Page 52 of Sticks and Stones (Shadow Valley U)

“I do owe you the truth.” She looks away. “But I don’t want you to hate me for it.”

I eye her. “I doubt I’d hate you for it.”

“You already hate me for…” Her jaw works. “For what I did in high school.”

“Just tell me the truth,” I reply. “Please, Wren.”

She rubs her eyes and nods. “Well, you know my dad is into some stuff.”

“Drugs.” I withhold the obviousduh.

“When I was a teenager, he discovered I had an affinity for…recipes.” She tosses the pillow aside and jumps to her feet. “Recipes of an illegal nature.”

Holy shit. “You were cooking his drugs?”

“Yeah. Well, you know. It’s hard to find someone smart enough to not get blown up in that line of work.” She tucks her hair behind her cheek and offers me a small smile. “But with that line of…work…comes other things. Mainly, bad men.”

“But your dad—”

“He couldn’t protect me twenty-four seven.” Her expression falls. “And sometimes I think he didn’twantto protect me from it all.”

This is ridiculous.

“You were cooking meth, and he didn’t even have the decency to keep you safe?”

She laughs. “Do you hear yourself, Stone?”

I stand, too. I run my hands through my hair. “This is only backstory, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. So… I would go a few months with Dad, then something would happen. He’d get in trouble, or a neighbor would call the police, and I’d end up with the Mitchells.”

Evan’s family.

Wren clears her throat. “Anyway, I cut ties for good when I left for college. Dad’s in prison, and it seemed as good a time as any for a fresh start.”

I narrow my eyes. She got away from her drug-dealing father… “Until I posted the photo?”

She goes to the window and pulls back the curtain, peeking out.

“Wren.”

“Yes, Stone, until you posted the photo. Then the phone calls started.”

A chill skates down my spine. She’s weirdly calm relaying all this information. Like she’s not really comprehending it, just reciting the facts.

“Your dad?”

“He found me,” she says on an exhale. “He wants me back in his operation.”

I already know it was his drugs that she planted on my truck in high school. I already know she came from a bad family. That she didn’t sleep when she was living there—or eat. She’d lose weight, she’d get dark circles under her eyes.

Evan would give her the car keys so she could nap.

I didn’t suspect…

“Did they hurt you?”

She glances over her shoulder at me. Her dark hair is loose. I want to run my fingers through it. To tug it.