Chapter 1

I remember the day clearly, my mother had left for the day to go into the city. She didn't tell us why she was going but she never told us anything. After our father left, she was always gone; she'd often be gone for hours on end, leaving me to watch my younger sister, Sally. She was only eighteen months younger than me, but growing up that meant everything and I was always in charge, I made the decisions for her. Now that I was seventeen and she was a month off of sixteen it wasn't that big of a deal. We were close though, most of my friends weren't close to their siblings and couldn't understand how I was close to Sally. But we were all we had, with our mother always gone we had to rely on each other.

I sat on the couch, absent-mindedly watching TV more listening to the pouring rain outside. I loved the rain, it was so calming. When we were younger Sally and I would sit by the window and watch it, because we couldn't go outside, but we grew to love it after watching it so long. Sally was in the kitchen looking for something to eat, "Seriously, there is nothing in here," she yelled from the kitchen., "you'd think the woman would have time to buy food with the amount of time she's gone."

"There's cereal in the pantry, I think it's Cheerios,"

"Yeah, no milk though," she sighed and came out of the kitchen holding the box of cereal and a glass of water. Sally was tall now, I didn't really realize how much she'd grown. I glanced over at a picture of us on the wall, Sally in her favorite pink dress, and a bow in her hair. I had messy hair and crooked teeth but I stood behind her, covering up the grass stain on my shirt. We took those pictures a month before our father left. I looked back at Sally, sitting on the couch in her gray sweats and one of my T-shirts. It's funny how much time can change a person, we both had grown a lot.

"Isn't that my T-shirt?" I pulled at the sleeve of the shirt, and grinned.

"Yeah, from your cross-country meet last year, I've had it for a while now. It's comfortable," she didn't even break vision from the TV, but she was smiling. She knew I didn't care if she had it on.

"Did that kid leave you alone?"

"That kid has a name, it's Jacob, and no he didn't he asked me to Prom," she looked over at me, "and please God leave him alone."

"The kid's an idiot, just saying," I played football with him, and he was actually pretty cool, but it bothered me that he was interested in Sally I didn't trust him with my baby sister.

"Okay, that's my problem to deal with, promise you'll leave him be, Sam."

"Yeah, whatev-" There was a knock at the door, Sally and I looked at each other, I wasn't expecting anyone to come, no one came all the way out to the end of this street, our house was the only one on the street.

The person at the door knocked at the door again, this time really hard. As if he was trying to break it down, "Who is it?" Sally asked as she got up from the couch and headed toward the door.

She had her hand on the doorknob and was starting to turn it when a voice neither of us recognized, "An old friend," the voice almost purred. The voice gave me chills and I jumped up and leaned against the door, whoever this was they freaked me out. Sally moved away from the door, watching me and the door the whole time. I went to lock the door, and it wouldn't budge, "I wouldn't try that, dear, the door isn't going to lock. Why don't you and your sister let me in?" I started sweating, I couldn't let this person in. Who was it? How did they know I had a sister, that we were home? Sally backed further from me and the door, and I don't blame her I was as scared as she was, but I was bigger so I could hold off whoever this was.

"Sally go call the police," I whispered, hoping he didn't hear me, "Who are you anyway?" I asked through the door. Sally left the room to go get the phone.

"I told you an old friend, come son, let me in. You wouldn't want me to have to let myself in," It was a man at the door, but his voice eerily purred with every word that left his mouth. Sally came back in with the phone in her hand a distraught look on her face, "You can't call anyone dear, the line's been cut," He snickered from behind the door, Sally dropped the phone.