Dark Fates

XODUS K.J. MCPIKE

Prologue

Two Months Earlier

She hesitated in the doorway, glancing over her shoulder one last time. The soft blue-green glow of the moon made the room look ethereal, almost dreamlike, as if any minute she might wake to find she didn't have to leave. Hints of silver shimmered along the bed, highlighting the rhythmic rise and fall of her husband's chest. For once, his snoring was a welcome sound. She knew she would miss it.

Her grip tightened around the duffel bag's rough handle. You have to go, she reminded herself. It's the only way to keep them safe. Clutching at the ache in her womb, she pictured her five children sleeping peacefully in their rooms. The ripped paper on the desk said what she'd never get to say to them: I love you all. I'm so sorry.

"Forgive me," she whispered, letting the tears fall as she stepped through the door.

1

Midnight

I stared at the neon numbers on my alarm clock until my eyes went blurry. Two minutes. She still has two minutes. The glowing digits taunted me through the darkness, callous reminders that the odds of Mom showing up were dwindling by the second. Not that they were all that great in the first place; I hadn't heard from her in two months.

A gust of frosty air blew into the room, and I pulled my comforter tighter around my shoulders. Even in my thick flannel pajamas, I was shivering. Like a crazy person, I'd cracked open the window on a freezing February night. All the cars had stopped passing by hours ago, but I still listened for the crunch of gravel in our driveway, the jingle of Mom's keys in the door.

Just in case.

My sheer curtains fluttered in the breeze, revealing tangled silhouettes of trees outside the window. Their leafless branches formed a tattered black net across the inky sky. Clusters of stars poked through the gaps like the stubborn bits of hope fighting through my doubt. She's coming, they insisted. She wouldn't break tradition.

I wanted to believe it. Even though part of me still hated my mother for leaving without so much as a good-bye—because that lame two-sentence note she left did not count as a good-bye—a bigger, more pathetic part of me longed to see her burst through my door the moment the clock struck twelve. It was our birthday-eve tradition. Ever since I could remember, she'd popped in at exactly midnight to throw her crappy homemade confetti at me and shimmy around the room with her annoying little paper roll-up horn.

The scene was so familiar I could play it in my mind like a movie. I could see her espresso-colored bob swaying along her chin, hear the deep belly laugh she let out whenever she caught me rolling my eyes at her ridiculous dance moves. She'd always been here for this moment. Yet here I was, seconds away from officially turning sixteen, and she was nowhere to be found.

I tucked a dark drape of hair behind my ear and glanced at the clock again. 11:59. This is it. If she didn't show up tonight, she wasn't coming back. Ever.

The thought was like a fist in my gut. I bit down on my tongue and held back the moisture building behind my eyes. I'd nearly mastered that skill over the last couple months. I'd had to. Dad was hanging on by a thread, and my younger siblings didn't need an emotional wreck of a big sister on top of everything else.

They also don't need a delusional big sister. Common sense told me Mom wasn't coming. I knew holding on like this was stupid, but I couldn't help it. It was all I had.

The floor creaked on the other side of my door, and my heart jumped into my throat. Flinging the blanket aside, I leapt off the bed. The wood floor was like ice against my thin socks as I raced to the door and yanked it open. "Mom! You—"