Page 7 of Wicked Games

I prided myself on not losing my shit. I’d learned the hard way that tears solved nothing. Theychangednothing.

Twelve-year-old Margo learned that bad things would continually happen. It was her new reality. I went into the system when I was ten, but for that first year, I was optimistic. Ithought I’d go back to my mom and dad, that life with the Ashers would return to normal.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Chapter 3

Margo

Past

The detective took my dad away.

A lady sat next to me on the bench and smiled. Even though she looked nice, she wasn’t particularly warm and fuzzy. Not like Dad when he held my hand on the way here.

“Ready to go, Margo?”

Dad struggled. He yelled my name, and officers were yelling back. I stared at him, not quite comprehending why they were dragging him away. Why his arms were behind his back, or the panicked look in his eye.

“Margo,” the woman beside me said again.

I faced her. “Am I going with Dad?”

She frowned. “Your dad was just arrested. I’m with Social Services. We’re going to try and locate your mom, okay?”

I didn’t know what arrested meant. But at the mention of my mom, tears formed in my eyes, and my throat got all tight. My chin wobbled. “Mom? No, she…”

Blank.

“It’s going to be okay.” She introduced herself, shook my hand, and then wouldn’t let go. She pulled me up and away.Down the path. It split, and we went a different way than my dad.

Are more police officers coming to arrest me, too?

“Come on, honey.”

We were almost to her car.

Dad said never to get in the car with strangers.

I screamed.

Blank.

I screamed, didn’t I?

Blank.

If I didn’t scream, did I get in the car? Go with her willingly? Give up on my family?

Blank.

Blank.

Blank.

Present

I wake with a start. Pink walls. White curtains. Flowers a foot from my face. I’m not ten and scared—I’m seventeen, on the verge of eighteen, and in Ian’s house. Not really any less scared, but still. Not in danger.

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