Chapter one
Darkness engulfed me as I slowly made my way through the blackened, noisy New York streets. Only the dim street lights kept me walking straight. A car horn blared fairly close to me, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin. I pulled my thin black leather jacket tighter around me as I walked along. Glory, was it cold! My fingers felt like ice. The wind whipped, blowing my dark brown hair every which way. I was shivering something fierce. Mentally smacking myself, I couldn't believe I almost forgot my jacket when I left. If Dallas knew I'd been that close to doing something so stupid, I'm sure he'd want to crack my head against a brick wall.
My name is Casslyn, Casslyn Marie Winston, but I go by Cass. Dallas is my older brother; everyone calls him either Dal or Dally. I gave him that nickname ya know. It's actually kind of a cute story. See, when I was about a year old and Dallas was three, I couldn't talk real good yet, so I just started calling him Dally...well, sometimes I'd call him Dally. Ninety percent of the time I saw him I'd just burst into giggles at his pathetic-and extremely messy-attempts slick back his thick brown locks with dad's hair grease.
I smiled at the memory. That's all it was and all it would ever be, a memory. Everything in our house stayed pretty peaceful over the next couple of years. Well, as peaceful as humanly possible considering we lived on the north side of New York. Then, when I turned five, well...let's just say that's when everything started to go bad.
Now I'm not talking finances or anything like that, although I can tell you we definitely weren't high up on the financial ladder. I'm talking about mom and dad's relationship. It went bad, fast; kind of like when people forget to trash the meat that's been rotting in their fridge for three weeks.
Mom had threatened to leave dad, to this day I still don't know why, but she did. Dal once told me it was 'cause she felt like she had to raise us alone, which she practically was. Ya see, dad had a little problem with drinking, only it wasn't anywhere near a little problem. I think that's what ticked mom off the worst, not that he was drinking-although that did make her mad-but that he tried to lie about it to her face.
Over time dad's drinking habit got worse and worse. Me and Dal couldn't ever have friends over 'cause there were always beer bottles scattered every which way on our living room floor; and pretty much every other crevasse of our house too. It was bad enough he drank anyway, but stuff got even worse when dad drank and was ticked off at somebody. When that happened Dally and me just hid in the closet upstairs in my room- the lights off of course-and waited out his noisy, drunken rampages til he either left to get more beer or passed out on the couch.
There was one time though...glory, I don't think I'll ever forget that day-ever. I was seven at the time. Dad was going crazy, not only because he'd gotten himself drunk, (I would've been able to hide from that...maybe.) he was totally ticked because he lost on some idiotic five thousand dollar bet that he had made with one of his friends. He went after Dally and me harder than he ever had. I'd never been so horrified in my life. The worst part was, dad made sure mom wasn't home when it happened.
Anyway, long story short, he chased us around for a while to wear us out so we couldn't fight back and probably a whole bunch of other reasons too. I remember it like a scary horror movie. He forced both of us back against a wall, his 10 inch open switchblade in his hand. He took a dive for Dally, but even though I was only seven, I decided to take a major chance. I was sick of my older brother always trying to protect me. I decided then and there, we were gonna switch roles that time. At that minute, I jumped in front of Dally and shoved him behind me, just as I felt the blade slide across my arm.
The minute my mom came back and saw me on the couch, almost bleeding to death because of that stupid cut, she decided she'd been taken too far. She got me and Dallas out of there fast and took us somewhere, I don't remember exactly where. The eight inch cut on my arm healed by itself, barely. At least I had a pretty tuff lookin scar on my arm.
I didn't really think of it as tuff until I started third grade and I heard all the guys talking about how rough I was. I had told them that I was like a Cobra; peaceful, but fierce and able to strike hard when provoked. That was me alright, still is...Casstin the Cobra. It's kind of a nickname. With me it's Casslyn, Cass, or Cobra. Anything else just might get you a black eye.
Anyway, a month after the incident with dad, Dally ran off and got himself arrested. He told me he got in a fight with one of his "friends", but I think he did it just to get as far away as possible from all of dad's crap.
A week after that he ran off, to someplace called Tulsa. When I asked him where that was he said somewhere in Oklahoma. That is what I was doing after all these years, leaving New York and going to Tulsa to look for Dally. I was going to find my older brother if it killed me.