Kiss Me Gone Read Free Page B

my face or how I pounded on the glass.
    "Fucking stop her before she breaks something!" Anna screamed. She veered a hard right to suddenly take the next exit.
    Tom tried to force more alcohol down my throat, succeeding with a quarter of a mouthful while the rest of the foul liquid splashed on his hands. He passed the bottle to Molly with a rough order to cap it.
    "I should bash her fucking head in with it," Molly snapped as Tom dragged me toward his side of the back seat.
    Shoving his hand between my thighs he squeezed roughly as his ragged whisper filled my ear. "Chill the fuck out, Burke. We're all just having a little fun."
    He squeezed me again, this time so hard it brought tears to my eyes.
    "I'm sure your mom taught you all about having a little fun. The way I hear it, she's been spreading her legs all over town since Mike fucked up and got himself killed."
    Hearing my stepfather's name on Tom's hateful lips, I found a measure of calm. Whatever fun the three of them had in mind, they weren't getting it without a fight. Michael Burke may have treated me like a princess, but he also taught me to punch and kick like a UFC fighter. There would be blood before the drive was over -- mine and theirs. If I didn't make it through the night alive, my DNA would be all over the car and theirs would be all over me.
    I managed to twist just enough that I could bring my legs up from the floor. I aimed my steel-toed boots at the window on my side and kicked as hard as I could.
    "Fucking stop her!" Anna screamed, slamming on the brakes just as Molly's arm reared back with the glass bottle in her hand.
    Our bodies whipped forward. Molly lost her grip on the fifth she had aimed at my head and Tom lost his hold on me. I gave another hard kick as I twisted. My arm shot forward, my hand making contact with Tom's face. I dragged my nails down his cheek and was rewarded with a trail of warm, wet blood.
    Trying to crawl into the back seat, Molly delivered a flurry of vicious punches as I simultaneously kicked at the window and tried to shield my head from the blows.
    "Get out you fucking cunt!"
    I couldn't tell if Anna was screaming at me or Molly, but I heard the locks click open and then I saw Anna grab Molly's arms. I threw myself against the passenger door on my side, my fingers scrabbling along the hard plastic for the door's release. Finding it, I pulled. I spilled onto the ground but pushed up immediately and ran for the open corn field on the opposite side of the road. I kept running until my legs gave out and then I stayed on the ground. Breathing into the dirt to stay silent, I listened for sounds that any of them had followed me into the field.
    When I finished counting to five hundred without any sign that the McPhersons and Molly were hunting me, I returned to the road and started my long walk home.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Dare
     
    More than an hour passed before I found Eden sitting on a park bench. Stacked on top of those first three thousand, six hundred seconds of failure searching for her was the abandoned hunt that had started my night, exhausted my fuel supply and forced me to stop at the gas station where I ran into McPherson. Any other weeknight, I would have been in my room studying for the fire department's written exam with my dad.
    But my dad wasn't at home. His black truck had peeled out of the driveway around eight-thirty, leaving two dark tracks of rubber on the concrete. A full hour of fighting between my parents had preceded his departure. The angry squeal of the truck's tires echoed in mood the slamming cupboard doors in the kitchen as my mother mumbled under her breath about how she would divorce Frank if she wasn't such a devout Catholic.
    I knew the longer my dad stayed gone, the less salvageable the marriage would be. What I didn't know was that the relationship between my parents was already dead and finding Eden in the park would be the final nail in the coffin.
    Blind to the universe's plans for the night,