Page 4 of Oathbreaker

Four.

I open my eyes and look at the man kneeling before me.

Johan.

With my mind so very separate from my body, I lift my arm.

“I’m really sorry,” I whisper.

Johan looks at me hard for a moment. Then he says, “Fuck your ‘sorrys,’ Brigham.”

With each fraction of a heartbeat, I choke on all the words I want to say. I choke on fear and the sob held back by the tension pressing on my vocal cords.

My throat burns as much as my eyes do from the salty sea breeze.

“Right,” I whisper. There’s nothing else to say.

As my father swears, marching toward me as I hesitate, I close my eyes and do the thing I don’t want to do.

I fire.

ONE

WINTER

The force of my terror steals my vision for several seconds. My throat closes, and the tension narrowing my windpipe makes me dizzy.

I teeter on the fragile, ragged edge of insanity.

“Adam?” I croak, unbelieving.

He accelerates the car in response, taking us from fifty miles per hour on the dark country road to well over eighty.

“Adam!” The force of the inertia causes my arms to fling out wildly, and I scramble to reach the door.

I have to get out I have to get out get out get out getoutgetoutgetOUTOUTOUTOUT?—

I scream again, a deep, guttural, ear-shattering scream, and Adam yells even louder to drown out my voice. Where mine is desperate, his is mocking.

Our voices rise to a piercing crescendo.

Get out. Get out. Get! Out!

My useless fingernails pad at the skin of his throat when I fling my body toward the back of the driver’s seat, so I wrap my arm around his neck, squeezing with all my might.

I don’t know what I expect to happen—but when he slams on the brakes while veering the car off the road, I’m caught off guard. My body launches over the center console, and my back hits the dashboard. The gearshift presses against my spine.

I don’t have a moment to orient myself before he grabs my hair, pins cascading everywhere, and pulls me from the Tahoe headfirst. Without the protection of my wool coat, the bite of the freezing rain against my skin feels like needles.

“Stop!” I beg, my hand clawing at his wrist as he drags me out the driver’s side door, and I crash into the rocky asphalt. Muddy slush paints my dress.

He kicks me in the side, and the world spins. I can’t catch my breath.

The delicate straps of my shoes that looked so fashionable online snap under the strain. They hang off my ankles, useless.

He pins me face down against the hood of the car.

“God, no! Stop.” Snot clogs my burning nose, making it feel impossible to breathe. I weep. Suffocating. Terrified.

---