Page 1 of Wicked Dreams

Chapter 1

Margo

Impossible truth #1: My foster parents decided they didn’t want kids anymore.

Maybe I should’ve suspected that. Their jobs were keeping them so busy: they stayed late at work, they left the house early. They were irritated when theywerehome. I figured the three of us were easy keepers, so to speak. We did our chores and kept quiet.

Impossible truth #2: The social worker found a new home for me.

That’s not the impossible part. The impossible part is that it’s back in my hometown, just three streets over from where I used to live.

Before Mom got addicted to drugs.

And before Dad got arrested.

Impossible truth #3: I’m going back to private school.

Part of me is elated that I’m returning to familiar territory. But the majority of me is terrified. I’m sure things have changed, that the people I went to elementary school with have changed, but it’s going to be… safe.

“Hurry up, now.” My social worker stands on the edge of the new home’s lawn, waiting for me to get out of the car.

I take a deep breath and open the door, hauling my bag with me. I was lucky enough to get a real backpack. Each other move had my stuff in garbage bags. To be fair, I still have one, which I fetch from the trunk. But the important things are protected by heavy-duty canvas and padding.

“Let’s go, Margo.” She taps her watch. “We’ll make sure you feel settled, and then I need to get to an appointment across town.”

Angela McCaw is nice enough. She was assigned to me when I first entered the system, and our meetings have always been brief bordering on rushed. I don’t blame her—it took me a while to understand that most of the social workers in New York are overworked and underpaid.

To know she’s stacked this introduction with other appointments doesn’t surprise me anymore.

I focus on the house, blinking in surprise.

It’s giant. Bigger than my old home used to be, that’s for sure. My eyes bug out when we walk up to the door. Even that seems expensive, the wood dark and frosted glass cut into it in a long, vertical strip next to the handle.

“What are their names?” My voice comes out scratchy.

I spent the night prior crying, and my throat is on fire.

The abrupt relocation… I grew close to my foster siblings while with my previous family. The three of us thought it would be a permanent thing, because that’s what the adults always told us. There was no mention of adoption, of course, but we were guaranteed another four months together. Four months until I turn eighteen, and then I’d be out of the system.

Guaranteed.Joke’s on me—I should’ve known that nothing is guaranteed in this life.

“Robert and Lenora Bryan,” she says. “You’d be their first… no, second foster.”

I hate those pieces of information but at the same time I grasp at them. Sometimes it feels like the more I know, the worse off I am.

I stop even with her and glance her way. “I don’t suppose I should ask what happened to the first.”

She purses her lips and rings the doorbell. “She aged out. That’s all.”

Once you hit eighteen, you’re out. Well, that’s what they say anyway. I think it’s a little more complicated than that. There’s housing available for former foster kids—as if the title ever goes away—that have adult supervision, curfews, job or school check-ins. It sounds more claustrophobic than being turned loose on the streets.

The door swings open, and a petite woman stands in front of us. She has dark-brown hair and bright, ocean-blue eyes. Her lips curve up into a smile, and she steps aside.

“Welcome, Margo! It’s so nice to meet you.” She waves us in.

First impression? She’s…warm. And while it makes me suspicious, I can’t help but smile back.

“Angie.” Lenora greets my social worker with a familiarity I do not possess. “Please come in, both of you.”

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