“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I reach out and grab Colt’s arm, my nails digging in at the sound of his father’s voice. That voice. I still hear it in my nightmares, but that’s nothing compared to hearing it for real.

And he is very, very angry.

“Mom, get out of there!” I don’t even know if she hears me because James is shouting, the voice getting louder like he’s coming closer.

“Put that fucking phone down!” That’s the last thing I hear before the line goes dead.

“Mom? Mom!” But she—or most likely, he—already ended the call.

“Come on. We have to go.” Colt practically has to pull me off the bed, but once I get moving, the shock wears off, and he’s the one who ends up having to follow me outside when I run past him, flying down the stairs and dashing through the lobby. Mom. What is he doing to her?

The tires squeal as we peel out of the parking lot and almost fishtail onto the road. Horns blare, and people shout at us, but none of it matters. Mom. What is he doing to her?

“She said she found files on his computer?” Colt asks as he tears down the road. I have no idea how he can focus on driving so fast while speaking.

“Yeah. I guess he saved them to their own network so he could access them from wherever he was. She didn’t say exactly what she found,” I whisper, and just the thought of it makes my insides freeze up. I don’t know what I’ll do if I find out he took video of everything. What if it got out somehow? What if he posted it online and shared it with his friends? What if, what if? The questions will never stop. Will I ever know for sure?

There I was, thinking I would never step foot in that house again. Just turning into the neighborhood is enough to make me tremble in fear and dread. “Should we maybe call the police?”

“You know it wouldn’t matter,” Colt grunts. “He’ll find a way to pretend nothing was happening and it was all a big misunderstanding.”

“But it might stop him from whatever he’s doing now.”

We’re already turning into the driveway. “You should wait out here, just in case.”

The words are barely out of Colt’s mouth when it happens.

When the windows of the house blow out.

When a fireball shoots into the air.

At first, I don’t know what is happening. It looks like a scene from a movie, so unreal, so intangible.

Then the truck shakes. The aftershock from the explosion rocks the vehicle. My heart clenches in my chest.