me go." She squirmed under his hands. "Please."
"I said shut up," he said before slamming her head into the floor.
All Kylee got out was a small groan before blackness claimed her.
~*~
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The sun had already dipped low on the horizon of the Virginia sky when the black car pulled into the neighbor's driveway. Kylee didn't know anything about cars, what body went to which brand, but she knew just from the sound-or lack of it-as the vehicle came to a stop that it was one of the nicer ones.
A man stepped out of the driver's side, but Kylee's view was blocked by the moving truck that pulled up beside the car. She sat up taller on the crumbling porch step. Neighbors. No one had lived next to the Mansfields in years.
