Page 34 of Sticks and Stones (Shadow Valley U)

It takes everything in me not to burst out into the kitchen to tell Evan to be quiet, but instead, I’m the one who stays quiet. I rest my head against the door, hating that my life has to be so complicated.

“Isn’t he in prison?”

I suck in a breath, trying my hardest to push away the stress that is lingering in the back of my head.

“You think just because he’s in prison that he can’t torment her? That he can’t threaten her?”

Footsteps move in front of the door, and I know they are taking their conversation upstairs.

Evan’s voice lowers to a whisper. “You have no clue what it was like for her back in high school, Stone. Did you ever wonder why I didn’t let you spend the night?”

“Yeah, I figured you just had a hard-on for her.”

I make a disgusted face.

“It was because of her nightmares. She would scream bloody murder almost every night when she first moved in. So back the fuck off, because neither of us truly knows what she has been through.”

I rest my head against the door and stay that way until their footsteps disappear. When I lie down, I stare at the moon again and think of anything but that phone call from my dad.

* * *

“She’s pretty good at this.”Gus nudges my dad with his bony elbow as they eye me from across the trailer.

Sweat is trailing my skin and curls past my collarbone, down to the dip of my tank top. It’s eighty-nine degrees outside and feels like it’s one hundred and eight-nine degrees inside this trailer. The fire beneath the broiler has singed all my arm hair off, and although I am exceptional at math and know the difference between acids and bases, performing “science experiments” while my drug-addict father and his right-hand man watch isn’t my idea of a fun summer.

“I know. I’ve been teaching her for years, and she’s even better than I had imagined.”

I glance at my dad and wish I could adjust the mask on my face. At least he had the audacity to give me the proper lab gear while I make one of the world’s deadliest drugs.

So much for those “science experiments” my dad and I bonded over years ago.

He’s been grooming me for ages.

“Ooh, she’s good, alright.” Gus’s voice tapers off. His pinky is covered in white dust, and when he pulls his mask down, he sniffs the latest batch up his nose.

My father does the same beside him.

They have to test the product.

Or that’s just their excuse to get high.

My dad’s phone rings, and I grit my teeth.

“Can you take that outside?” I ask. I watch my tone, but on the inside, I’m fuming. “It’s distracting.”

“Anything for my favorite little scientist, Pumpkin.”

I hold back a snort. Scientist. More like a meth cooker, but that’s just semantics at this point.

The moment the door shuts, I go back to measuring while ignoring Gus and his slow eye movements. He has always followed my every move. He calls himself my uncle, but I know for a fact that uncles don’t stare at their nieces the way he stares at me.

“Come over here, little one.”

I stay quiet. My hand shakes with the spoon in front of me. I glance at the door and wonder when my dad is going to come back. He doesn’t do much when the men make comments, and there have been numerous times that he has brushed off their inappropriate touching, but I can’t help but hope that he’ll come to my rescue for once.

“I said come here.”

“I can’t stop what I’m doing, or this batch will be ruined.”