Sample Chapters

1. It’s the End of the World as We Know It – REM

When I opened my eyes, there was a man standing over me.

“Jillian, I need you to get up.”

I wiped my blurry eyes, bringing him into focus.

“Dad? What are you doing here?”

“This is my home,” he said.

“It was. You moved out two months ago.”

“Just get dressed and come downstairs.”

I looked at my alarm clock and saw that it was 3:02 A.M.

“Um. No. Come back when the sun is up. Preferably way up.”

“Get up Jillian, right now!” he nearly yelled, losing his patience.

“Calm down, jeez!” I snapped as I threw off my covers and got out of bed.

“Thank you,” he said, calm again, then walked out. “Please, hurry.”

Screw that. He wasn’t going to barge into my room in the dead of night and make bizarre demands without explaining what was going on first.

The marble steps felt like ice on my bare feet as I walked down from my bedroom on the third floor. There was no relief as I reached the foyer and crossed the bespoke designer rug.

The stupid thing felt like walking on a cheese grater. It was fascinating to me that the more expensive something was, the more uncomfortable it tended to be.

When I entered the cavernous living room, which was cold—in both aesthetic and temperature—my mother was peeking out the curtains of the front window.

Unfortunately, I resembled her. She was tall and slender, with medium length blonde hair, although hers came from a bottle. Her face was beautiful—but sharp featured. She was fully dressed in jeans and a cashmere sweater. Come to think of it Dad was fully dressed too.

Why were they fully dressed at three in the morning?

My eight year-old brother Jackson sat sleepy-eyed on the couch in jeans and a Yankee’s t-shirt. He clutched his favorite stuffed dragon tightly to his chest.

“Why aren’t you dressed?” snapped my mother.

“Why aren’t you?” I snapped back.

“What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

“Because you never wear anything but Prada and Louboutin. I’m shocked you didn’t melt when the denim touched your body.” 

“Jillian, I thought I told you to get dressed?” asked Dad when he came back in the room.

“You also said it was a trial separation, so forgive me if I don’t take you seriously,” I spat.

“We don’t need your attitude right now!” said Mom.

“Don’t fight…” Jackson said meekly.

“Everyone just calm down,” said Dad.

“No, I won’t just ‘calm down.’ I snapped. “What is going on?”

“Let us think for one moment, Jillian,” said Mom.

“Jack is terrified,” I spat. 

“Just shut up—!“ Mom started to shout but was interrupted when a loud crashing sound echoed through the house.

“What was that?” asked Jack.

Jack shot up from the couch and ran to hide behind Mom. Dad ran towards the kitchen, where a figure dressed from head to toe in black, materialized from the shadows and grabbed him. 

I screamed and eight more black figures rushed into the room.

“Who are you?” Mom asked, her voice shaking. My Mom was a high-powered New York defense attorney; I’d never heard her voice shake.

One of the masked men came forward and moved toward us.

“Ashley Breckinridge,” he said loudly. “You’re coming with us!”

“Baines-Breckinridge,” she said.

 

2. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished – Van Morrison

A Year Ago

My first experience with crime had happened after I’d gone to the movies with my friends, Jadrien and Kaybree.

No matter where Jadrien was, she was too cool to be there, and she would be sure to let you know. Her style was glam punk, with enough conspicuous couture to assure you she was Central Park South. Kaybree on the other hand was always trying way too hard to be cool enough to be there and was more boho-chic with a dash of Daddy-pays-my-credit-cards.

My own style was thrift store eclectic, with real retro pieces I found in vintage stores in SOHO and the Village. For most of the people around me, it was always about always being on top of the newest thing. But I liked not only older clothing, but old stuff in general.

It was important to me to be authentic.

Which was why I liked going to the movies at the Empire Theatre. It had once been a beautiful Broadway theatre, and there were still some remnants of its former majesty throughout it. An old stage door behind the escalator, hand painted murals on the ceiling, and the old luxury box—the seats gone, now an empty shell hovering pointlessly above the ticket kiosk.

I hated that a soulless mega corporation had purchased it, but at least it wasn’t gone. That was the worst thing…when things were just gone.

The sky was dark and the air was chilly when we walked out onto 42nd Street. The sidewalk was littered with pedestrians, and the occasional homeless person you had to step over to get wherever you were going.

As we headed toward the Times Square/Port Authority Subway Station, we gagged as we passed a ratty, mud spattered tent sitting up against a nearby building. We weren’t gagging to be dramatic. The scent of urine can feel like a throat punch.

Presumably someone was inside it, because a pair of worn, dirty shoes sat outside the zipped up flap.

Jadrien suddenly stopped.

“What are you doing?” I whisper-shouted to Jadrien as she crept over to the tent.

“Shhhhh,” she hissed at me.

She grabbed the shoes and darted toward the stairs that led down to the subway. Kaybree and I shared a confused look, then followed her.

“Eww, what do you want with some nasty homeless guy’s shoes?” I asked, when we all got to the bottom of the stairs.

Jadrien didn’t answer, she hustled over to a nearby trash can and threw them away. Then she turned around and laughed.

“OMG that was hilarious! I just wish I could see his face when he finds them gone!”

Kaybree laughed uncomfortably as she handed Jadrien an antibacterial wipe. I just stared at her, my mouth hanging open in shock.

The rest of the night; on the subway ride, then the walk to the brownstone I lived in with my parents on the Upper East Side, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Jadrien had done.

She’d always been mean. I tolerated it when it was funny. But nothing about what she’d done was funny. It was just cruel.

When I got home, my parents were still out and my younger brother was asleep. His nanny was in the sitting room talking to her boyfriend back in Norway.

I went up to my parents bedroom and went to my father’s closet. He had almost as many shoes as my mother, but unlike her, he wouldn’t notice one pair missing. I grabbed his black Berluti sneakers, put them in a recyclable bodega bag and went back out.

When I got back to 42nd, the tent looked the same. So I left the bag with the sneakers where he’d had his other shoes, then scurried away to get back to the subway station.

I’d never been alone in a subway car before. Usually if the subway car was empty, you steered clear lest you get a whiff of a smell that would eternally haunt your nostrils. But I was alone at that moment simply because it was so late at night.

The echoey metallic clink of the car doors being opened caught my attention. A tall man wearing a gray sweatshirt entered the car.

I looked away quickly, eye contact was usually not a good idea. But because I looked away, I didn’t see the knife until he pressed it to my neck.

The blade was cold as he leaned a knee against the seat next to me. His breath was hot and sour as he spoke in a gravelly voice.

“Give me everything,” he said.

I shakily obeyed, handing over my bag. Hoping against hope that ‘everything’ only included my stuff.

The car halted and the MTA voice over announced our destination and warned us to stand clear of the doors. As the doors slid open, he turned and bolted out them.

I wanted to get up. I wanted to go home. But I couldn’t move. It was like I had gazed into the eyes of Medusa and was turned to stone in my seat.

At the next stop, as the doors slid open, I gave myself an order.

“Run,” I said, out loud.

I ran all the way home.

When I got into the house, I did something I hadn’t done since I was very small. I ran to my parents’ bedroom.

It was a cavernous space, ultra modern, with brushed silver metal furniture. It’s coldness perfectly matched my mother’s heart.

I could see she was alone in bed. My father hadn’t moved out yet, but he’d been sleeping in his office for about a month at that point.

“Mom…” I said quietly, my voice shaking. It hurt when I swallowed, my dry throat rubbing together like a large dry frog was trying to climb down it.

“Mom!” I said more loudly my voice cracking.

She turned over and looked at me, extremely confused.

“What is it, Jillian?”

“I…I got robbed…on…on the subway…”

Her face showed no reaction. She leaned up a little.

“Are you hurt?” she asked, her voice emotionless.

“N…n…no…I mean…not…”

“Then I would suggest you go to bed.”

“What?” Anger pushed out my trauma for a moment. “Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?”

“There is no point in calling the police, since you weren’t hurt. Your stuff is gone. I’ll cancel your credit card in the morning and you can order a new phone online.”

“B…b…but…”

“Jillian,” she said, sitting upright. “What did you expect in New York City at this time of night? You’re fortunate something worse didn’t happen. You have a genius IQ yet, I swear, you have a habit of doing very stupid things. Close the door on your way out.”

 

3. Can I Get A Witness? – RUN DMC

The Present

When the gunman removed his mask, instead of a hot, rugged special forces type of guy, he looked like a grandpa.

“My name is Marshal James Woodman. Ashley Baines-Breckinridge, we are here to extract you and your family into the Witness Protection program.”

We were surrounded by the armed marshals and escorted out of the house. They ushered us into an unmarked black van and took off.

The streets were not empty, but also weren’t crowded at this time of night. Or morning. Or whatever.

They drove us through the Lincoln Tunnel to…
New Jersey.

Shudder.

The safe house was in a suburb. Like every suburb, it was the architectural equivalent of one of those guys whose face was so uninteresting, you forgot what he looked like as soon as he was out of your sight.

I was surprised there weren’t children bouncing balls in perfect unison outside each house, like on the planet Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time.

Inside the house, Jack and I sat huddled together on the couch. The cushions were so smooshed, it felt like they were trying to eat us, like the bed that ate Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street.

Jack couldn’t stop shaking…and neither could I.

We might as well have been invisible to Mom and Dad at the moment. Although we kind of always were. Even on vacations they’d always brought a nanny along so they didn’t have to be bothered doing any parenting.

“Ashley,” said Dad. “I thought this guy Sean whats-his-face was your client? Why, exactly, does he want you dead?”

Mom gave us a quick glance, then looked back at Dad.

“Finnegan. His name is Sean Finnegan. And I told you, I…I witnessed something…bad.”

Mom was not usually one to withhold details. She’d once talked, in graphic detail, in front of me about exactly how one of her clients, a famous actor, had murdered his girlfriend.

And yes, she got him acquitted.

So whatever she’d seen must have been really awful for her to not want us to hear it.

“Normally we have a little time to do this more gently,” said Marshal Woodman. “But we had intel, Dr. Breckinridge, that Sean Finnegan was on his way to your home with his men. We had to act to get you all out immediately.”

It sounded like the plot to a movie. Not something that would happen in real life. People in real life didn’t come to murder you in your bed. If I’d stayed asleep, if they hadn’t known…I’d be dead.

None of this had felt real.

And then it did.

My therapist said that I had an extremely advanced ability to identify and verbalize my thoughts and feelings. 

But at that moment, all I could say was that it felt like my brain exploded.

“No!” I shouted, although I hadn’t intended to shout. “This is a dream, it’s all a bad dream! I’m not here. I can’t be.”

It felt like I was going to throw up my heart. My brain felt like it was on fire. My thoughts raced so fast, I felt nauseous. It felt like I would never control my mind again.

“You can’t make me leave my school and friends and all my stuff!” My voice continued to climb in volume and pitch.

I darted off the couch and ran for the door. I had to get out of the room. It felt like I couldn’t breathe in there.

“Jillian…” said Dad gently, moving toward me. But his gentle voice just made me feel angry.

“Don’t use your ‘you have a terminal illness with one month to live’ voice on me!” I shouted.

Dad tried to grab my arm, but I yanked it away and darted for the door. Before I could get it open, Dad got his arms fully around me and lifted me off the ground.

“Let me go! I don’t want to go with you! I hate you!” I shouted, spittle flying from my mouth like that rabid squirrel I saw in the Central Park a couple years ago.

“I hate you…” I mewed again, pathetically, no longer having the energy to shout. My body felt like a deflating balloon, as I collapsed in my father’s arms from exhaustion.

A quiet moan dribbled out of me weakly, as I attempted to shrug Dad off of me. This time he let me go and I collapsed into a heap on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest as sobs overtook my body.

Jack rushed from the couch and hugged me tightly. I clung to him and we both cried. Our parents and the agents stood around us, staring dumbly.

“What happens to us now?” Jack asked, after we’d both cried ourselves out.

The adults all looked at him like he was a frightened little puppy. Marshal Woodman knelt down, getting eye level with us.

“Well, Jackson,” he said. “You’ll stay here for a couple days while we get things set up. Then we’re going to put you where you’ll be safe, and nothing will happen to you.”

But something did happen.

We didn’t know it then, but we were being taken to the place where we would all die.