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custody. Justice had also spoken to her mother.
    Her mother did leave with a buddy of the Rawlings’, but he only took her back to the state he was stationed in, to a women’s shelter. Her mother tried to get Justice out, too, but her father’s lawyers were impossible, claiming abandonment among other things. The joint custody between her grandparents and father was a compromise, one that her well-known minster grandfather was able to make happen. Even with the custody agreement Justice never really saw her mother. She had a new life now, a new husband, more children, and Justice was a reminder of a past she’d escaped.
    After Justice’s grandfather died and her father decided to move in and take over his affairs Justice asked for help from her mom—help the woman said she could not give. She wasn’t coming back and Justice and her grandmother would not leave Bradyville, their home.
    For the most part, Justice knew how to dodge most of her father’s blows and when to vanish so the idea didn’t cross his mind. Any time he had a bottle in his hand, he’d forget Justice was Justice. He’d see her mother and the aggression would flow.
    Justice also knew how to smile and act like all was well. Even her grandfather had told her family business was just that, ‘no need to be broadcasting demons who find their doom one way or another.’
    Under it all, she was keeping score. One day she’d find a way to get her dad out of her grandmother’s house. And then she’d get her grandfather’s church back and her father out of her life.
    If there was one virtue Justice owned it was patience.
    Doing her best not to tremble with reasonable fear Justice reached to answer her phone.
    “Hi, Daddy.” She listened. “Really? He’s there? I was waiting—” Silence. “Well, I don’t know why he couldn’t find me.” Silence. “Really, that bad?” She listened to how she was irresponsible, how she knew there was a storm coming, and if she knew Murdock had left she should have called him. Now she was stuck. There was more to it, a lot of curse words, which were a bit slurred telling her he’d already decided to take the edge off. And a comment or two about her being as useless as her mother.
    In the background she heard Murdock taking the blame, and like always, like with any authority figure, Murdock managed to calm her father down.
    “I have a book and I’m underground,” she answered when her father asked her what she was going to do. Silence. “I know, yes. It’s not locked. I can get in. Yes, I’m sure,” she said as her gaze slowly moved up Declan, realizing the ride that she wasn’t sure how she was going to get through without sounding and looking like a fool had just turned into more time. A lot more. She also knew if her father figured out she was trapped here with Declan Rawlings, the price was going to be more than she bargained to pay.
    She crammed the uneasy feeling down that was ripping her gut into a thousand shreds. What was done was done, and she’d deal with it like she always had. Everything is temporary; it was a lesson her grandfather preached over her, one her grandmother would still repeat when the pair of them found themselves backed into yet another corner.
    “Okay, okay,” she said, as Murdock spoke to her now, telling her to break into his locker. He thought he had food in his bag, but he knew he had a charger, and he told her to make sure her phone was charging until the power went out, that way she could use it as a flashlight.
    He also said as soon as it was safe he and his dad would come after her, which did not sit any better with her butterflies. Telling him Declan was there, that she was not alone and felt safe, would only give them a reason to stew on their tempers for hours to come. How she felt wouldn’t matter.
    To top it all off Declan looked like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world.
    The directions from both Murdock and her Dad, as well as curse words and insults