“Yes, sir.” Not as much as I should. I can pinpoint the exact location of my rotator cuff: approximately two inches down from the top of my shoulder and, right now, it aches.

“Let’s call it a night.”

I roll the ball over my fingers. Beth isn’t the only issue that’s plagued me this practice and no matter how I try to ignore the thoughts, they keep returning. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“If you had to choose between playing college ball and playing pro out of high school, what would you choose?”

John scratches his cheek as he stares at me with a mix of wonder and confusion. “Do you want to go to college?”

I don’t know. “If you had the choice, what would you have done?”

“I didn’t have that choice. College ball was my only option.”

“But if you did?”

“I would have gone pro.”

I slam the ball into my glove. Exactly.

Everyone with their college talk and writing competitions is screwing me up. “Thanks.”

“The question isn’t what I would have done.

The question is what do you want to do?”

Beth

ISAIAH WRAPS HIS ARM TIGHTLY around my waist and heaves me out the window. Mom’s hollow blue eyes have a haunting hurt as she stares at me one last time before slamming the glass pane shut and placing the cardboard back over the window.

“No!” I’ve left her behind. Again.

His grip becomes steel and the more I try to scramble back to the window, back to Mom’s apartment, the more he pulls me away. My heart—it’s literally breaking. It has to be, because the pain in my chest slices as if glass is ripping through it.

My legs tangle with Isaiah’s. He keeps a firm hold on my hip bones and forces weightlessness by lifting me and moving me in the opposite direction of my mom. I struggle back to earth, kicking his shins, knocking my knees against his. “Isaiah, Trent’s in there. He’s going to kill her.”

“Let’s go.” His growl rumbles against my ear.

“Did you hear me?” He couldn’t have. Isaiah would never leave me to die, so he could never leave my mom. The one person I need.

“Yes.” He presses against me and my smaller body yields to his. No. My elbows bend back and with open palms I shove at his chest. My heart convulses with the smack of my hands against his body. I hit him—my best friend.

I’ll do it again if he doesn’t let me go. “I hate you!”

“Good,” he says. His nostrils flare as he lightly shakes my hips. “Because I won’t feel bad when I toss you over my shoulder and throw you in the damned car.”

My palms, still stinging from hitting him, rest on his chest. His heart beats wildly, matching the crazy glare in his eyes. Isaiah means what he says.

So do I. “I’m not leaving without her.”

“Get in the car before I force you into it.”

His hands tighten. A warning. A threat. My chest constricts, making it impossible to breathe. Impossible to think. “He hits her.”

I say it like it’s a secret. Because it is. My secret. The secret I hide from everyone. The secret that leads to my worst secret: he hits me.

Isaiah knows this already, but it’s different. I’m saying it out loud. I’m making it real. And I’m asking him to save me. I’m asking him to save her.

Isaiah presses his face unimaginably close to mine. “He will never touch you again.”

My throat swells and my voice comes out small. “I’ll let him if it saves her.”

A visible shiver runs through his body and his hands release my waist. Becoming a brick wall, Isaiah plants his feet on the ground and crosses his arms over his chest, practically daring me to move past him.

I step to the left. Isaiah steps with me. I step to the right. He mirrors the movement. “The car, Beth. Now.”

“Get out of my way!” He doesn’t and I feel like a cat trapped in a box. I claw at his chest.

Push. Hit. Scream. Yell. Curse. Until my hands pound against him again and again and again.

Frustrated. Angry. Betrayed.

His arms weave through my attack, placing warm palms against my face. He strokes away the wetness on my cheeks. A wetness I don’t understand. I smack his arms off me. “If you were my friend…if you cared, you’d help me!”

“Goddamn it, Beth, I’m doing this because I love you!”

My heart beats once and stalls as the world becomes horrifyingly still. I see it, in his eyes—the sincerity. I shake my head. “As a friend,” I whisper. “You love me as a friend.”

We stare at each other. Our chests rising and falling rapidly. “Say it, Isaiah. Tell me you love me as a friend.” He’s silent and my mind feels like it’s on the verge of fracturing. “Say it!”

I don’t want to deal with this. I don’t have time for this. I step around him. “I’m getting her.”

“Fuck this,” he hisses as he bends. His shoulder makes contact with my waist and in seconds my head dangles over his back, my feet kicking him. I scream and watch through blurred vision as he creates more distance between me and Mom.

A car door clicks open. Isaiah slides my body from over his shoulder, covers my head, and uses his strength and size to push me into the backseat while keeping me from bolting out of it. The door slams shut and Isaiah has a death grip on my wrist. My head snaps to the left. The other door. It’s locked. I pull at my wrist to gain freedom, to open the other door, but Isaiah retains his hold.

The car whips into reverse and the engine whines when it accelerates.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Beth?”

My eyes widen. Noah leans against the passenger door, one hand on the wheel. He doesn’t even wait for an answer. “Isaiah said you’d come back for your mom, but I thought maybe you’d have enough sense to stay away.

Jesus, at least you’re predictable. Did you think we wouldn’t remember that you’d check the damn bar before you checked out the apartment? Isaiah, remind me to pay Denny extra for calling us so damned fast.”

Denny. Traitorous asshole. He told Noah and Isaiah I came for Mom.

“How did you get to Louisville?” Isaiah asks in an eerily calm voice.

“Fuck you.” He told me he loved me. A cold sweat breaks out on my skin and my body begins to tremble. My best friend told me he loved me. And my mom. He forced me to leave my mom.

“Did you convince that Ryan bastard who’s been messing with you to bring you?”

I glance at Isaiah and he swears. I yank at his hold on my wrist. “Get off of me.”

Anger blazes from Isaiah’s dark eyes and if the anger wasn’t coming from him, it would frighten me. He has the calm anger. The controlled anger. The type that breaks if pressed too hard for too long. “Not until I know you’re done thinking like an idiot and doing stupid things. You could have gotten yourself killed. Trent’s been bragging at the bar for weeks on how he’ll tear you limb from limb if he sees you again. He blames you for the cops coming to his apartment the week after you went to Groveton. He forgets, though, that he has enemies everywhere.”

I hear the snap inside my head and my entire body flinches. I’ve talked to Isaiah every night and he never mentioned this piece of local gossip. Gossip that would have led me to act faster. If Trent blames me, then he’ll blame Mom, and he already loves hitting her for no reason. Isaiah took me away from Mom and left her there with that asshole.

Isaiah’s hand still holds my wrist and I don’t want a backstabbing Judas touching me.

Pulling my foot off the floorboard, I kick at him, again and again. “Let. Go. Of. Me!”

He releases my arm to shove my foot off him. “What is wrong with you?”

“You left her there to die!”

Isaiah punches the back of Noah’s chair and collapses into the seat. His head falls back and he places his thumb and forefinger over his closed eyes.

The flat and bitter notes of a Nine Inch Nails song play on the radio and I sink into my corner of the car, pulling my legs into my chest. My heart aches with the lyrics. It’s a phrase embedded in my soul, a lyric that talks about people you love and how in the end…they go away.

Isaiah took me away from Mom; he won’t help me save her….he told me that he loves me. What used to be my best, strongest relationship has become a leaf withering and dying on a decaying vine.

I guess everything in life really does end.

Ryan

TEN MINUTES AGO, I LEFT PRACTICE and found her gone. While I stood here losing my mind, deciding what to do, Beth was out having fun with her friends. I panicked, wondering if I should call Scott, the police, my dad. I imagined Scott’s grief and thought about how angry my father would be when he learned I lost the niece of our town hero.

Mostly, I worried about Beth. Terrified someone took her. Praying she wasn’t hurt or scared. Now I feel like a fool.

A few minutes ago, they pulled in and now Beth argues with the overrated tattooed punk I’ve seen before. I don’t dare move a muscle, because I’m terrified I’ll rip every single black hair out of Beth’s head. Planting myself firmly next to my Jeep, I watch as Beth and her punked-out friend continue their heated discussion.

Beth played me like I’ve never been played before. I made a terrible mistake. I tried to like her. Screw Beth. Let her tank her life. She agreed to go to the party with me Friday. I won the dare. Deal done.

Beth bolts from the shitty car.

“Beth!” Tattoo Guy snags her by her belt loop. “You’re not leaving. Not like this.”

I flinch, but force myself to stay still. She wants this guy. She left me to be with him.

“Then keep the promise you made to me, Isaiah. Take me. Tonight.” Her eyes search him and the desperation clawing at her face makes watching the scene uncomfortable. Whatever answer she’s looking for, he doesn’t have. He turns his head away with his eyes cast down.

The other guy closes his door to the car and slowly approaches them, yet keeps his distance.

Great, I’m back to the odds of two against one. That is, if I cared enough to step in.

Which I don’t.

Isaiah glances at the other guy. “You always said you wanted a home and now you’ve got one.”

Beth blinks. “Not this home.”

I straighten. The attitude that makes her larger than life evaporates. She’s small. Very small. Especially when standing in front of two menacing guys. Not only does she appear small, but she seems very…lost.

“Wait until you graduate. Just a couple more months. Noah and I talked and…”

With the name Noah, Beth’s head jerks and anger blazes from her blue eyes. “You promised.”

“Beth.” The other guy, who I’m guessing must be Noah, uses a calm tone that even I know will send her over the edge. “You belong in Groveton.”

In a flash of black, Beth races over to Noah.

Her hand darts out, and she strikes him across the face. The sound echoes against the walls of the warehouse. Beth’s chest heaves as she gasps for air. “Fuck you.”