“You can’t honestly be serious right now.”

My shoulders slump as the adrenaline fades into hopelessness. I had just been told that Emery Hastings, aka the random boy who had tried to kill me, was coming to live with us.

“River, you’re being so melodramatic,” Mom says, pushing her fading brown hair out of her eyes. We are washing the dishes and she refuses to look at me, knowing I’m glaring. “The judge said that he has to do probation work, and your father agreed to him doing it here on the farm. We could always use another farm hand since Vince left.”

I roll my eyes. Vince. The man who slacked off more than a teenager before exams. I had always ended up doing to farm work when I should have been doing homework.

“Did Dad mention to the judge the fact that Emery also tried to kill me?” It had been three months ago, but I still wasn’t letting it go. At first, I adored the magnificent boy. But once I realized that he wasn’t as amazing as he seemed, I soon wanted him locked up.

“We both know how your father is about these things,” she hands me a wet dish and I begin to dry it. My Dad had always had a soft spot for misunderstood teens, since he had been one when his parents adopted him. Vince had come from a group home, right after he turned eighteen and could no longer stay there.

“Well, where is the killer going to stay?” I raise my eyebrows, and stare at Mom. She avoids my eyes, and I know the answer is not going to be good. “The loft where he would have stayed caved in, thanks to him.” That was what the loud noise was. He had stepped in the spot where a square board was. Dad had put it there and told us not to step on it because there was a hole that needed fixing. Emery, not knowing as he trespassed onto our property, stepped on it and took half the loft down.

“I was thinking that we could bring up the old mattress from the basement, and put it in your room on the floor.” My mouth falls open as the glass cup I had been drying shatters on the floor around my feet.

“Mom! He’s going to rape me!”

Mom rolls her eyes, and starts the clean up the mess of glass I made. “That’s not a funny joke.”

I drop my dishtowel on the white counter and throw my arms out around me. “I’m not joking! He almost killed me!”

“Stop it, River.” She throws the glass in the garbage under the sink and turns to me.

“What’s wrong with the basement?” I yell quickly, panicking.

“There are spiders and bugs down there, River! He can’t possibly sleep there, it’s filthy!”

“He is filthy!”

The front door swings open, and Dad walks in with Emery slumping behind him. I hadn’t seen him in three months, and he hasn’t changed much. Well, except for the fact that I see him in light instead of darkness.

I can’t stop staring angrily at the boy who would be invading my life. Mom shoots me a look that says play nice, and I know that if I didn’t I wouldn’t get the car I had wanted for my birthday in a month.

“River,” Dad says, slipping off his shoes. “You remember Emery.”

I fold my arms over my chest and roll my eyes. “Yeah, I do.”

“Why don’t you get him to help with the mattress, and bring him up to your room?” Mom asks, but the look on her face tells me she’s telling me instead.

I signal for Emery to follow, and he sets a black backpack on the floor. Our footsteps fill the cozy, quiet farmhouse as we head to the basement door. I’m halfway down the stairs, when Emery closes the door, leaving us in pitch black darkness. The light switch was at the bottom of the stairs.

“What are you doing?”

Emery laughs darkly, and if it wasn’t pitch black, I would be positive that he’s grinning. “Just trying to muffle the noise you’ll make when I kill you.”