Chapter 1 - The Number Under My Mattress
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MOM!"
Dad turned so fast that I didn't see his fist until it struck my cheek.
I hit the kitchen cabinet, and my schoolbag slid across the floor. The faucet was running full blast. Mom's face was bent toward the sink, and Dad had one hand twisted into her hair.
"Ethan, please," she choked. "Emily's home."
He looked at me as if I were the one who'd broken something.
"Go to your room."
I was fourteen. I had spent years doing exactly what that voice told me. Not this time.
"Let her breathe."
I grabbed his arm. He shoved me again, hard enough to make the drawer handles scrape my back.
"EMILY, RUN!" Mom screamed.
I ran upstairs, locked my bedroom door, and dragged an old prepaid phone from beneath my mattress. Mom had hidden it there three months earlier.
"One number," she'd whispered. "If things get bad enough that you can't reach me, call it. Don't ask me why."
The phone rang once.
"Emily?" a man answered.
"He's hurting her. He's doing it again."
The man's voice changed. "Is your mother breathing?"
"I think so. I'm upstairs."
"Stay behind that door. I'm calling for help. Emily, listen to me. None of this is your job to fix."
"Who are you?"
"Caleb Hart. I'm your grandfather."
Something broke downstairs. Then there was no sound but water running.
I stood at the window, counting the seconds on my fingers. Sirens came first. Twelve minutes after the call, three black SUVs followed the police cars onto our street.
Dad's voice carried up the staircase. For the first time in my life, it sounded small.
"Sarah? Did you tell my father where we live?"
A white-haired man stepped out of the first SUV and looked straight up at my window.
He lifted an open palm, like he was promising not to disappear.
May you like
Then one of the officers on the porch said a name I had never heard in our house.
"Mr. Hart, we found the old warrant."
