Chapter 1

JUNE.

“Where are we going?”

The question is withering on my lips, but I decide to give it another go. I’ve been asking that since my dad asked me to pack an overnight bag and come with him, but we’re on the highway now and he still hasn’t given me an answer.

He’s just there, focused behind the wheel, his hazel eyes pointed into the distance like a pair of lasers. People say we have the same eyes. Same color, same shape. But I don’t think I have that intensity.

The intensity that’s starting to scare me.

“Are we going on a vacation?” I keep going, drowning out the voices from the radio. “Are you going to take me to the river where we used to go when Mom was still here?”

“Stop mentioning your mom,” he mutters. The only words he spoke to me all afternoon.

I was excited when he told me to pack. My dad is rarely around. I basically raised myself since I was ten when my mom apparently decided enough was enough and left without any word. He still hasn’t told me why, even after seven years. He just started disappearing for months on end after that, leaving me alone, sometimes with the old granny who lived next door.

“Where are we going?” I repeat, clutching my bag to my chest. It’s getting dark out now, and I’m getting worried. “Where are you taking me?”

“June.” Dad doesn’t even look at me. “Can’t you just wait until we get there?”

“No, I can’t,” I say defiantly. “I’m jumping out of this car if you don’t tell me.”

There it is. The magic words. Dad swerves into the side of the highway and pulls over, the tires of the car screeching. His knuckles are white against the steering wheel and his eyes are as sharp as ever. With a deep breath, he slowly faces me.

“I’m taking you to your Aunt Janet and your Uncle Brian. I packed the rest of your things. They’re in the trunk.”

Time stops. My world seems to stop revolving. I stare at Dad, my jaw on the floor, desperately needing his words to be false. I try to say something but a huge lump just formed in my throat. There’s this familiar pressure building behind my eyes and I know that if I open my mouth, I’m going to cry.

Dad looks away. “I’m sorry, June. But I need to work, and it’s not going to last for just a couple of months this time. It’s going to be for the whole year, maybe even more. Your Uncle Brian told me he would be happy to take you in, and his wife agrees. You remember your cousin Tiffany, right? She’s also seventeen, and about to enter her senior year. Like you. It’s the perfect fit.”

“The perfect fit,” I manage to echo. “You leaving me at your brother’s house like shit you don’t need anymore is a perfect fit? I barely know them, Dad. We haven’t seen them since Mom left!”

“They’re still family.” He rubs a hand over his face. “They were the only ones who were willing to take you.”

The pain that appears in my chest is so huge that I’m surprised I didn’t blow up on the spot. I just want to curl up into a ball and cry. But a big part of me wants to kneel and beg my dad not to let me go. Not when Mom also gave up on me without an explanation.

I’ve always longed for us to be close. After all, we only had each other. I thought he would dedicate his time to make me feel loved since I can’t have that anymore from the person who’s supposed to give it unconditionally, but he just drifted farther and farther apart.

I thought he would make amends today. I thought he would take me somewhere nice and we could bond.

But no. He’s just breaking the news of him leaving me.

This time, I’m sure he won’t come back.

“Why do you always leave?” I ask, my voice surprisingly calm. “You don’t tell me what you do. I don’t know what your job is. Do you have another family? Is that why Mom left?”

Dad’s face scrunches up with hurt. “June… no. It’s for work. I can’t tell you anything about it right now, but when you’re older—”

“I’m not a child. You could have waited until I turned eighteen. I would have left on my own.”

“You need someone to look after you, and Brian’s family is perfect for that,” he continues. “They said they would take care of everything. They would take care of you.”

“Because you can’t do it anymore, right?” I mutter, now numb. “Because you were never really capable of doing it? Now I know why Mom left.”

“June,” he calls out, his voice thick with pain.

But I don’t want to hear it. He wants me out? Then I’m out.

I open the car door, slinging my bag on my back. The highway is not horribly busy, so I break into a run, sprinting across the lanes and jumping over the low wall that separates it from the forest on the other side. I can hear Dad calling for me, but I shut him out.

There’s still the remaining sunlight to guide me. I can make it far enough from him.

Anger is the only thing holding me together, but the farther I go, the weaker it gets. The realization is starting to descend on me. I’m unwanted. I was never worth an explanation. Not from my mom, not from my dad….

In a desperate attempt to keep my rage intact, I try to break into a run again. But my boot lands on something hard and slippery.

I stumble, wheeling around to look at what I just stepped on. It’s something long and coiled, glittering under the light of the setting sun. A necklace.

The chain is made of pure gold, thin and cold to the touch but also sturdy-looking. I do tiny sculptures as a hobby, and I can say that the craftsmanship on this is insanely intricate. It’s like a thin snake, the gold arranged in small connected scales. Maybe even a tiny dragon.

However, the pendant is what makes me forget everything. It’s a small sheet of what looks like glass or diamond, shaped like a teardrop and bent on certain angles that make it look like a huge fallen scale. I set it down on my hand, and for some reason, it’s hot, as though it’s been clasped in someone’s hand for a long time.

I twirl the chain around my hand. It’s so mesmerizingly beautiful, almost ethereal. My hand is tingling just from holding it, and I want to hold it up against the light, just to see what color the pendant would shift to.

I turn around, about to raise it against the last light of the sun, but that’s when I hear a low growl in the distance.

A hot gust of air blows from behind me, followed by another, deeper growl. I turn around, and a scream builds up in my throat.

Staring at me from the top branches of the trees, looming in the dark, is a pair of golden eyes, full of nothing but monstrous rage.