Ryane's POV

"Do you want a refill, baby?" Diane, the waitress at the diner asks me.

"No thanks. I think I better head home. I'll see you tomorrow." I grab the book I've been reading all night and gently tuck it into my backpack. My laptop that's sitting on the table next to my empty mug and crumb covered plate is blinking at me with a silent alarm. It's 5:00 am. My mom will be getting home in thirty minutes. That's just enough time for me to jog home and beat her there. I slap my computer closed and shove it in my bag along with my homework.

"Thanks again for the coffee. And the cinnamon roll was delicious." I tell Diane as I walk to the door.

"Anytime, baby." She waves me off.

My converse covered feet slap against the sidewalk as I start to run home. I hear a car driving up so I duck into the alley between the ice cream shop and hardware store. I lean out just enough to peer at the car. Mom? I look at my watch, the one that my dad gave me the night before he got arrested. 5:04. She's early. I take off sprinting behind the stores and houses on my way to our tiny house. Because I'm cutting through yards I get there just after my mom's car pulls into the driveway.

I watch her go inside and then sneak up to the house. I take a peek inside and see her in the kitchen. If this were our old house I could climb the tree and jump in through the second-story window, but here there's only one floor. She's pulling eggs out of the fridge. I know that she's making breakfast for me before I go to school. It's my first day at the new school. I decide to just bite the bullet and walk inside. First, though, I drop my bag on the side of the porch, tie my hair up in a ponytail and pull off my shirt so that I'm in a tank top and my yoga pants. I'm glad I wore those today.

I take a breath and then open the door. "Hey, Mom. How was work?"

"It was great, sweetie. And how did you sl-" She snaps her mouth shut when she turns to see me coming in from the front door. She gives me a glare that reminds me of our old selves. She looks like the queen of the Beasts of Promise rather than the small-town doctor that she's pretending to be.

"Where have you been?" She asks me after setting down the eggs and turning completely to face me. Her hands are on her small hips.

"I was out for a run." I motion to my clothes and give her a look of contempt. Ever since my dad got arrested we've been walking on thin ice.

"You know that I don't like you out on your own." She gives me a disapproving sigh.

"Don't worry, Mom," My older brother, Kellin, says as he walks into the house behind me. "I was with her." My mom sighs with relief and passes by me to give him a hug. He's always been her favorite. Probably because he does whatever my parents tell him to. He even switched colleges so that he could be close to us. Kellin is lucky though because he gets to go off to college and be free while I'm stuck here with a mom who hasn't acted like herself in months.

"It's been too long." She kisses his cheek and glares at me. "I'm sorry that Ryane woke you up so early. Aren't you moving in today?"

"Mom, I'm almost eighteen and we're in a nowhere town. I'm fine. Plus, I always have my good friends with me." I interrupt them and slip the knife out of my back pocket to show them both. I then reach down to take my shoes off and pull out the knife from my sock. Sure it's not actually a great place to keep it, but when I have only one pocket it works.

"I still don't like it. Maybe I should try harder to get the day shift." She says and I can see the wheels start to turn in her mind. "With Kellin living near the college he can't keep coming here to check on you. And if anyone caught him I don't want to even think about what would happen."

"I know, Mom. I'm sorry. I promise that I'll be more careful. We both know that you do better with this shift. Plus, I have the anklet on so if I were ever in trouble help would be there in less than five minutes." I pull down my other sock to show her my ankle monitor. When my dad got arrested I didn't take it well and ended up getting in some big trouble. They made a deal with my mom and me that if we moved away from the area, cut all ties, and cleaned up our act then they'd let me out on parole instead of sending me to juvie or worse. Of course, that means that even Kellin shouldn't be here, but he was only ever good at listening to our parents. My parole officer was easy enough to pay off but small towns tend to talk so Kellin is staying away more and more.

I would have rather taken the time, but my mom didn't want to lose all of us so she took the deal. That was three months ago. We've been here since then, in hell. It took some time for us to get my records here so I've been doing a sort of homeschooling through the school here. It's so easy that I could do the work in my sleep if I could sleep that is. Ever since we got here I've been sleeping just a couple of hours a night if I sleep at all. After the first couple of months, I started to sneak out to explore this pathetic excuse of a town. By my third night out I discovered a bigger nightlife than you'd expect in a place like this.

So far I've stayed clear of it because I know if I get caught anywhere near something illegal then I'll be locked up. No second chances. No excuses. That's why I was happy when I found the diner that's always open. It struck me as odd for such a small town to have a twenty-four-hour place but there is a steady stream of people constantly. I have been going there every night since I found it. I love it there, especially just before 5:00 am when that guy comes in.

I've heard Diane call him Greyson once. He has dark hair that's just long enough to curl. It always looks messy like he's just gotten out of bed. I want to run my fingers through it; I've dreamed of doing just that in fact. Then his eyes; they're warm like mocha. They look kind even when he scowls. I can tell that he's more dangerous than kind though. He always has on a black leather jacket, black boots, and jeans. When he gets on his motorcycle all I can think is that I wonder what it would be like to be on the back of it with my arms wrapped around him. Would he be a cautious driver? No, he'd be fun.

"Ryane, you better hurry and get in the shower. You have to leave soon or you'll be late. And make sure you leave those friends here." My mom's voice pulls me out of my daydreaming. When she says friends she points to the knives that I'm holding.

I look down at them and chuck them at the wall without looking. I hear them slam into the dartboard that I have hanging on the wall. I don't have to look to know that they hit the bullseye.