“If he starts being mean,” she continues, her voice shaking as much as her hands, “you need to help me, okay? Tell him we need money. If we don’t get help, Nik, you’re going to have to leave the apartment, your bedroom, and all your stuff. You’ll be sleeping in strangers’ houses. And they could take you away from me.” She grasps my shoulders, breathing hard. “You want to go home tonight, right?”

I nod.

“Then smile pretty,” Jake, her boyfriend, yells out at me from the driver’s seat through the open window.

Yeah, smile pretty. Be nice to someone who’s never been nice to me. Who’s never wanted to meet me. My stomach keeps churning, and I can’t fist my fingers. I feel weak.

“Hurry up, Luce,” he says to my mom.

I know why he wants us to hurry up and what he wanted money for. Both of them. Of course, if we were lucky enough to get anything, I’d get fed and maybe some used clothes and shoes. My socks were so old they didn’t fit right, and I’d been washing my hair with bar soap for a month now.

But they’ll just party with the rest. Every time we have any money, it’s gone before we’ve had a chance to exhale.

My mother takes my hand, and I follow her through the gates and down the long driveway. Looking around, my heart instantly aches. It’s so beautiful here. Acres of green on both sides of the black drive, trees and bushes and the smell of flowers…God, what would it be like to just go out there and run? To do cartwheels and climb the red oaks and have picnics in the rain?

Looking ahead, I spot the house, the white stone stunning against the blue sky. Cars circle the driveway, and splashes of red lie around the house, which I guess must be rose bushes, though I’m not yet close enough to see.

But the closer we get, the more unnerved I become. I want to dig in my heels and stop. I want to turn around and say, “I’ll rip off food from the Shop-and-Go down the street from our apartment if I have to.” I’ve done it before. We needed milk and cereal, and my mom asked me to get it. If I got caught shoplifting, as a minor I wouldn’t get in as much trouble as she would.

We head up to the house, and she stops me just before we get to the door. She squats down, her long coat the only nice thing she has to cover up her cheap clothes.

She holds my shoulders and looks up at me, her eyes sad. “I’m sorry,” she says. “These are things kids shouldn’t have to go through. I know that.” She looks around, tearing up and looking desperate. “I wish you knew how much I want you to have everything. You deserve everything, you know that, right?”

I just stare at her, my eyes starting to water. My mom is a mess, she doesn’t always put me first, and I hate the positions I’m put in sometimes, but…I know she loves me. Not that it always feels like enough, but I know she tries.

“I wish I could take you away and buy us a house like this,” she says wistfully, “and all you would ever do is smile.” She stands up, brushing the wrinkles out of her coat. “It kills me that his little shit of a son gets everything he wants and you get nothing.”

Damon. My father’s son. The only child he claimed.

She’d only mentioned him a few times, not that she’d ever met him. He had just been born when my mom got pregnant with me, but we’d heard enough over time. He’s supposed to be kind of trouble.

She takes my hand again and leads me to the front door where a servant is holding it open, greeting guests as they enter.

A woman in a sparkly dress looks down at me, narrowing her eyes and taking in my clothes. I quickly look away.

People enter the house, and we follow, but the man at the door puts his hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Excuse me. Who are you?”

“I need to see Gabriel.”

The man, who’s wearing a white waistcoat, moves in front of her, blocking her way.

I peek around him, seeing all the fancy people in suits and dresses walking through a door to the back of the house.

“Mr. Torrance is entertaining guests right now,” he tells her.

My mother puts her arm around me, replying flatly, “This is his kid, and if I don’t see him now, I’m going to run through your quaint little village here in Thunder Bay and shout it to the world.”

The man purses his lips, and I notice a few people around us turn to look. I cringe on the inside. Would Gabriel even care if she did that?

The servant nods to the man standing next to the wall, and he walks over. My heart races, watching him pat my mother down.

But then the burly guard finishes with her and steps over to me, running his hands down my arms. I jerk, and my mother pulls me away.

“Keep your hands off her,” she demands.

I shake and move into her, hiding as much as possible.

“Follow me,” the servant who’d opened the door says. He leads my mother and me through the house, and I look around, noticing a library, a den, and some kind of sitting room. Everything is dark, and nearly everything is made of wood: the stairs, the furniture, some of the walls…. We pass by the staircase, and my eye catches a figure standing at the top. I look up.

A boy stands there, leaning on the wall, with his arms crossed over his chest. He stares at us, his eyes following me as I pass by. He has dark hair like mine, but his eyes are darker, narrow and calm. But something in his look makes me shrink. Is that him?

“Wait here,” the man says.

My mother and I stop outside a door, while the older man rounds a corner.

My mom takes my hand and holds it with both hands. She did the same thing a couple years ago when CPS came to our house and also on the rare occasion I had a pushy teacher who went the extra mile to convince her to come to parent-teacher conferences. She’s nervous.

I hear hard footsteps hit the floor. My heart starts beating in my throat, and I stop breathing for a moment.

A shadow falls on the ground, and I look up, seeing a tall, well-dressed man charge around the corner.

Graying black hair, beautiful black suit and shirt, shiny shoes…I stare up at him wide-eyed, my breath caught in my throat at his strong scent, a mixture of cologne and tobacco.

He gets in my mom’s face, his voice sounding so mean that my hands start to shake.

“You know what’s more tragic than a poor junkie whore?” he bites out at her. “A dead, poor junkie whore.”

And then he looks down at me. “Sit,” he orders. “Now.”

I take a shallow breath—it’s all I can force in—and drop to the bench, fidgeting with my hands. He pushes my mother through the door, and I see a desk and some books before he closes it.

Oh, God. What the hell? He’s so mean. Why? I know my mom can be trouble, and she’s embarrassing, even to me sometimes, but I haven’t done anything.

I blink away the tears that spring up all of a sudden. I don’t want to be here. These people are awful. My mom said my dad owns a media company and sits on the boards of others—whatever that means—but there’s also other things he does. She had worked for him, but she wouldn’t tell me what she did.

I just want to leave. I don’t want anything to do with him, and I don’t want to know anything more.

Movement catches my eye, and I look up to see the dark-eyed boy coming down the hallway. He looks relaxed, holding a green bottle by the neck and stopping at the entryway, leaning on the wall as he stares at me.

I lick my lips, feeling every hair on my arms stand up. I avert my eyes, embarrassed, but they keep coming back to him.

His black pants and leather shoes look like someone tried to dress him up, but his white shirt is partially untucked, and his sleeves are rolled up. His hair is combed, though, and I notice how thin his gaze is on me, as well as the striking arch of his dark eyebrows. I have the same arches, and my mom says they make the green of my eyes so piercing, but it does the same for his dark ones, too.

He takes a swig from the bottle—some kind of beer, I think, but he doesn’t look much older than me.

I hear a muffled argument from behind the door and look over at him again. My father seemed to know who I am. Does this boy?

“Are you my brother?” I ask.

His lips lift in slight amusement, and he doesn’t look the least bit shocked at my question.