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Back Never Look Back Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Acknowledgments
  47. P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
  48. About the Author
  49. About the Book
  50. Also by Alison Gaylin
  51. About the Publisher

I told him Death Valley, and his eyes started darting around like he’d suddenly gone insane. I told him we’re at the Gideon compound, just like we talked about, and he got even crazier. “No, no, no, no. I never said we could come here.”

So I said, “What are you talking about? This is the only safe place there is.”

And he said it again. “I never said we could come here. I never gave you my permission to take us here.”

And I said, “I don’t need your fucking permission.”

He hit me. Again. Knocked me down, and it was like the ground came rushing up into the whole side of my body. My legs were all scraped up. My jaw ached from the punch. There was a ringing in my ear too, and when I put my hand up to it, it was wet from blood.

Elizabeth had been looking for firewood, but she came running back when she heard him slug me. You could HEAR it from far away—that’s how hard he’d hit. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she yelled. Gabriel started yelling back. I was surprised no one in the tents were waking up because even with my ear the way it was, I could hear them loud and clear.

Anyway, Gabriel’s gun was out of bullets, but Officer Nelligan’s was in the back seat of Elizabeth’s car, right next to where Gabriel had been lying. I crawled over to the car and threw open the door and grabbed that gun, and when Gabriel called Elizabeth the c-word, I shot him in the stomach. He fell to the ground. I pushed myself up to my feet and stood over him for a while, trying to figure out how I felt. He said something I could barely hear—my ear was still ringing. So I leaned in closer and he said it again: “Jenny is with my sister.”

That hurt worse than my ear. It hurt worse than anything. At the Arco station, I’d watched him shoot his own baby sister as his dad stood there, pleading with him to stop. He said it again. “Jenny is with my sister.” I shot him in the face.

Aurora Grace, it’s been about half an hour since I killed Gabriel. I’m sitting next to Elizabeth in front of the fire she built. I’ve shown her all these letters, and she says you’re a lucky girl to have a mother like me. She says I’m a good person, even though I’ve killed. She said God knows that. And she’s read the Bible cover to cover at least five times.