Chapter 1

With her arms crossed over her ample chest, nineteen year-old Sharyn Halliday walked alone down the dusty road.

She was dressed in nothing but a pair of faded, torn black jeans and a baggy blue T-shirt that was adorned with the Superman logo. It hung off her left shoulder, too many sizes too big for her petite frame. She had a circular face, with doll like lips and eyes framed by blue-black lashes that matched the shade of her long, thick hair. Piercing green eyes harbored more pain than she ever wanted to talk about.

Life had never been easy for Sharyn; her parents had lived the hippie lifestyle until she come along. They had married too young and split up when Sharyn was a toddler. Her father had grown out of the partying and free-love lifestyle, marrying another woman who had no desire to have children. Eager to please the new love of his life, Sharyn had been placed on the back burner. He acted like she never existed. He used to send her birthday cards every year, but with every new address, she knew he found it hard to keep up.

Her mother was still young, irresponsible and desperate to belong and feel loved. Anybody who showed her attention was a friend or a potential lover. When Sharyn was eight, she had fallen into drugs and alcoholism. An endless string of boyfriends wove their way in and out of their lives, some cleaning them out on their way out the door, some domestic violence and several even leaving in the middle of the night without a word. As Sharyn got older and blossomed into womanhood, she would find herself uncomfortable with the way her mother's boyfriends would leer at her. She would find ways to locker her bedroom doors at night. Some nights she slept with one eye open.

As hard as her life had been, Sharyn never complained. It was all she knew. As far as she knew, the things she had seen and experienced were normal. Relationships were toxic and nobody could be trusted. She came to the realization at an early age that she didn't want to be like her mother. Sharyn believed she was destined for bigger and better things. She lived a straight-edged lifestyle and in spite of all the moving and trauma at home, she had been an honor roll student. It wasn't easy, but she was always dreaming about finding a better life than what she had.

After graduating high school, she had found a job. She was happy; it got her out of the house and she could start saving money to move out. But it was to no avail. She was constantly bailing her mother out of financial hardships. Her mother always promised to pay her back and Sharyn always fell for it. She never could understand why it was so hard for her mother to keep her word. She handed everything over to her mother, to put groceries in their house and to keep the car running so Sharyn could work. After a bad relationship, her mother had decided to move. With nowhere to go, Sharyn quit her job and followed.

That's when her mother met Gene Snitsky.

From the instant she met him, Sharyn knew she didn't like Gene. He was repulsive, with a bloated face and thinning brown hair that he eventually just shaved off. He sported a long goatee. His eyes were blue. His physique was evident of both muscles and fat. The worst part to Sharyn was his disgusting yellow teeth, a shade of yellow that made Sharyn feel nauseous every time she had to be around him or look at him. From the second he laid eyes on her, she knew that she didn't want to be left alone with him. She started volunteering to do things, anything to get her out of the house. But then her mother had to have an appendectomy and Sharyn was forced to stay home and take care of her. It was hard for her not to feel like her entire life was just taking care of her mother.

With a shiver and a sigh, she picked up the pace. It was cold outside and she hadn't brought a jacket. She had no idea where she was going. The last she had heard, her father was living in Shreveport, Louisiana, miles upon miles away from their crack shack in Des Moines, Iowa. As far as she knew, her father was there with his big-breasted wife, Jillian Hall. Sharyn never forgot the way Jillian eyed her with disdain, acting like Sharyn didn't belong in her father's life. Seeing the all-too-familiar effects of the honeymoon phase on her father, Sharyn knew to bite her tongue and stay quiet. She knew that he would have thrown her off a bridge if it would have made Jillian happy. The very thought made her sick.

Tonight had been the breaking point. Her mother and Gene had started fighting the second they came home from the bar. Sharyn had locked herself in her bedroom, listening to the two of them yelling and screaming, the all-too-familiar sounds of slaps and dishes breaking. She shuddered, a mixture of the cold and the recollection of Gene's heavy footsteps coming down the halls. Enough was enough. Sharyn couldn't handle that kind of life anymore, the turbulence and the uncertainty and the fear. She grabbed her backpack, jammed a few things inside of it and jumped out of her bedroom window and ran off into the night, escaping through the back gates and running until her body couldn't run anymore.

Now she moved at a brisk pace, laughing bitterly to herself as she continued to walk. Never once had she openly complained about the cards she had been dealt, but at the moment she felt as if she were entitled to some kind of grievance. She pushed the thought out of her head and clenched her teeth. She kept looking behind her, fearful that Gene had jumped into his pickup truck and come looking for her. She was surprised he hadn't found her yet. Sharyn hadn't bothered to leave a note. Frankly, she didn't care if her mother worried or not. Call it karma for all the years Sharyn had to endure the same uncertainty and worry.

A familiar feeling began to gnaw at Sharyn. She wanted a cigarette. Badly. A couple years ago she had quit. Her mother found out she was smoking and instead of deterring her young teenage daughter from partaking in such a habit, she proceeded to borrow cigarettes from her. She wasn't working part time and going to school full-time to support her mother's cigarette habit, so she quit. Cold turkey. Every now and then she still got cravings, though. As the rain began to fall, Sharyn decided she would have just been thankful for a jacket.

Twenty-year old Cody Rhodes groaned as he heard the clap of thunder outside of his car. "Great. Just great," he mumbled, irritated. "Just what I need."

His car wasn't in good shape. Any minute the rain would start and his backseat would be underwater. All summer long he had busted his ass for the car. He'd bought it off his friend Ted DiBiase. At the moment, he wasn't sure why, but everyone he knew who ever owned a car copped to owning at least one beater. This was his; a rusted red Toyota with everything more or less broken. Some of the repairs were done with duct tape. Some things just weren't working at all.

Cody's father was a professional wrestler. His heyday had been in the days when it was all territories. Before the Big Bad Wolf known as Vince McMahon came along and monopolized the industry. Cody's father was a Hall of Famer with the company, so it wasn't as if the Rhodes family had an issue with what had been done to the business. What some had hailed as revolutionary, others had bemoaned as a death knell.

At the moment, Cody was toiling away on the independent circuit, hoping to make a name for himself without his father's name before hopping to the big leagues. It was easy enough to get his foot through the door; all he had to do was call up Uncle Pat or Uncle Gerry and let them know that he was ready to go. But he wanted experience. He was a kid who always strived to be the best. In a few days he had a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at some little arts center where the pay was going to suck but the experience was going to be invaluable. His name alone was an attraction; everyone knew he was Dusty's kid. But he was a stark contrast from his father. While Dusty was a rotund man with bleached blonde hair, Cody was lean and muscular with short dark hair. They had the same sleepy eyes, though Cody's were lighter. During his teenage years, he'd attempted some modeling, something he was really embarrassed about but thankful he tried.

Through the rain and between the headlights, he spotted her walking down the road. She wasn't turning around to acknowledge his car, but her pace quickened. His thin lips pursed into a narrow line. It was pouring rain and she wasn't dressed appropriately for the weather. He noticed the backpack. A few different scenarios ran through his mind, but the most dominant was that she was a runaway. He wondered if she was insane to be out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, where anything could happen.

The car pulled to a stop beside her. She kept walking. He killed the ignition and got out of the car. "Hey!" he called out. She ignored him, keeping up her pace. He ran after her. "Hey! Stop for a second, will you?" He stood in front of her, stopping her.

She stared at him. He was concerned about how vacant her eyes were. It occurred to him that it was probably for the best that she took off from wherever she had been. "Hey - are you okay? Are you lost? I can give you a ride to where you need to go if you need it. It's not safe for you to be out here by yourself so late in this weather." A rumble of thunder emphasized his point. He could see something in her eyes. It looked like tears, but he couldn't quite tell in the rain. "Come on...can we get you out of the rain? I promise I'm not going to hurt you, but you're going to catch your death out here."

She stared at him warily. She was quiet for a long time. Cody felt a little nervous. Something felt amiss.

"Scout's honor?" she asked. He could barely hear her soft voice over the rainfall and the thunder. He was relieved she had spoken.

"Scout's honor," he assured her, smiling. They turned around and began to make their way back down the road towards Cody's car. "Can I get your name?"

"Sharyn," she told him.

"Hi, Sharyn. I'm Cody. Where are you going in this weather?"

"I don't know," she confessed. "Away."

His face darkened. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

She stopped walking. "Look, this is a bad idea. Just let me keep going, okay?" She shook her head. "You can't help me anyway. No one can help me." She turned on her heels and began to walk again, readjusting her backpack. Cody sighed. His car was idling and he needed to go, but he couldn't leave her on her own in the middle of the night on some darkened back-road in a storm. His parents raised him better than that.

He rushed after her again. "Look, Sharyn, I can't in good conscience leave you here, all right? I don't think I could live with myself if I just drove off and something happened to you. Especially if I had the opportunity to keep you safe." She stared back down the road at his car, her pretty face crinkling in distaste.

"You call that tin deathtrap safe?" she asked incredulously. She studied his face for any sign of anger or annoyance, but he just laughed.

"It's safer than what you're doing right now, walking in a rainstorm without a jacket," he told her. "Please, Sharyn, let me help you. Is there any family around I can take you to at least? I'm on my way to Louisiana...if you have family on the way out there, I could always drop you off."

"I couldn't do that..." she trailed off. She was beginning to get a headache. Her hair was plastered around her face, sticking to her cheeks. "Fuck, I need a smoke."

"Please, Sharyn, you're going to get sick out here. Do you have family on the way to Louisiana?" he asked. She nodded. He smiled; it was a small step. "Great. Come on, then. Get in the car and I'll take you there."

"Just let me go on my way, okay?"

"You don't even know where you're going," Cody pointed out.

"I appreciate your concern, but you don't even know me," she replied, shaking her head. "In case you haven't noticed, it's late and it's raining and there's somewhere I need to be."

"And where's that? Enlighten me," he quizzed.

"Just fuck off." He didn't hear her. Sharyn tried walking away again. He exhaled; this was not going well at all, and it was clear to him there was more at play than met the eye. But she wasn't talking. He wondered if all women were so difficult.

"Sharyn, please. Let me give you a ride at least."

"I can't take advantage of you like that, all right?" She was being honest. She'd never been the type to know kindness, let alone take advantage of such a thing. Something in his eyes said he was sincere, but she didn't know him. Men made her nervous. And even though he was a good looking, innocent looking guy, there were still a lot of those types leering at her like she was a prized pig in a meat shop. All she had in her backpack was two days worth of clothing, a hundred dollars and her journal. Despite her desire to make everyone around her suffer, Sharyn couldn't bring herself to use Cody. In her mind, it would have made her no better than her mother.

"But you're not taking advantage - I offered. Think of it as helping a friend, okay?" Cody spoke quickly. They were getting further and further away from his car. "Sharyn, please. Let me help you. You need it."

"What do you want from me?"

"I just want to help. I don't know where you came from or where you're going, but something tells me you can't go back to where you came from. I'd worry about you if I just left you out here and went about my way..."

"I'm not here to soothe your conscience, Cody," she said frostily. He wondered what he was doing wrong.

"I didn't mean it like that," he assured her, his voice becoming strained. Irritation was beginning to gnaw at his nerves. Sharyn was beginning to think that he wasn't going to leave her alone unless she got into his car with him. He held up his hands. "Please, Sharyn, I do have good intentions here. I swear."

She was quiet for a moment. "I, uh, don't have much money, but I'll..."

"Don't worry about it. Just get in the car," he told her, cocking his head. Sheepishly, she nodded and followed him back to the car. He fought the urge to put a comforting arm around her shoulder. She got into the passenger's side, slamming the door. A moment later, she was greeted by lights. She felt her heart leap into her throat as she recognized Gene's truck. She slid down further into her seat. Cody watched, cocking an eyebrow. The man got out of the truck and slammed the door.

"Car trouble, boy?" he asked. Cody turned his gaze to the road.

"Nah. Thought I saw something in the road. Swerved to avoid it, but it seems to be gone now." Cody's nerves were standing on end. The vibes he got off the man made him feel uneasy. Gene's teeth were so yellow the gleamed in the moonlight. Cody's gaze shifted. Sharyn was shaking, trying to stay low.

"I'm looking for my daughter. You seen her?"

"Don't think so. What does she look like?" Cody asked. Gene grinned, a sleazy beam that made Cody feel sick to his stomach.

"Real beautiful little thing. Black hair, green eyes. Skin like a china doll. Anyways, she done run away from home again. Her mother's dead worried about her, recovering from surgery. I'm trying to track her down. She's been giving us trouble all the time. You know, the usual - promiscuous, bad grades, running away. Her mother's at her wit's end trying to keep the girl under control. Did you see her by any chance?"

"I don't recall. I'd keep an eye out for you, but I'm on my way out of state." The man nodded and extended his hand. Cody didn't want to shake hands with the man, but his father raised him to always respect his elders. He also didn't want to come off as suspicious.

"Gene Snitsky."

"Cody Rhodes."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his business card. According to the card, he was a "jack of all trades". "Call me if you see anyone that fits the description. Please. Her mother is at her wit's end." Cody nodded.

"Will do, sir. I hope you find her. These roads aren't safe at night." Gene nodded and went back to his truck. Cody got back into the car. Gene drove off down the road ahead of him. After a few seconds, Cody started the car. He was impressed that Sharyn had gotten so low in the passenger's side. He wanted to ask her about the man - it was obvious she knew him - but he knew he was going to have to take small steps with her.

Wordlessly, he started the car. Sharyn was relieved he didn't say anything or ask any questions. She just readjusted herself and put her seat-belt on, staring out the window at the trees passing by.