Kimmie made a horrible face. “I hate her guts!” she muttered. “Her and that creep and their two brats. I knew there would be trouble when they moved in, and it’s been even worse than I thought. Brit is constantly trying to stick me with babysitting her kids, and Michelle found some money missing from her purse last week, figures it was either Brit or Sean who stole it.”

Tessa gave Kimmie’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Hang in there. Maybe your mom will get sick of it all and kick them out one of these days.”

“You mean the way she’s kicking you out right now?” Kimmie replied sadly. “That’s messed up, Tessa. Where does she think you’re supposed to go? What are you going to do anyway?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Tessa, trying her best to mask her fear. “I don’t even know what my options are. For tonight, I’ll probably get a motel room somewhere, or just crash in my car. I guess after that I need to call my social worker, tell her what happened, and keep my fingers crossed that I don’t wind up in a group home.”

“God, don’t let her put you in one of those places,” begged Kimmie. “This girl in my class – Anya – was telling us about the group home she got stuck in for three months. One of her roommates kept stealing her things and threatening to beat her up if she told, while the other would stay up all night screaming and carrying on. She finally got out of there, but only when one of the boys went on a rampage and stabbed about half a dozen of the counselors and kids. Anya was one of the kids who got cut – she showed us the scars.”

Tessa couldn’t suppress a shudder at Kimmie’s revelation. “I’ve heard those sorts of stories – and ones that are a whole lot worse, too. I just have to hope there’s a better situation available for me.”

After giving Kimmie a quick hug good-bye, Tessa picked up her trash bag and backpack and tentatively made her way through the living room. Brittany hadn’t wasted any time in plunking herself down in front of the TV, and was currently watching one of the reality shows that she seemed addicted to. She glanced up as Tessa walked past with a satisfied smile.

“Bye, Tessa,” she said with exaggerated sweetness. “I’d say it’s been nice knowing you, but we’d both know that would be a lie.”

Tessa didn’t even spare her tormentor a glance, grateful to note that Sean had evidently made himself scarce. But Debbie was waiting for her at the front door, and had a final warning to issue.

“I’m just guessing you’re all set to sic your do-gooder social worker on me,” sneered Debbie. “But you might want to think about that for awhile, Tessa. No telling what sort of place she’d stick you in, is there? So let’s make a deal, huh? You keep quiet about all this, go stay with another friend, and I’ll keep my mouth shut, too. Let your social worker think you’re still living here, all nice and safe and cozy, so that she doesn’t send you to live with some perverts or rapists. Sounds like a fair deal to me.”

Tessa gave Debbie a look that she hoped conveyed her utter disgust. “Especially since you’ll still get to keep the money they send you every month, right?” asked Tessa with a rare burst of anger. “I won’t say anything if you don’t. But you know what, Debbie? Sleeping in an alley somewhere would be better than staying one more night in this house.”

She didn’t look back as she walked down the front steps, continuing down the street to where she’d parked her car barely half an hour ago. She tossed the bag that held all of her worldly goods into the trunk along with her backpack, and drove off without sparing the house another glance.

Tessa had barely driven a mile before she forced herself to pull over, her legs shaking so badly she was afraid she’d crash the car otherwise. She wrapped her arms around her midsection, trying desperately to take deep, calming breaths, and to think about what her next course of action should be. Even on the night of the apartment fire she hadn’t been as terrified as she was right now, and she fought off the waves of panic that threatened to drown her.

She would get through this, she told herself fiercely. It was far from the first time, after all, when she’d been forced to deal with adversity. It was true that she’d had her mother with her those other times, but those had almost always been occasions when Gillian had been mired in the throes of a deep, dark depression, and it had largely been up to Tessa to make the decisions. This wasn’t any different, she consoled herself, nothing she hadn’t been through before. One way or another it would work out, and no matter what it would still be vastly preferable to spending one more night in that awful house with everyone fighting and screaming, or living in fear that Slimeball Sean would eventually succeed in forcing himself on her.

Tessa had never felt quite so alone in her young life as she did at this very moment, or so overwhelmed with the bleakness of the future that awaited her. She couldn’t stop the tears that began to stream from her eyes, or the sobs that shook her slender body. She had no idea where she was going to sleep tonight, or tomorrow night, or a month from now, or how she was going to get through all of this by herself.

But, as she forced herself to stop crying and get a grip on her wayward emotions, she knew that she needed a plan of some sort, a plan that didn’t involve merely living from day to day with no thought to the next. She had only herself to count on now, and the sooner she realized that the better.

Chapter Four

Late April

“Ready to call it a day?”

Tessa was retrieving her backpack from the employee lockers, and glanced up at the sound of Peter’s voice. “To put it mildly,” she agreed, unsuccessfully stifling a yawn. “It’s been kind of crazy here tonight, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Peter nodded. “It’s the half price sale, people starting to stock up for the summer. Not that it doesn’t already feel like summer outside. It was almost ninety today.”

“I’m already using the AC in my car every afternoon,” acknowledged Tessa. “I think someday it would be nice to live someplace where it didn’t reach a hundred degrees every single day for four or five months. After living in the Southwest my entire life, I’d like to maybe live by the ocean or in the mountains somewhere.”

“Alaska in the summer, Hawaii the rest of the year,” offered Peter. “Sounds pretty good to me. You ready to go?”