Chapter 3

I woke up dizzy, with the taste of rust in my mouth.

Rusted steel walls surrounded me. Ropes cut into my wrists and ankles.

Lena walked over.

She crossed her arms and looked down at me like I was garbage on the sidewalk.

"You little bitch. You slapped me?"

Her voice shook with hate.

"Preston shattered my legs because of you. I laid in that hospital bed every day thinking about how to grind your bones into dust."

She squatted down. Got right in my face.

"But… I should thank you. You're so pathetic you can't even keep your man happy in bed."

She smiled.

"Once he had a taste of me, he couldn't send me to prison. He hid me. He comes to see me every day. He's crazy about me now."

I stared right at her. "If you've got the guts, kill me."

Lena stood up. Scoffed.

"Kill you? Nah. I want you to wish you were dead."

She backed up and snapped her fingers.

"Boys. Work her over. Hit her till she can't beg."

Fists rained down.

I fought back. Someone shoved my face into the concrete.

The punches kept coming.

My breathing got shallow. Two huge slabs of stone slammed down on top of me.

Dark.

Pitch dark.

Terror swallowed me whole.

I was eighteen again. Buried under the rubble. My parents crushed above me.

I screamed.

"LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT!"

"DON'T LEAVE ME IN HERE!"

"PLEASE, I'M SCARED!"

I don't know how long I screamed. My throat went raw. Then my voice went silent.

Then I heard him.

Preston.

I put every last ounce of strength into it. "Preston! PRESTON! I'm in here! Help me!"

But my voice was gone. What came out was thinner than a whisper.

"Baby, don't worry," Lena purred. "She's probably in a mood. She went out somewhere."

Preston said nothing.

"You wanna know what I really think?" she went on. "That girl is a walking storm cloud. Ever since you two got engaged, how many of your deals fell through? One after another."

He was quiet for a long moment. Then, low: "Yeah… sometimes I do wonder if she's cursed."

My tears hit the dirt.

I still remembered every word he ever said.

"Claire, marrying you is the best thing that'll ever happen to me."

"Cursed? That's crap other people say. You're my lucky charm."

Now it's, "Sometimes I do wonder."

He thinks I'm a jinx. Just like everybody else.

Somewhere in the distance, a clock tower started chiming.

One. Two. Three.

Twelve.

Midnight. My birthday.

Then the sky exploded.

Fireworks. Boom after boom after boom.

Lena squealed. "Preston! You remembered I love fireworks!"

Preston laughed. "Of course I did, baby girl."

Half an hour of fireworks. One after another. Lighting up the whole night.

Through the crack between the stone slabs, tiny slivers of light reached me. Red. Blue. Gold. Flickering.

My body was going numb.

I remembered the first year I knew Preston.

Mom and Dad were still alive.

To win me over, he set off fireworks outside my house all night. Stood down on the sidewalk yelling up at my window.

"Claire! Just look down! Just once!"

His eyes back then were so bright. So full of me.

Tonight his fireworks are for someone else.

Something warm ran down between my legs.

I closed my eyes.

Everything faded away.

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