Dead End Justice

"We've got nothing to lose / and there's no time to choose..."

Tulsa, 1992. Thick dark eyeliner, worn-out Converses, Fleetwood Mac on cassette, and a house full of secrets you'd take a switchblade to protect.

To the hoods and drunks packed into Buck Merrill's bar, seventeen-year-old Maverick is just a gorgeous, untouchable dropout who hits the drums like she wants to set the world on fire. Nobody in Tulsa knows her real name is Victoria. Nobody knows she was a high school valedictorian at fourteen, or that she's keeping an Ivy League scholarship hidden in a drawer while her older sister breaks her spine trying to protect their siblings from an abusive monster of a father. Maverick stole all the good genes in her family, leaving her looking entirely different from her four brothers and sisters. To keep them safe from their father's fists and the state foster system, she keeps her family completely invisible, pretending to be a lone wolf.

And absolutely nobody knows about Dallas Winston.

For three years, Dally and Maverick have operated under a dangerous, rule-bound transaction in the pitch-black spare rooms above the bar. Rule #1: Don't tell a soul. Rule #2: Don't catch feelings. They are two live wires using each other's touch to silence the screaming static in their own heads, completely separate from the Curtis gang. Dally thinks she's just a wild, untethered North Side girl; he has no idea about her genius mind, her past overdoses, or the broken universe she carries on her shoulders.

But when a toxic family crisis collides head-on with a rusted Chevy and a group of oblivious greasers, Maverick's carefully boxed worlds completely implode under the blinding white lights of the hospital lobby. With her younger brother Sylvester pushed to the absolute edge, a devastating accident sets off a chain reaction that forces every lie into the daylight. The currency of lies is no longer enough to buy survival, and Dallas is forced to decide if he's willing to throw out