The 21st Birthday Loop

een, a debt my family couldn't pay. My purpose was simple: raise their so

imagined. I did Caleb' s homework when he was a high-school football star and washed his uniforms

he courthouse, then back to the farm. He didn't look at me once. His eyes were only fo

ess, the way I couldn' t stop my shoulders from shaking, made him angry. Chloe w

there for

d Scrap Yard Joe. Joe was a monster. He used me until my body was broken. I had two daughters in his filthy trailer. He

I wo

e floorboards. It was Caleb' s twenty-f

c room. I knew what was coming. The w

this

old. I would not fight. I would

People from town, church members, all drinking Caleb' s

handsome and arrogant, was tight with a strange paranoia. He had been reborn, too. I could

doing down here

e on her face. "Sarah, you should be

I looked dire

eaving,

' t the voice of the timid, beaten-d

. "Leaving? What are you talking about? We' re

said. "I' m not marr

is wasn' t how it happened last time. He did

arm. His grip was like iron. "You think you can just w

I said, my voice still level. "Y

re trying to ruin me. You' re

ward the back door, past

g?" Chloe asked, her voic

away! She' s going to l

cellar, its slanted doors set into a small hill behind the house.

so bad?" he snarled, his fac

to the darkness, landing with a sickening thud on the hard-packed dirt floor.

tasting dirt and blood. Above, Chloe' s s

it," she said, her sweet

s. She rolled it into the opening. It crashed into the darkness, missing my head by inches and