PROLOGUE
HENDRIX
He was acting strange today.
Well—my father was acting stranger than usual. Which I hadn’t thought was possible.
All day I’d caught him just staring at me. At the breakfast table, while I was eating my Fruit Loops, he’d hovered in the doorway of the kitchen…watching me with a feverish glare.
“Dad?” I’d asked hesitantly, but he’d just shook his head and stalked away, only to return a few minutes later to keep watching me.
I’d moved into the living room, trying to work on school work, and there he’d been again.
River, Caspian, and I were outside now, riding our bikes. I’d just glanced back towards the house and he’d been standing at the window…staring at us. I could feel his stare boring into the side of my head.
“River,” I whispered, not wanting Caspian, our youngest brother, to overhear and start to worry. “Have you noticed anything weird with Dad, today?”
River snorted, shaking his head and looking back at the house. His bike swerved when he saw our father still standing in the window.
“I heard him talking to himself in his room all night,” River muttered as he narrowly missed crashing into a bush.
I frowned, dread flickering through me as I tried to glance at my dad surreptitiously so he wouldn’t know that I was watching. “Let’s go play in the back of the house,” I suggested, and my two brothers quickly followed behind me, like they could feel the menace in the air as well.
The dark curtains that my father had installed at the beginning of the year were blissfully still as we played in the backyard, but I couldn’t get rid of the sensation that he was still somewhere nearby…watching.
The sky began to darken, fading to dark blue as we finally made our way into the house. My body was laced with tension as we walked through the back door. It was unlike our father to let us play outside all day. He hated when we wasted our time with “foolishness.”
What had made today so different?
We quickly washed up in the bathroom and then hustled to the dining room for dinner. I had barely stepped foot in the room when I came to a screeching halt, River smacking into the back of me and almost knocking me to the ground from the sudden stop.
It was six o’clock. The lights should be on, the candles should be lit, and the fine dining should be set out. The table should be loaded with food and there should be servants bustling in and out of the room.
Just like every night at this time.
Except, it seemed, for tonight.
The table was completely empty, the lights dark, no sign of my father or any of the servants. I hurried over to the door that led to the kitchen and swung it open, muttering a soft curse when I saw that the kitchen was empty, those lights off as well.
Where were all the servants?
“Let’s just go up to my room,” I told my brothers, who were both looking…frightened. I grabbed a loaf of bread and some peanut butter from the pantry and then began to shepherd my brothers out into the hallway so we could head up the back stairs to my room.
“Going somewhere?” my father asked coolly from the base of the stairs, as if he’d been watching us this whole time. He never used the back stairs; he’d told us very sternly, many times, that they were for the servants. So for him to be here, waiting for us…
He glanced down at the bread and peanut butter I was carrying. “The servants have been dismissed,” he said, reaching out and grabbing the food from my hands.
“Dismissed for the night?” I was confused. The servants were never given any time off. Not even holidays.
“Permanently,” he replied nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just dropped a huge bomb on us.
Caspian sniffled behind me. He was still little, and his nanny, Becky, was his favorite person in the world. For him to have let her go without letting Caspian say goodbye...
Asshole wasn’t a strong enough word to describe my father.
“Grab your shoes. We’re leaving,” he continued.
I shifted warily in place. My father was a creature of habit. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at the same time every day. He took his coffee in the same way. He hung his clothes the same way.
He was not the type of male to suddenly decide to go for a drive at the drop of a hat.
“We have our lessons first thing in the morning,” I insisted, knowing I was risking a fist to the face by pushing back at him. “We should probably go to bed soon.”
A scary smile spread across his face, and he was glaring at me, but it was like he wasn’t actually seeing me…it was like he was looking right through me.
“Go get your shoes on,” he ordered again in an icy voice that sent chills down my spine.
“Come on, Hendrix,” River whispered, grabbing my arm and leading me down the hall to where our shoes were stacked neatly by the garage door. “Let’s not make him mad.”
I peered over my shoulder as we walked and saw my dad staring at the wall in front of him, moving his lips feverishly, but with no sound coming out.
A shiver shot through my spine, everything inside me screaming to grab my brothers and run away.
But I knew that wouldn’t help us. We’d already tried that before, and we’d been picked up by the cops hours later a mile from shore, our stories of abuse falling on deaf ears thanks to the extra padding my father made sure was in all of their pockets.
Not for the first time, I cursed my mom for leaving us with him and taking off. I could see her clearly in my head. Her warm smile, the sound of her laugh. The way her hugs had felt. The cadence of her voice as she’d read us our favorite books. That woman seemed very much at odds with what had happened.
What kind of mother leaves her sons with a monster to save herself?
I pushed the thought away, knowing it wouldn’t help for me to mourn someone who evidently had never existed.
We got our shoes on, and then we waited impatiently for our father to appear.
“I’m hungry,” sniffed Caspian. The shadows under his eyes hinted at being exhausted too. Playing outside all day was definitely a lot for a little kid. If his nanny was here, she’d be hustling him to bed right now, after making sure he ate all of his vegetables for dinner.
A wave of despair hit me. How was I going to take care of my brothers without help? How was I going to keep them safe from him? I already took most of the beatings for myself. My shoulders slumped, and I battled the urge to cry.
I couldn’t let my brothers see that. I couldn’t let him see that.