Chapter 1

Ash wondered what kind of punishment a seventh-grade dropout runaway would get.

She’d been on the run for two days, walking through woods and fields. Her feet and muscles ached; she told herself to stay strong and ignore the pain. She didn’t feel like a juvenile delinquent, but according to her probation officer she was. Oh well. She just wouldn’t get caught this time.

The morning was much warmer than the night had been, and she stuffed her jacket into her huge gym bag. After hours of scrambling over fallen logs and pushing through thick foliage, she reached the end of the trees she’d been walking through. Cornfields lined with tiny plants bordered both sides of a two-lane highway. Buildings and houses stood in the distance.

Ash looked at her watch. It was 3:30, so other kids would be out of school, and she needed to get a few more supplies. Her shoes squished in the damp dirt as she walked through a field toward the road.

Her heart beat faster as she approached the town. She hoped passing cars would think her blue bag was full of homework or something. She slunk into the first convenient store she saw to buy toothpaste and toilet paper, avoiding eye contact with the cashier. On the way outside she glanced at a newspaper stand and smiled at the huge print that read Clerksville Times. Right on schedule.

When she jogged across a busy intersection and turned down a side street, the rumble of traffic was replaced by the drone of lawnmowers. Somewhere an ice cream truck chimed. She lowered her head so her light-brown hair covered her face as little kids zoomed past on skateboards and bikes. Ash couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have one of their happy lives.

After an hour of walking through side streets and alleys, she decided to risk walking down a main road. She needed to ditch this town. A supermarket loomed ahead with a large group of trees behind it and Ash quickened her pace, knowing she’d found her way out.

As she walked down a row of cars in the parking lot, a beat-up, tan Ford Escort rolled up beside her. The engine sputtered.

“Hey, do you need a lift?”

Ash looked out of the corner of her eye. A man with sandy hair and wrinkled clothes drove the car. His hands rested loosely on the steering wheel and looked like they were smudged with grease or ink, especially his fingernails.

“No,” she said as her chest tightened. She walked faster, staring straight ahead.

“Come on, get in. I’ll let you drive,” he said.

“I’m not even that old,” Ash said. She clamped her mouth shut.

“You’re tall for your age, huh?” the man asked. “I bet that means you’re more mature, too.”

Ash rolled her eyes. She sauntered a few rows over to her right, ignoring the cars and people surrounding her, and headed to the store entrance. Going inside to get this man to leave her alone would probably be worth wasting a few minutes of time.

But then the car was in front of her, turning diagonally in the lane until the man stared her in the face with narrowed eyes. Ash froze.

“It’ll be a lot easier for you if you just get in the car,” he said. “No one will believe you when I throw you in the back and say you’re my runaway daughter, Freckles.”

A jolt of fear coursed through her for the first time. She squeezed between two vans and sprinted past the remaining rows of vehicles, gripping her bag with both hands. She circled the building and ran past dumpsters and through a smaller parking lot in back. The woods were just a few steps away.

Then she heard the man curse and she was on the ground, her cheek skidding across pavement, caught by her left ankle. Her bag flew into the grass; she clawed at it desperately, but the man gripped her like a vise. With a grunt, Ash flipped onto her side and kicked him in the face with her other foot. The man jerked back, pulling off her shoe, as blood gushed from his nose. Ash lunged for her bag and darted into the trees. She could hear the man yelling, but he didn’t seem to be chasing her. She ran until his cursing faded, crunching painfully on rocks and sticks with every other step. When she’d gone far enough, she sat beneath an oak tree with shaking hands.

“Calm down,” she muttered, breathing heavily. She took out her only other pair of shoes and shoved the unmatched one in her bag. No matter how many times she told herself to expect to meet freaks on the run, it never prepared her for when one showed up.