Cover

Rough

Skye Warren

Thank you for reading the Chicago Underground series! You can join my Facebook group for fans to discuss the series here: Skye Warren’s Dark Room. And you can sign up for my newsletter to find out about new releases at skyewarren.com/newsletter.

Enjoy the story…

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Books by Skye Warren

About the Author

Copyright

Prologue

I hugged my knees and stared at the strip of plastic on my bed. A small part of my brain knew it was weird to have it on the comforter, something I’d peed on. The rest of me was too busy freaking out to care.

One night I’d rather forget. The word no said and ignored. A little plus sign in an oval window. The dominoes fell, one after the other, leading to this…

Pregnant.

“Maybe it’s wrong,” Shelly whispered, her eyes wide. It took a lot to shock my best friend, but this had done it. Her face was pale, body as tense and still as mine.

I shook my head. “I’ve missed my period twice now.”

Her blue eyes questioned me. “I thought you two weren’t…”

Of course she guessed who the father was. Andrew. He’d been my other best friend. And definitely the only boy I would have trusted with my virginity. Only, I hadn’t trusted him. Or just hadn’t liked him that way. And trust? That had turned out to be a mistake.

That was a lesson I’d never forget. Trust was an awful mistake.

“We weren’t,” I said, my voice hoarse. We weren’t together, weren’t dating. Weren’t having sex, if you didn’t count that one awful night.

“Then how?” she asked with a slow blink, uncomprehending. She didn’t want to comprehend, and God, I wished I didn’t have to live with the knowledge either. I wished it were a physical thing I could cut out of my skin. But it was just a memory—and memories lived forever.

I said nothing else as I stared at the plastic strip. As a tear fell down my cheek.

Said nothing, even when Shelly sucked in a breath.

She’d lived through her own daily hell. Maybe that was why she figured it out, when another teenaged girl might have taken my tears for regret. Or maybe she noticed too, how angry he’d become in the weeks and months before.

She hesitated. “Did he… did he force you?”

“No,” I lied, my voice hollow. “Of course not.”