Page 1 of Wicked Promises
Chapter 1
Caleb
Aballed-up sock hits me in the face.
I jerk and glare at Eli. “What was that for?”
“You were zoning out,” he says.
One thing we can’t get away with in the Black household is laundry duty. Everything else is taken care of except this one task. It’s soothing, the warm fabric sliding through my hands. It also reminds me that things have changed since my childhood.
My mom left, my father is dead.
The house I spent the first ten years of my life in is now no better than a mausoleum.
Eli and I stand on opposite sides of his dining table with piles of clean clothes. The faster we fold, the sooner we’ll be done. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. And the sooner we finish, the faster we can escape to the garage and practice our shooting.
I can’t afford to get rusty because Coach suspended me from a few games.
Right now, Margo is with her dad. I woke up this morning filled with a sense of dread, and even though I tried to hide it… She’ll find out the real truth. The ugliness we’ve been hiding.
Her dad killed mine. Snuffed his life out?—
“Dude.”
I grimace.
The last thing I want, in this exact moment, is for Margo to be hurt. It’s kind of annoying, actually. I was hell-bent on her destruction just a few months ago. I turned the whole school against her. And now I can’t picture anyone else harming her. It can only be me.
Just as surely as only she can hold my heart.
My heart. How fucking sappy.
The doorbell rings. Eli moves off to answer it. My phone goes off, stopping me from following him, and I grab it. My brows furrow at the blocked number.Privatescrolls across the top of my screen.
A blocked number probably isn’t Unknown, Margo’s harasser.Stalker. In all reality, it’s a telemarketer or a scam. And if Margo didn’t have a stalker who liked to text her creepy things from a blocked number, I would probably dismiss the call entirely.
Instead, I answer it.
“Hello, Caleb,” a robotic voice says. It sounds like an automated voice reading a line of text. “I’ve been eager to speak with you.”
A chill sweeps down my spine. “Who is this?”
The voice laughs. It sounds fucking weird as shit. It doesn’t translate well—which probably bodes well for the future of humanity. Can robots take over the world if they can’t imitate a human laugh?
“They’re going to ask you about Margo,” it finally says.
“What?”
“When they ask, just remember: anything you say will be held against you. Like you’re already under arrest.” The hydraulic laughter picks up again.
“What happened to Margo?” My heart beats faster. Worry takes over.
“Don’t worry, Caleb. You got your wish.”
I fight back the growl. “What the fuck did I wish for?”
Pause. “For the foster parents to be… removed from the situation.”