Her dreams and plans to save her children faded, then disappeared.

Orin pulled her along like they were normal people in a hurry, jamming the gun into her side. As he reached the pickup and opened the door to shove her inside, she saw Sean, squatting on the sidewalk, caught up in his favorite battered military novel, one of the few possessions he’d insisted on bringing along when they’d fled Alabama.

There were people out on the street, shopping and chatting. Should she scream? Or would that incite Orin even further? He was shaking, his face red with fury. She’d never seen him this bad. Her head spun, her heart thudded.

Think. No. She couldn’t expect help from strangers—not without endangering them and the kids, too—but she had to get Sean’s attention. “Oh, Orin, you don’t have to be in such a hurry!” she cried in a loud, fake voice.

Sean looked up, and their eyes met, and then his gaze turned to his father. Bleak understanding darkened his eyes. Always protective, he scrambled to his feet and started to come toward her and Orin, but she gave a sideways jerk of her head, indicating that he should go to his brothers, help them first, as she’d drilled into him on the ride up from Alabama.

He looked back, biting his lip, and every tendon sung with the need to go to him, to hold him and tell him not to worry, she’d take care of it. As a mother should.

But she couldn’t take care of this. He was only thirteen, but today, he had to be a man and protect his brothers from their father. Her stomach ached like dull knives were stabbing it. She’d failed.

Sean squared his thin shoulders and headed toward the other two boys, who were play-fighting inside the store, now armed with toy swords. Tears filled her eyes to witness their last minute of carefree childhood.

Then she was shoved headfirst into the pickup truck and the door closed behind her.

* * *

THREE HOURS LATER, sore in every public and private part of her body, she fell from the truck to the side of the road, limp as a rag doll, barely feeling the gravel dig into her elbow and cheek.

“You wanted to live here, you can die here.” Orin’s voice was dim, and then the truck door slammed. There was a roar and the truck drove away.

Her consciousness was fading, her vision blurring.

She tried to move. Couldn’t.

Tractor trailers roared past on the highway, but none of them stopped. Maybe no one could see her. It was getting dark.

Liam was scared of the dark. Who would he turn to when he had a nightmare? Who would teach Cash the right values, how to be more generous? How would Sean have a childhood now?

Her thoughts circled, becoming more distant. Something burned her eyes, and she realized, vaguely, that she was crying. Crying for all the mothering she wouldn’t get to give to her sons.