Cover

ALSO BY OWEN LAUKKANEN

The Professionals

Criminal Enterprise

Kill Fee

The Stolen Ones

The Watcher in the Wall

The Forgotten Girls

Gale Force

Deception Cove Series

Deception Cove

Lone Jack Trail

Dedication

To Jay and Uncle Darren, who are always down for a wilderness misadventure

Chapter 1

THIS IS THE STORY of a messed-up girl and how her family paid people to send her into the wilderness with a bunch of other messed-up kids in hopes it would somehow make them less messed up.

This is a real thing that happens.

It might even be an eventuality your parents have considered for you.

But this is the story of what happens when things

go

wrong.

Chapter 2

MEET DAWN. Dawn is the aforementioned messed-up girl. She’ll be the protagonist and de facto audience surrogate for this little misadventure.

Dawn is seventeen years old and mostly normal. She lives in Sacramento with a drug dealer named Julian, who is roughly twice her age.

This is a continued point of contention between Dawn and her mother, Wendy. Wendy would prefer that Dawn not live with a drug dealer. She’d prefer that Dawn, you know, go to school and not just get high all the time and sneak into clubs.

She’d prefer that Dawn be at home, where Wendy and Dawn’s younger brother, Bryce, live with Dawn’s stepdad, Cam.

Dawn loves her brother.

She mostly loves her mom.

Dawn does not love Cam. Dawn resents Cam and hates that her mother fell in love with him. Her father’s only been gone for two years, and it’s too soon to be talking replacements.

Dawn can’t stand to be near Cam. It makes her feel like she’s betraying her dad. It drives her insane that nobody else sees it that way. That her mother could move on so quickly.

That’s why she’s staying with Julian.

And that’s why she spends her days mostly wasted.

Chapter 3

THE CAM/WENDY/DAWN THING has been an ongoing saga. You don’t need to know the gory details, but suffice it to say, it’s been a lot of screaming and hurt feelings.

It’s been a lot of self-medicating and not going to class.

It’s been a lot of Julian.

Cam and Wendy have been trying to get Dawn to come home. Go to school. Be high less. See less Julian. Be more normal.

Cam and Wendy have failed miserably so far.

But Cam and Wendy have one more bullet to fire.

It’s their last resort.

And it’s going to royally fuck up Dawn’s day.

Chapter 4

WHAT IT IS, is a straight-up kidnapping.