I feel the air ruffle my golden hair in the wind as I drive up the switchback road that leads to the Heights. The neighborhood used to be a bastion of money in Haven, where snooty old families who settled this area basically exploited the newcomers. They built testaments to their power and looked down on those below them.

So, for these mansions to fall into disrepair and now be shunned simply because of how they’d ended up being geographically located near Old Haven after the Para Wars . . . well, at least something good has come out of all that mess.

I don’t know what kind of trouble I’m getting myself into by going on this lead alone, but I’m happy to be away from the noise of the town, the open window on my department sedan letting in some fresh air and my head feeling better than it has in days.

It’s the lack of buzz, the lack of voices, and because for the first time in a while, I’m not feeling a crushing anxiety knotting my stomach. Instead, I feel free and at ease. I would kill for this feeling of peace.

I turn on the radio. There’s a song playing, an old country tune my adoptive mother used to love listening to. This was in the good days, between the first orphanage I don’t even remember and the tough times after her death . . . just after Alyssa was born.

He was nothing but trouble. I knew it as soon as he walked through that door.

My mind told me to run away, but when he smiled, I knew I wanted more.

He took me for a ride, fast and furious. I almost lost myself.

His smile was like the Devil.

He’s a demon, a demon in the night.

I shiver, shutting off the radio. Regardless of where I first heard them, that song, those lyrics, put me back in a place, a dark place that I always try to forget.

“Do you have Alyssa locked in her seat?” Mom asks, putting the last of the bags in the trunk of her car. We’re packing light, but still . . . five people take a lot of clothing.

“Yes, Mom,” I reply with only a hint of eye rolling. Seriously, I’m nearly ten now. I can fasten a four-year-old into a booster seat.

Mom notices and gives me a smile. “You’re an angel, Eve. I’m so glad you came into our lives.”

It still hurts to know someone left me on their doorstep all those years ago, but at least now I have two loving parents and a darling sister. I mean, what else do you call it when they take the state to court to keep the baby that was left on their doorstep even after Child Welfare put me in a home? Nope, I’ve read stories . . . and I’m sure the real thing is more Oliver Twist than what the state wants people to believe.

I climb in next to Alyssa, my belt getting buckled just when the big car dips as my father, John, gets behind the wheel. Back in his early days, he used to play football at Arizona State, and he still has that size to him. “Ugh . . . I’m so ready for this. My back is already looking forward to it.”

“Did you lock all the doors?” asks Mom, always a bit of a worrywart.

“Yep, even checked the back door,” Dad says good-naturedly. “And triple-checked the gas on the stove. We’re all good for our trip.”

I stick my arms in the air, Alyssa copying me. “Then Hawaii, here we come! I can’t wait to meet a surfer boy!”

Mom laughs. “Eve, you’re not even a teenager yet!”

“And I’m already trembling on the edge of womanhood!” I protest. “I can feel—”

“Womanhood!” Alyssa chants next to me, grinning. She loves to copy me and often serves as a reminder that even if Mom and Dad let me read things that might be a bit advanced for me, I don’t need to repeat them in front of a pre-preschooler.

Dad looks up, giving me a knowing smirk as he shifts into reverse and we head toward the airport. Up front, Mom and Dad talk about grown-up stuff like Dad’s lumbago and Mom’s highlights while I sit in the back, poking Alyssa and causing her to giggle happily.

“Just think, ‘Lyssa Bear,” I whisper to her, “nine hours of movies! We can watch all the cartoons we want!”

Alyssa and I get so excited about the prospect of not having to listen to Dad’s comments about our favorite shows that I miss what is being said, but both of us fall silent when we sense something change up front. Things are . . . tense.

“Did you work with Marissa yesterday?” asks Mom. I’ve heard the name before. Marissa is someone Dad works with at his job doing . . . whatever it is consultants do.

“I did,” he answers quietly. “Why?”

“What did you guys talk about?” Mom says, ignoring his question, which would get a stern talking to if I’d done that. Mom hates when I ignore her questions, but adults are weird like that sometimes.

Dad grips the steering wheel tightly, looking straight ahead. “Anne, can we not do this right now? We’re heading to Hawaii.”

“No,” Mom says, sounding angry. “I want to know.”

“We discussed sales and marketing. There’s a job fair coming up that she’s responsible for.”

“That’s all?” Mom asks as we come up to a red light. Dad stops us a little suddenly, my seat belt locking as I’m jerked forward.

“Yes, that’s all,” he replies, his voice crackling. “We talked work.”

The light turns green again, and nobody says anything for another block until Mom laughs in that way she does when she’s not happy but is laughing because she’s angry. “I don’t believe you.”

Dad hisses, his knuckles popping as he squeezes the steering wheel. “Anne, for fuck’s sake!”

This isn’t my mom and dad. They’ve never yelled like this and rarely cursed in front of us. We don’t even watch movies with cursing.

Mom, though, doesn’t seem to care about the foul language. “You lied before and you’ll lie again. That’s all you are . . . a damned liar.”

There’s a silence, and even Alyssa stops giggling as I swallow my fear. Dad fumes, his hands twisting and kneading the steering wheel as two songs play on the radio until after the next green light, when he explodes. “You know what, Anne? I’m sick of your damn complaining!” His voice is filled with toxic venom. “I do every damned thing possible . . . and it’s never enough.”

Mom screeches, turning to him in utter outrage. “You mean like fucking your slut divorcee of a co-worker every day? Yeah, I guess you do a lot.”

“Mommy, Daddy, please!” I plead, tears threatening as Alyssa starts crying. “Stop!”

It’s terrifying. I swear I can see something twisting my parents’ features as Dad glares at Mom, his eyes almost glowing. “Well, how about this? You’re a fucking frozen-cunt bitch, Anne, and I should have never fucking married you!”

Mom sneers, her lips spraying spittle across the car to hit Dad in the face. “You shouldn’t have. Then I wouldn’t have to fantasize about other men while tolerating your limp dick!”

Dad slams his fist into the steering wheel, a long honk ripping out as he turns to her. “You ungrateful bitch!”

Dad suddenly rips his hands from the steering wheel and reaches for Mom, trying to grab her.

“Daddy, stop it!” I scream as Alyssa’s cries turn into horrified shrieks.

There’s a horrible screeching sound and a crunch of metal. Then everything goes black.

Tears roll down my face at the horrible memory. After the crash, I didn’t remember much. My memories basically consist of constant tears and fragments of the days that seemed to pass in a grey-like stupor.

It was crazy how the argument started. One minute, it was sunshine and rainbows, and the next, it was blood and hellfire.

To this day, I don’t know what came over the two. It was almost as if they were . . . possessed. And while the memories still come back from time to time, I’m glad Alyssa has blocked them out. She remembers getting in the car, she says, and then waking up in the hospital. She still remembers the good times only . . . which I guess helped during the years afterward.

She still had those memories to hang onto during our time in the orphanage. Understaffed and underfunded in a time when there wasn’t enough of anything for anyone, the Haven Children’s Home might as well have been The Lord of the Flies. Gangs would beat you, take what little stuff you managed to get, and more.

We should have been split up, a ten-year-old with a four-year-old. But Alyssa was so traumatized, the only way she’d not scream at night was if I slept with her, and after awhile, it became accepted. I had to fight, but we made it. Still, I’m glad she has the good memories to go along with what we went through.

I reach the Heights and turn off the main road, down a poorly maintained, formerly tree-lined lane. Up ahead is a large mansion, the gate already open. I pull through and get out, looking up at it. Built over a hundred and twenty-five years ago, it’s tall, Neo-Victorian, and dilapidated.

Still, it feels . . . powerful. Like something is using the broken-down exterior as mere camouflage and inside is something stronger than I’ve ever encountered before.

And that something seems to be calling to me.

Shivering, I go around to the trunk of my car, opening it and taking out my gear.

“Time to go to work.”