Chapter 1 Father Has Many Rules

Isadora 

“Come on, Vinnie,” I say, folding my hands below my chin as my father’s driver stands beside the black Mercedes-Maybach with one hand on the open door. “No one needs to know. It’s just a little detour to the airport.”

Vinnie looks toward the front gates, then back at me. His mouth tightens beneath his grey moustache.

“Isadora.”

“Please,” I say softly. “I won’t see her for five years.”

“If ever,” Hannah mumbles beside me.

I glance at her fading smile, and I know Vinnie hears the little break in her speech. The goodbye that is already hanging between us.

I see the moment something in him gives. His eyes move to Hannah, then to the school buildings behind us, then to me. He has always been kinder than the others. He has daughters of his own, and that has made him softer toward my struggles. He knows how hard I have worked to keep even one friend under my father’s hand.

He blows out a breath and takes off his hat, passing a hand through his sparse hair before fitting it carefully back into place.

“We stop out the front,” he says. “That’s it. No parking. No waiting. No goodbyes inside.”

I clap my hands together and step toward him before I remember myself.

He shifts back, and I stop as heat creeps up my neck.

“Right,” I say, lowering my hands. “Not in public.”

Vinnie looks away quickly, and I know he didn’t mean to hurt me. He never does. But Father has rules.

“Come on, Han.” I force a smile and take the smaller bag from her shoulder. “Let’s get you shipped off to your new life.”

I slide into the back seat, and Hannah climbs in beside me. The leather is chilly beneath my legs, and the car smells like polish, old cologne, and my father’s rules.

Vinnie shuts us in, the door sealing with a soft, heavy sound.

We don’t speak until the car pulls away from the curb. Only then do I reach for Hannah’s hand and grip it between both of mine.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I whisper.

Her brown eyes fill, and she looks straight ahead like that might stop the tears from falling.

“I’m going to miss you too, Izzy.”

I hate the way her voice breaks. I hate her parents. I hate mine. I hate every clean, beautiful house in this city where we have had to learn how to sit still and smile while adults decide the shape of our lives.

Hannah is the only friend my father has ever allowed me to keep. Even then, allowed is too generous a word. He tolerated her because she looked right beside me. Her plain brown hair, soft voice, good manners, CEO mother, and top-law-firm father made her seem appropriate if seen beside me in the tabloids.

She’s the perfect friend for the mayor’s daughter.

But when it is just us, she is nothing like the version they approve of. She knows how to make me laugh without making a sound. She writes cruel little notes on the backs of charity programs and slips them into my palm when my father drones on at fundraisers. She knows which bathroom at city hall has a window that opens. She knows I hate pearls, love black coffee, and sometimes wake up with my nails dug so hard into my flesh that they leave half-moon marks behind.

She knows me.

And now she is leaving.

Her parents are sending her overseas to study. To become better, brighter, and more impressive. But really, those are just nicer words for less inconvenient to their time.

My phone vibrates in my lap, and I turn it over without reading the message.

Hannah sees it and squeezes my hand.

“I’m sorry they won’t allow me to stay,” she says.

“I’m not.”

She turns to me, and I swallow the hurt in my throat and make myself smile. “You’re going to have freedom there. Real freedom. You’ll be able to walk down a street without someone reporting it back to your parents. You can go to a café alone. You can wear ugly shoes. You can kiss someone awful and then never speak to them again.”

Her mouth trembles.

“That does sound nice.”

“It sounds disgusting, and I’m jealous.”

We both laugh, then she wipes under one eye with the heel of her hand.

“You’ll get out too,” she says. “Promise me.”

I look past her, outside the window as the city opens around us, bright and busy and polished clean for people like my father.

“I promise,” I say, though I don’t know if I ever will.

“No, Izzy. Really promise me.”

The car slows at a red light, and Vinnie taps on the steering wheel. My phone vibrates again, but I ignore it.

Hannah leans closer. “You can’t let him keep you forever.”

The words sit between us, and Vinnie glances at us in the rear-view mirror, then looks back at the road.

I lower my voice. “He won’t.”

Hannah’s fingers tighten around mine as the light turns green and Vinnie drives forward.

A horn blares somewhere to our left, and I turn my head. At first, all I see is light. White and hard and rushing across Hannah’s face.

A truck barrels through the intersection too fast, its grille huge and silver, its tyres screaming against the road.

I hear Vinnie shout, and then everything slows.

Hannah’s mouth opens beside me. Her eyes go wide. The headlights wash the colour from her face, turning her skin white, her brown hair gold at the edges. My scream tears out of me as the truck slams into our side of the car.

The sound is everywhere.

Metal folds in with a brutal shriek. Glass bursts across my lap and scatters over my skin like ice. Hannah’s body is thrown into mine, her shoulder hitting my chest hard and stealing the oxygen from my lungs. The seatbelt bites across my frame. My head snaps sideways. Something cracks against the window. My teeth cut into my tongue, and blood fills my mouth.

The car lifts, and for one sickening second, there is no road beneath us.

My stomach drops as we roll and the world turns over in pieces. Black leather. Hannah’s hair. Vinnie’s hat spinning through the air. My school bag bursting open, books, pens, and loose papers whipping around the cabin. A lipstick bounces off the ceiling. Coins flash silver in the dark. The smell of petrol cuts through the leather and polish.

I keep hold of Hannah’s hand as the car hits the ground again. We keep rolling, metal screaming against the street, windows shattering, the roof caving closer with every violent turn. My shoulder smashes into the door. My knee slams into something hard, and pain shoots through my body.

Then, with one final grinding shriek, the car stops, and silence crashes in after it.

Smoke swirls through the ruined cabin, and I blink and cough through it.

I hang upside down from my seatbelt, my body screaming, still holding Hannah’s hand.