Silenced Read Free Page A

go.
    “Hannah?” Sara grabbed her arm when Ivy and Kerry came out. Ivy cringed, hearing her real name. “Is it Daddy?”
    Any evil was possible with Reverend Kirk Edmonds.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Out!”
    Ivy and Kerry pushed the others from the porch into the yard. Kerry had the gun, watchful. They knew a stranger was in the back, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone else lurking in the front yard. Or that he wouldn’t easily hop the fence.
    Sara grabbed Ivy’s hand as they ran across the yard. They’d hide out in half-deaf Mrs. Neel’s detached garage while figuring out what to do. Maybe she’d call the social worker who had been practically begging to help them. Ivy hated asking for help, but right now she had nothing. Her plans, her resources, were gone.
    A small explosion followed by a pulse of hot air pushed them the final feet across the narrow street. A second, louder explosion forced them to their knees on Mrs. Neel’s lawn. Ivy covered her head, expecting fire or debris to rain down, but all she felt was heat searing her skin.
    Sara screamed, grabbed Ivy so hard it shocked Ivy back into action.
    She got up, unsteady on her feet, and took one last look at her home. The dark gray smoke couldn’t hide the flames that licked at the windows.
    All hope burned inside.
    Ivy looked up and down the street. Lights were on, neighbors were coming out of their houses. The police, the fire department, strangers would be here soon.
    Ivy motioned for them to go down Mrs. Neel’s driveway, which would shield them from view. In the distance, sirens cut through the sound of ruin.
    Ivy couldn’t talk to the police. She’d lied to everyone in the neighborhood. She wasn’t a college student. She didn’t exist. She had a fake ID, not a real false identity. But worse, if her father had reported Sara as missing, her photo and prints would be in a database. She had to protect Sara.
    “We have to split up,” Ivy said. “Lay low until we find out who did this.”
    “It wasn’t an accident?” Sara’s face was filthy from soot and dirt, but her big blue eyes were so trusting, so innocent. Even after all she’d been through at the hands of that bastard, she was still innocent.
    “No,” Ivy said. “It was no accident.”
    Bryn silently cried. Nicole was enraged. “Everything’s gone!” She held up her backpack. “Two hundred dollars and a handful of clothes, that’s all I have?”
    “You’re alive,” Kerry snapped.
    “Jocelyn promised she’d help us,” Ivy said. She hoped she wasn’t wrong about the social worker. But she didn’t trust Sergio, and though she didn’t think he’d done this, how could she be sure? Why would the people she worked for try to kill her?
    A chill ran down her back. Was one of these girls, her friends, a Judas? She looked at their faces, one by one. Pain. Fear. Confusion.
    She trusted all these girls with her life.
    But did she trust them with Sara’s life?
    The sirens were closer, prompting Ivy to act.
    “Sara, Maddie, come with me. Mina, go with Nicole.”
    “I want to come with you,” the sixteen-year-old said, wiping away her tears, but more came tumbling down. “Please.”
    Ivy bit her lip. How could she manage both of them in addition to Sara? “I’ll come get you as soon as we’re settled. All of you.”
    The seven of them together would draw far too much attention.
    Mina nodded, but her eyes rested on Sara. Ivy stomped on her own guilt. Mina had been like a sister to her, they all had, and yet she’d been replaced by Ivy’s real sister. Ivy wished things could be different, but she’d broken untold laws rescuing Sara, and she couldn’t risk unwanted attention their large group would bring.
    The increasing sirens, flashing lights, shouts of neighbors from the street, added to the cacophony of panic that rose in Ivy’s chest.
    “It won’t be long,” she promised. “Forty-eight hours.”
    Mina didn’t look at her. She took Nicole’s