By sundown, the fields beyond town had gone white and mean, and the pines on the ridge looked black against a steel sky. The wind had teeth in it. Screen doors slammed up and down Maple Street. Pickup trucks rolled faster than usual toward warm garages and yellow-lit kitchens. People hurried inside.
Luke Harlan stood in the yard of a trailer that had never felt like home and tried not to shiver in front of his stepfather.
Dean Mercer was on the porch in a sleeveless shirt, even in the cold, a beer bottle hanging from two fingers. His face was already red from drinking. He had the wide shoulders and lazy cruelty of a man who liked the feeling of other people shrinking around him.
“I said get out,” Dean told him.
Luke tightened his grip on the duffel bag hanging from his shoulder. It held two flannel shirts, a pair of jeans, three socks that didn’t match, his mother’s old flashlight, and a framed photograph he had wrapped in a towel so the glass wouldn’t break. That was all he had managed to grab before Dean started throwing things.
“It’s snowing,” Luke said.
Dean took a pull from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Then walk faster.”
