Sun Catch Her (Book 1: Three Rivers Deep series) COMPLETE

Chapter Two

Please don't go. I reached for him—and my fingers brushed something soft, dangling. The slight movement sent metal clothes hangers screeching overhead, and I cried in my sleep.

Please don't leave. I...I don't have anyone.

With a muffled sob, I jerked up from the floor and burst from the closet to run for the bathroom. The door slammed behind me with a loud bang, but I didn't care. It was two weeks and hundreds of miles removed from that day, and I was waking up in yet another closet, hiding from another storm.

Twisting on the tap I splashed water on my face, watching as it swirled down the drain in a frantic rush. I filled my hands with a generous amount and dowsed myself again. Ice cold water. Cold enough to numb my cheeks bright red. The sound of heeled boots approaching the bathroom door came to a halt before knuckles rapped on the door.

"Ten more minutes, and we've got to hit the road," my aunt announced.

"Okay!" I hollered back. My hands shook as I refilled them, trying to remember what state we were even in. Hours had turned into days; days into weeks. Everything since that awful August day was one big blur of too much time spent on the road, too many nights tossing around in motel beds.

I hit myself in the face with water one last time and reached for a towel. Knowing my grump of an aunt, if I wasn't in the car and ready to go within the time allotted, she would start to bitch.

* * *

Eyes flashing open, I jolted forward in the front seat to do battle with the glove compartment's broken handle, pushing aside crinkled motel receipts and a colorful slew of unpaid parking tickets before unearthing what I was searching for: a beat-up pack of gum. I'd purchased it at a mini-mart two states ago. Sitting back in the seat, my ponytail dug into my scalp as my head met with the headrest and I frowned, ripping out the hair tie to send a mess of black hair sailing around me in the breeze of the open car windows.

Swallowing at the metallic flavor overwhelming my mouth, I turned the pack over and beat the bottom, dislodging the last stick. Desperation made my movements jerky as I rushed to rid myself of the taste of terror with a burst of mint. Double mint brand seemed to be the only thing strong enough to bring me down from my post- traumatic episodes.

This had to be, oh, maybe the tenth pack of gum I had chewed through. "Where are we?"

"You've only been asleep for two-tenths of a mile," my aunt informed me, her voice raised just enough to be heard over the wind.

Yeah, I wish I'd been sleeping for real. I sighed as I unwrapped the gum and popped it between my teeth. Joints stiff with unspent adrenaline, I stretched and looked at the side view mirror, taking note of my stark-blue eyes staring wildly back at me. Jeepers, psychotic much? Blinking away the crazy, I traced the dark semi- circle under one eye. I hadn't been sleeping very well since we left Paradise Park, New Mexico.

I stifled a yawn and ran a hand through my whipping bangs, managing to uncover some of my heart-shaped face with its large and somewhat widely spaced eyes barely long enough to give it all a quick look before it was buried again. With a sense of melancholy creeping into my already on-edge demeanor, I turned away from the mirror. I was an absolute wreck.

The empty gum pack went sailing out the window to ping off a passing mile marker.

"Aurora!" my aunt snapped, her attention fully captured now just as I had intended. I wasn't a repeat-offender litter bug, honest. "For Pete's sake," she seethed at me, "don't be throwing trash on the side of the highway. Didn't you see the signs? It's three hundred dollars if you get caught littering."