Chapter 1
Esmae
Chewing on the end of my pencil, I flipped through my book. "Classic Logic Puzzles" the cover told me.
I found my page, 103, and started working on my favorite logical problem.
"Esmae!" my mom called. "Get in the car! Please, please get in the car." Her voice was shaking, and I could tell her tears were beginning to brim. I ran down the stairs.
"Mom!" I grabbed her shoulders. "What happened? Tell me, what happened?"
She took a deep, shaky breath and spoke. "Keanna. She's, she's-" My mother choked on her words and began sobbing again.
"She's WHAT?" I demanded, shaking her shoulders again.
"Dead," she said. "Keanna's dead!"
I dropped down on the bottom step, dumbfounded. My eyes started fogging up with tears, and my ears blocked out any sound being made. I could feel the fluffy carpet under my hand, but only wanted to rip it out.
I finally found my breath, and pushed myself up. "Mom," I said looking her hard in the eyes. "We need to go now."
She nodded her head, a slow movement that I could see caused her pain.
"She's at the cul de sac, Strawberry Lane. Going on a run. They can't figure out what happened," my mom said.
"Okay. Let's go."
We got in the car and drove, to the end of our subdivision. The wailing of sirens filled my ears as Mom gripped the wheel with white knuckles. When we stopped, Keanna lay on the ground. And it hit me, a smack in the face.
Keanna. Is. Dead.
My little sister, dead before she even got out of grade school.
Dead.
Using all the strength I had left in me, I got out of the car. Mom was already kneeling over Keanna, and sobbing on the phone to my dad. I watched as paramedics strapped her bruised body onto a gurney and pushed my mother away. I ran to Keanna, the sound of my feet on the pavement the only things I could hear.
"Keanna!" I screamed. I tried to grab her cold, lifeless hand, but the paramedic pushed her into the ambulance.
"Esmae, let's go." My mother grabbed my arm and pulled me into the ambulance with her. A cold wind rushed against me as the door snapped shut.
Mom hugged me to her side, and let me sob into her.
