The Violence E-Book

Delilah S. Dawson

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 823

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

"Delilah Dawson might have written the novel that defines this era."—Stephen Graham Jones, NYT bestselling author of The Only Good Indians. A provocative, timely, heart-wrenching thriller that will appeal to fans of Naomi Alderman's The Power and Christina Sweeney-Baird's The End of Men. When Chelsea Martin kisses her husband hello at the door of their perfect home, a chilled bottle of beer in hand and dinner on the table, she may look like the ideal wife, mother, and homemaker—but in fact she's following an unwritten rulebook, carefully navigating David's stormy moods in a desperate nightly bid to avoid catastrophe. If family time doesn't go exactly the way David wants, bad things happen—to Chelsea, and to the couple's seventeen-year-old daughter, Ella. Cut off from all support, controlled and manipulated for years, Chelsea has no resources and no one to turn to. Her wealthy, narcissistic mother, Patricia, would rather focus on the dust on her chandelier than acknowledge Chelsea's bruises. After all, Patricia's life looks perfect on the surface, too. But the façade crumbles when a mysterious condition overtakes the nation. Known as the Violence, it causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bursts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. The ensuing chaos brings opportunity for Chelsea—and inspires a plan to liberate herself and her family once and for all.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

The Violence

Part I

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

Part II

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

Part III

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

Part IV

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

About the Author

THEVIOLENCE

PRAISE FOR THE VIOLENCE

“The Violence in The Violence might be contagious, but what you really catch here is the anger—so righteous, and so right here, right now. Delilah Dawson might have written the novel that defines this era.”

Stephen Graham Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians

“A staggering, masterful tale of survival and redemption during a literal epidemic of violence. Dawson is a storyteller working at the top of her class.”

Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author of Wanderers

“A gorgeously creative and surprisingly gleeful story about the way violence infects every aspect of American life.”

Sarah Langan, author of Good Neighbours

“A paean to the resilience of women . . . As the characters in this novel fight for their lives in a pandemic-cursed hellscape, The Violence could not be more of-the-moment.”

Alma Katsu, author of The Hunger and The Deep

“Delilah S. Dawson has crafted a pandemic thriller that’s so much more—a piercing examination of survival, courage, and self, terrifying and hopeful in equal measure.”

Peng Shepherd, award-winning author of The Book of M

“An inspiring story of self-discovery, resilience, and hope, and a page-turning thrill ride that will leave you breathless.”

Sylvain Neuvel, author of The Themis Files and A History of What Comes Next

“Horrifying and inspiring in equal measure, The Violence shines a light on the epidemic of abuse women have always endured, folded into a stellar thriller full of danger, courage, and characters who feel alive.”

Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Road of Bones and Ararat

“With The Violence, Dawson takes no damn prisoners: a powerful, fascinating, and courageous gut punch of a book.”

Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Relentless and V-Wars

“A compulsively readable fusion of domestic thriller and modern horror that shocks and surprises at every turn. A must-read!”

Kameron Hurley, author of The Light Brigade

“Visceral, thrilling . . . A novel paced like a fistfight, aching like a just-gone tooth—but there’s hope in the harrowing.”

Max Gladstone, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author

“The Violence is Dawson at her best: unflinching yet empathetic, the brutal and the gentle side by side, rage and despair tempered with joy and hope.”

Kevin Hearne, New York Times bestselling author of the Ink & Sigil series

“Dawson’s prose is a kind of knife work: short, sharp stabs after agonies of teeth-clenching tension . . . Dizzyinglyeffective . . . It’s impossible not to read.”

New York Times Book Review

“Dawson’s thriller is a surprising, exhilarating journey of three generations of women navigating a changing world.”

The Washington Post

“Every summer needs a superb thriller, and this is it. A story of three generations of women making their way through an America ravaged by violence, this is also a wonderful narrative about liberation and perserverance.”

The Boston Globe

“Enthusiastically suggest to readers who enjoyed the table-turning feminism of Naomi Alderman’s The Power, the band-of-survivors theme in Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, and the emotional journey of Victor LaValle’s The Changeling.”

Booklist (starred review)

“[A] smart, fast-paced thrill ride.”

Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The Violence is a novel that will stand out for its intelligence, for its compassion, for its ‘un-put-down-able-ness.’. . . It is the kind of novel that will stand the test of time.”

SFF World

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The Violence

Print edition ISBN: 9781803362090

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803362106

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

144 Southwark Street, London, SE1 OUP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2022

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by D. S. Dawson. All rights reserved.

Published by arrangement with Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC

D. S. Dawson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To the survivors.I used to blame myself for not doing more.For not leaving earlier.For not pushing back. For not fighting him.Now I am kinder to the younger version of me.Now I believe that survival is enough.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Violence deals with themes of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and includes animal death and graphic violence. Some of these scenes may be distressing for some readers. Writing this book—and examining these themes—has been part of my own healing journey.

My relationship with my father was complicated. When sober, he was perpetually disappointed in me, and when drunk, he was emotionally and physically abusive. Chelsea’s nights in the kitchen are based on what my mother and I experienced at his hands. He was so well-loved in our hometown that no one believed us. From the outside, things were perfect.

When I was eighteen, my mother and I left, and we met a very special therapist named Betsy. I can’t remember her last name or her exact title, only that she’s the first person who said, “You understand that this is abuse, right? You are being abused.” Until that moment, I didn’t understand. I thought my life was normal. She also sent my father to Narcotics Anonymous, which inspired him to stop drinking. To my knowledge, he never drank alcohol again. But that did not stop him from being emotionally abusive—gaslighting, controlling, and manipulative until the very last. As the Narcissist’s Prayer goes: That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault.

When we left in 1995, the internet wasn’t yet able to answer all our questions, so I’m grateful to the family and friends who helped us—who saved us. Abusers often leave their victims with few resources, but there is help out there. If you’re experiencing abuse, please seek support. You are not alone.

THE VIOLENCE

The first recorded incidence of the Violence occurred as Ruth Belmont of Land O’Lakes, Florida, was putting a tub of mayonnaise in her cart at a warehouse store on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. The peaceful and highly religious grandmother dropped the mayonnaise, reached for a large bottle of Thousand Island dressing, and struck a fellow customer, twenty-four-year-old Melissa Mendoza. Mendoza’s toddler sat in the seat of her buggy and watched silently as the elderly woman beat her mother to death with the bottle of dressing. Once Mendoza was dead, Belmont replaced the dressing on the shelf, selected a new bottle, and attempted to continue shopping. As local law enforcement tackled her to the ground, Belmont screamed, cried, and claimed innocence. Store cameras captured the grisly scene. When the Violence was discovered to be a disease, Belmont was released from jail. She is now suing the state for $1.3 million in damages, including a broken collarbone. Later sufferers were not so lucky.

PARTI

1.

Chelsea Martin sits in a perfect sunbeam at her perfect kitchen table, staring at the piece of paper that’s going to destroy her life.

Insufficient funds? Impossible.

Her husband, David, manages their bank accounts, and he’s in finance, so this must be a mistake. She’s read the aggressively detached, computer-printed words a hundred times, and an unwelcome sensation roils, deep in her stomach, her coffee threatening to come back up. It’s not panic, not yet, but it’s not good.

Would David tell her if they were in trouble? She glances at her phone and considers the best way to ask without insulting him. A text would be safest; he hates it when her voice wobbles. He says she cries too easily, that it’s impossible to have a conversation with her when she’s so emotional.

No, not worth it. He’ll come home and see the paper, and he’ll handle it. Let him be angry at the bank, not the messenger, and let him be angry later rather than both now and later. She unconsciously puts a hand to her throat and swallows hard, dreading what will happen when he gets home from work.

Definitely not worth bothering him now.

She tries to focus on what she was doing before the mail arrived, but she knows logging onto the online portal and watching the mandatory weekly “Let’s Sell Dreams!” video will only make her feel worse. When she signed her contract to sell Dream Vitality essential oils, she’d hoped it would give her some small amount of independence, something to do, something to be proud of. Now, staring into the depths of a wooden case filled with tiny purple bottles, all full and unopened and gathering dust, she never wants to smell bergamot again.

A brand-new cardboard box waits in the foyer, her monthly required shipment optimistically labeled DREAM DELIVERY! But after a year of trying to sell a product that’s supposed to sell itself, she’s ready to admit defeat. She had a dream: to start her own business, build savings, and tap into a network of smart, motivated women. Instead, she’s alienated friends through the required social media posts, embarrassed her daughters, and outlived her welcome at every party and playgroup, and all she has to show for it is boxes and boxes of product that she can’t even sell at cost. Even before the—surelyincorrect?—overdraft notice arrived today, she worried that this month’s withdrawal would take her over her strict budget, and that when David found it during his account check, things would get . . . bad.

The hardest thing is that her attempt at entrepreneurship has shown her that most of her friends online aren’t really friends. There’s no support, no sharing, no purchases, no reviews. Everyone just ignores it. The only encouragement she gets comes from a back-rubbing circle of other plucky moms trying to support one another in an online group with good vibes only, and she wonders if everyone else also secretly feels this constant exhaustion, this disconnection, this profound loneliness.

It was supposed to save her, but it just got her in more trouble.

Buck up, bitch, she tells herself. It’s just oil.

Not that it makes her feel any better.

She runs her hands through what’s slowly becoming her mother’s hair as her stylist increasingly covers the gray with bleach in a process with a French name that doubles the cost. The perfect pool sparkles outside the picture window, but she can’t jump in because it would make her hair as crisp as uncooked spaghetti with a bonus mossy tinge. She looks around at the shiplap, the granite, the Edison bulbs, the seasonal throw pillows. Everything is perfect, but nothing is right.

Even the snowy-white dog snoring on a matching dog bed is boutique—a shedless bichon named Olaf that cost more than Chelsea’s first car, because David couldn’t stand the thought of dog hair rolling along the marble floors like tumbleweeds. Poor, sweet Olaf is terrified of him and spends most of his time hiding in a closet. But then again, Olaf is deeply inbred, a yipping bag of neuroses and surprise puddles of pee.

The big and airy house is the complete opposite of the shitbox apartments Chelsea grew up in. It should be beautiful and relaxing, but it’s closing in on her, an avalanche of stuff and the never-ending work it takes to keep that stuff either proudly displayed at perfect angles or hidden from view, to keep everything running. She never imagined that life would be like this, that she would feel so constantly trapped.

Chelsea is pouring another cup of coffee that will barely touch her bone-deep disquiet when the doorbell rings, sending her entire body rigid. She scans the wall calendar, the dates empty of commitments and the top crammed with posed pictures of her family in matching crisp white shirts, but no one is due to work on the house or make a delivery. Between Dream Vitality and David, most of her old friends keep their distance these days, which means only one thing. Her feet already know it and are propelling her backward, away from the soaring foyer and toward the laundry room, where the windows are too high up to tattle on her as she hides. The garage door is closed, after all; there’s no way to tell she’s home.

And then her phone buzzes in her hand, and the text pops up on the screen.

I know you’re in there.

Even the laundry room can’t save her. Back in the kitchen, she gulps her coffee and slams the gray ceramic mug down almost too hard, the blond liquid splashing onto the black granite. She hurries to the huge master bathroom, brushing her hair and touching up her lipstick. Her mascara is running, just a little, making her blue eyes pop, and she dabs a tissue under each eye. There’s a tiny coffee stain on her shirt, so she throws on a new one and jabs midsized diamond studs into her ears—not so small that they look like all she can afford but not so big that it seems like she’s trying too hard.

When the knock comes, it’s light and jovial.

Tap tap tap-tap-tap.

It’s just little old me, the knock seems to say. Just a friendly visit.

If malignant narcissism could knock, it would sound like that.

Knowing that if she doesn’t hurry, she’ll hear the scrape of the mat being moved aside and the emergency key turning in the lock, Chelsea scurries across the tile, checks the peephole to confirm, and opens the door with the sort of smile that chimps use when they’re about to get torn limb from limb by bigger chimps.

“Well, that took you long enough,” says Patricia Lane, her own answering smile proper and polite and yet the sort that reflects the stronger ape promising a primordial beat-down with a femur bone. “Eighty-six degrees today. In April! I’m lucky I didn’t melt out here.”

Witches melt in rain, not sun, Chelsea wants to say but doesn’t. And you’ve lived in Central Florida your whole life, so move away if you hate itso much. But, just like with David, talking back only makes it worse.

“Hi, Mom. Come on in.”

There is no hug, no posh and affected air kisses, definitely no real kisses.

There never have been.

Patricia straightens the cardigan knotted over her silk shell and looks down her nose at her only daughter before sweeping into the foyer. “I’m not a vampire, darling. I’m family. I’m always welcome.”

If she’s being honest, Chelsea knows her mother looks more like she’s actually Chelsea’s older sister. Patricia’s hair is blonder, her face is tanner and still smooth, her clothes are neater, and her figure is still so trim that they could trade clothes if they had anything close to the same taste. The diamonds in her ears and on her fingers and wrist don’t say, I’m just the right size; they suggest that, given the slightest provocation, they would delicately shred you to ribbons while explaining the Mohs scale in the most patronizing manner possible. Chelsea’s mother, as David says, puts in the work.

As Chelsea locks the door behind her, Patricia turns a slow circle, raising one perfect eyebrow at the chandelier.

“You have to remind them to dust, dear,” she says, almost sad. “Let these once-a-week cleaning services get away with one thing, and soon they’ll stop dusting the baseboards and you’ll find cash missing. Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.”

Chelsea looks up at the chandelier but can’t see any dust.

“So what did you need?” she asks, hoping to end the visit as soon as possible while still appearing polite so she won’t get another lecture.

Patricia’s gaze stops checking the glass over the family portraits for water spots and lands on Chelsea, the older woman’s frown going deeper without making any creases in the smoothly filled putty of her face.

“Does a mother need a reason to visit her daughter?” she asks, sounding wounded. “Can I not simply take a loving interest in your life?”

Chelsea smiles as her teeth grind together. “Of course you can. What did you want to talk about? Ella and Brooklyn are doing well in school—”

Patricia sighs the sigh of the sorely aggrieved and swans toward the kitchen, where she plucks a mug from its hook, frowns at its interior, and wipes it out with the kitchen towel before pouring herself a cup of black coffee. She sips it, eyes closed, expectant, then makes a face.

“These beans are burned. I told you: You can’t just buy any old bag at the store.”

Holding up the twenty-dollar bag of single-origin coffee from a specialty shop, Chelsea presents it for inspection. “I didn’t.”

Instead of taking the bag or even looking at it, Patricia flaps a hand at it in a gesture that reminds Chelsea of how her mother treats sticky toddlers. “Then you bought the wrong kind. Your generation, I swear. Can’t tell you anything.”

Patricia’s gaze tracks around the kitchen like an airport security dog hunting for more delicious contraband, and Chelsea realizes her mistake the moment her mother goes on point, eyes alight and smile curling up.

“Oh!” She puts down her mug of coffee and saunters over to the wooden cabinet still sitting on the kitchen table. “Are you still doing your . . . little business thingy?” Patricia pulls out a bottle at random and twists off the top, breaking the seal and making Chelsea wince as she sniffs. “Ugh. Thieving Blend? It smells like angry Christmas at the Dollar Store. Do people actually pay for that?”

Chelsea can recite the ingredients, uses, and benefits of the oil by rote, but that would be a mistake, as would be revealing that the simple twist of the cap has cost her twenty dollars that was a problem even before that damn letter arrived today.

“They do, actually. Fifty dollars a pop.” She takes the bottle from Patricia’s long, slender fingers, re-caps it, and places it back in the cabinet. “It’s our most popular product. And it’s why none of us got the flu this winter. They say it helps Covid long-haulers, too.”

Patricia’s nose is all wrinkled up, making her look like a French bulldog. “Well. It’s not something I would count on, but I suppose you Millennials like to believe in false hope and woo-woo snake oil instead of hard work.” She picks up her cup again and sips, gazing into the backyard like she’s in a commercial and they’re about to have a misty-eyed heart-to-heart about feeling not so fresh. Chelsea is very glad the yard crew came earlier this morning to pick up the fallen branches. “You know, Chel, I worry about you. You have everything you need here, but you’re always fiddling around with some little . . . enterprise. There was the internet university, which you dropped out of, I believe, long ago. The blogging. You tried to write a book once, and that went nowhere. You sewed face masks. And now the oils. I sincerely worry about you setting yourself up for disappointment. A woman is nourished by her family, not her . . . experiments.”

Chelsea loosens her fingers from her fists before that, too, comes under scrutiny. If family was what nourished women, her mother would be a dancing skeleton; she wrote off her entire family when Chelsea was born, probably out of embarrassment, and she only shows up here when she has an agenda or needs to whet her claws.

“I need something to do, Mom. Both girls are in school. I get restless.”

Patricia’s face attempts something similar to pity, and she sets down her coffee cup and stands before Chelsea, reaching out to arrange her daughter’s hair over her shoulders and sighing when it won’t cooperate. Chelsea’s skin crawls, but she knows better than to flinch.

“If you’re so restless, perhaps that energy could be directed inward. A new hairstyle. A Peloton or yoga. Some time at the spa. Get a little work done.” She taps Chelsea’s forehead with one cold finger. “My doctor is a genius. And diet shakes these days might as well be milkshakes. So rich!”

Rage runs red up Chelsea’s neck, heating her cheeks and forehead. She briefly envisions snatching her mother’s finger and breaking it in her hands like a pencil. Words tumble through her head a mile a minute, ranging from If we’re the same size, why do I need more exercise? to Independence is more important than pretending I’m half my age, not that you’d understand that to If I’d married an older man to get rich, perhaps I’d be that complacent, too. But the thing about her mother’s pronouncements is that they are in no way about Chelsea, and Chelsea knows that. Like most things in her life, fighting back only makes things infinitely worse.

“Maybe I will,” she says. “The yoga, I mean. Thanks for caring, Mom.”

Patricia’s eyes close, and she does a sinuous little shoulder shimmy, as if eating compliments could sustain her. The funny thing is that Chelsea remembers how her mother spoke when she was poor, before she set her sights on marrying rich and dropped her southern accent and habit of screaming at people who didn’t do what she wanted. This current version of Patricia is a creation, her mother’s own little . . . experiment. And it worked, damn her.

“I only want what’s best for you, dear. I always have. You must take care of yourself. For the children.” Patricia glances at the family calendar, bright with pictures of Ella and Brooklyn at the beach, and frowns. “When was that trip? I don’t remember being invited.”

But before Chelsea can answer, Patricia has snatched up the overdraft notice from the counter and is reading it as avidly as one of those gossip magazines she hides under her bathroom sink but pretends to hate. She gasps, a hand to her chest.

“Chelsea, what is this? Overdrawn?”

Teeth grinding so hard she’s worried she’ll bust open a crown, Chelsea snatches the page back and folds it decisively, stuffing it in the back pocket of her skinny jeans. “Nothing. A mistake. David will handle it.”

Patricia licks her lips like a fox and steps forward, a bony hand on each of Chelsea’s shoulders. Her signature scent invades Chelsea’s nose and mouth, lilies and poisonous white flowers, and she wants to turn away and retch.

“Darling,” her mother says, weighty and pitying, her eyes innocently wide. “If you’re in trouble, you can tell me.”

Not I’ll help you, Chelsea notes, but You can tell me.

“We’re fine, Mom.” Chelsea shrugs and tries to grin. “Look around you. We’re doing fine.”

Patricia does look around, but almost as if she’s afraid the house will fall down on her.

“Then I’m certain David knows what he’s doing. But I should run. So busy. You know how it is.”

As her mother swiftly sashays back to the front door, running a finger along the top of the wainscoting and frowning at it, Chelsea wonders if she would even know if she was having a heart attack. Tight throat, aching chest, hot forehead, numb fingers—these are the symptoms of being around Patricia Lane for any amount of time. Thank heavens her mother takes off to her condo in the Outer Banks for major holidays, claiming the children give her migraines. Chelsea wonders if it makes her sad and lonely, celebrating Christmas in a beautifully appointed but empty beach house while her latest husband golfs, but she would never ask such a thing. Her mother might actually tell her the answer.

“Thanks for stopping by,” she says at the door.

Patricia turns around, forehead wearing one elegant and rebellious crease. “There was something I wanted to tell you, but I can’t remember what it was. Never get old, darling. I swear, my mind is a sieve.”

Chelsea smile-grimaces in understanding and opens the door. “Well, you can always text me.”

Patricia steps outside, washed over by the sun’s glare, her hand shielding her eyes. “Texting is just so cold. I don’t understand how the younger generations can eschew real connection.”

There is no satisfactory answer to that, so Chelsea cheerfully says, “Bye, Mom!”

Patricia nods once, turns on her kitten-heeled sandal, and marches down the sidewalk before stopping halfway to her car.

“No, I remember!” she calls, not troubling herself to take any further steps back toward her daughter. “There’s a news story going around. Some sort of new virus? Not like Covid. People are acting funny. Violent. There was an incident at some value store. Someone died. Beaten to death with off-brand Thousand Island dressing, if you can believe it!”

Chelsea fights for control; her mother is almost gone, and she doesn’t want to give Patricia any reason to stay.

“Okay, so check the news and don’t go to the store. Got it. Thanks, Mom!”

Patricia takes a single step closer, her eyes pleading. “No, dear. Don’t go to that store. You can look it up on the internet. Find out more. Maybe wear a mask. Just be careful. For the children.”

For me, she means.

Her mother doesn’t particularly like her, but she doesn’t want to go through the fussy burden of death again, either. Losing her first husband was just so inconvenient— herword—especially when his kids got all his money and she had to find a newer, richer husband in time for the country club’s summer gala. If something happened to Chelsea or her girls, her mom might have to cancel her standing hair appointment.

Having delivered her message, Patricia spins back around and hurries to her sleek white sedan.

She doesn’t wave as she leaves, but she does run over the newly planted begonias.

2.

Patricia checks her makeup in her rearview mirror, deciding that she’ll give her next Estée Lauder free gift bag to Chelsea, as the poor girl desperately needs a more expensive mascara and some sort of color on her cheeks. The thing about Chelsea is that she’s been weak, sullen, and resentful from the moment she was born, kicking and screaming, but is it really so hard to try a new lipstick? Patricia has always been open to those handy little women’s tricks and is satisfied with what she sees in the mirror, although her forehead needs a touch-up. She puts her car in reverse and backs up, letting out a ladylike gasp as the tires bump over something inconvenient in the driveway, probably a hose or a newspaper or something else that should’ve been put away. If Rosa or Miguel left something like that in Patricia’s driveway, they’d get a good talking-to.

Chelsea’s neighborhood isn’t too horrible, but the gate takes a terribly long time to rattle open. As Patricia drives, other motorists honk behind her for doing something as reasonable as going the speed limit on a curving lakeside road. Annoyed, she switches through radio stations, but they’re all shouting and grousing and moaning about that unfortunate incident down at the warehouse store, some sort of violence that’s unusual in this kind of area. Not that Patricia would ever be in such a store, fighting over toilet paper and cheese puffs with some overstuffed housewife. That’s what the help is for.

Patricia barely misses a green light and is forced to stop her car at a big intersection, and there facing her across the road is a little yellow building, barely a shack. It has a faded sign reading BIG FRED’S FLOORS and crudely built displays out front with ragged versions of what might’ve once been functional if gauche floor coverings, linoleums and tiles and fake wood. But they’re all faded and degraded, and no one in their right mind would be enticed to stop and go into the tiny shop to talk to Big Fred. Jerking red letters tick by on the scrolling digital sign outside.

IF YOU’RE IN THE DOGHOUSE, GET HER WHAT SHE REALLY WANTS. NEW FLOORS!

Patricia raises an eyebrow. Like she needs the doghouse excuse if she wants new floors. She would like new floors in the sunroom, actually, but Randall is still complaining about the dust from the last bathroom remodel. She’ll have to wait until he’s on his next two-week fishing trip to the Bahamas with the boys from the courthouse if she wants to get anything done. And she most certainly won’t get her new floors from anything as shabby as a swaybacked shack that resembles all too closely the one-room millhouse she lived in when Chelsea was a baby. She’s done her best to forget those days, the struggle and mess and noise. She’s risen above it. It’s over. The shack is simply a grotesque reminder of how hard she’s worked to get here.

The light finally, thankfully, turns green, and she’s no longer forced to stare at the scrolling words prodding her inelegantly to move forward with her next remodel. Her visit with Chelsea was just too tiresome, so now she’s early for her weekly lunch with Randall, but there’s always plenty to do at the club, especially now that she’s a member of the charity auction committee. Her first husband was a member at Emerald Cove Country Club, too, and so she’s enjoyed uninterrupted service here for almost twenty years. Hank waves her through at the gate, and she parks farther away from the clubhouse than she’d like, but at least she finds a spot in the shade. As she walks up the sidewalk, she subtly touches her bracelet, necklace, earrings, hair. She straightens her cardigan and runs a hand down the pleats on her slacks and looks down at her pedicure as she steps onto the curb. Patricia is not a religious woman, but this is her sign of the cross. This is how she blesses herself, how she keeps herself together. If everything is in place, if everything is perfect, then she’ll be safe.

The automatic glass doors slide open, and her eyes close as cold air billows over her as if washing off the oppressive heat, sweat, and misfortune of the world outside. Within, everything is just so, and Patricia feels very at home here. Inoffensive artworks in pastels with gold frames line the buttery-yellow walls, and the patterned carpets are always spotless and stainless. Plastic plants never die, never wither, never go brown at the tips—and get dusted daily, unlike Chelsea’s chandelier. Barbara Chatham tried to bring a service dog in here once and everyone got so upset that she had to move. That’s how clean it is. No wonder she feels at home.

“Good morning, Mrs. Lane,” some young person with a fake grin says from the front desk. Patricia lifts a hand the minimum amount and holds her public smile in place. With so many years here at the club, she sometimes forgets she’s Mrs. Lane and not Mrs. Worthington. Or, going further back, a young, unwed mother with a greasy plastic name tag that just said PATTY.

The doors of the dining room aren’t open yet, and she frowns just a little before pasting her smile back into place and heading for the lounge. She hears the noise before she sees it, the musical murmurs of many women having polite arguments bracketed by I really just think and Wouldn’t we rather consider and That’s how it’s going, but of course I’m not in charge, so what do I know? The little hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Something is occurring in her kingdom without her knowledge. She rounds the corner and peeks in the open French doors to find a conference room filled with familiar faces, led by someone she once considered a friend.

“Patty, is that you?” says an altogether too-triumphant voice. “I was wondering where you were.”

Patricia steps into the open space as the room goes quiet and twenty women look her up and down, their eyes crawling over her like ants looking for some vulnerable crack in a castle. She keeps her chin up and smiles that practiced smile, the one that suggests that those in power have never doubted themselves.

“Well, I would’ve been here if I knew you were throwing me a party, Karen,” she all but purrs.

“It’s an emergency meeting,” Lynn pipes up, sounding somewhat strangled. “About the flowers.” Karen shoots her lackey an angry look but doesn’t speak. Patricia raises her brows, demanding an explanation. “The florist canceled. So we need a new florist for the auction.”

If there were an empty seat, Patricia would sashay in and take it, but Karen has made very sure that’s not possible, just as she’s made very sure no one has alerted her co-chair to this secret meeting. The histrionic old bat is probably planning to bring in carnations with baby’s breath or some other horrific thing.

“That’s easy,” Patricia says, snapping her fingers and making her diamonds rattle. “Randall’s golf friend’s wife is a florist. They’re playing today. I’ll set it up. See? No problem at all. I hope you weren’t all inconvenienced by Karen’s . . . littlemeeting.” She holds up her wrist and smiles brightly at her new watch. “Well, look at the time! I wouldn’t want to be late for lunch with the judge. I’ll email you all confirmation of the new florist this afternoon. And I’ll make sure they go with our original plan for exotics. Those birds-of-paradise are going to look so classic. Ta-ta!”

Wiggling her fingers at them, she turns her back and sashays out the doors and toward the dining room. It’s not actually open yet, but the key to winning these battles is the same as it was when she was young and that bitch named Candy would try to steal her tips at the diner. Get in, go for the jugular, get out. She still has a hank of Candy’s hair saved somewhere, a battle trophy that reminds her that the best way to get rid of enemies is to make them regret ever opposing her in the first place.

She’s sitting on the settee outside the dining room, listening to the promising clink of silver and china, when her phone rings. She pulls it out of her Birkin and holds it just a bit away from her ear; she saw a Facebook post about how holding it too close causes cancer, and she doesn’t like the feeling of her diamond earrings scraping the screen.

“Hello?”

“That you, sugar?” Randall’s voice is low and honey-sweet, which makes Patricia frown. She knows what that voice means.

“Well, who else would be answering my phone?” She knows she sounds peevish, and she wants him to know it, too. “Where are you? They’re about to open the doors.”

“That’s just the thing, darlin’. I’m afraid I can’t join you today. The depositions are going long—”

Which is code for his secretary is staying in for lunch, which Patricia knows because early in their marriage she tried to surprise him with his favorite chicken sandwich and instead walked in on the trampy little thing scuttling out of his office with smeared lipstick, an unbuttoned blouse, and eyes just bleeding mascara.

“So I’ll probably miss dinner, too. You know how it is.”

Her smile is a scythe.

“Yes, I do.”

“So you just go on with your girls and order some champagne and have a day, okay? Whatever you want.”

The doors open, revealing an empty dining room sparkling and ready, fresh flowers on every table and sunbeams streaming in crystal-clear windows that showcase immaculate emerald greens beyond. She knows that if she keeps watching, she’ll see men driving golf carts with their wives by their sides, laughing and drinking beer and playfully taunting each other, and other couples happily power-walking the nature trails with English setters or riding the powder-blue bikes lined up outside the club office. Frank and Emily Lambert walk past her and into the restaurant, arm in arm, laughing, and are seated at the best table in the house, the one Patricia was hoping to secure for their lunch today.

“You have a good day, sweetheart,” he recites.

“You, too,” she dutifully responds, like the recorded voice box of those dreadful programmed teddy bears her youngest granddaughter loves so much, the ones with the elaborately obscene stuffing ritual at the mall that you’re forced to watch, some teenager shoving the furry rag’s rear end over a pipe as it fills to bursting with fluff.

The line clicks off, and she holds the phone up for a few moments more as if he’ll remember that he didn’t apologize at all.

Other women love their husbands, she thinks. But she loved a man once, or thought she did, and look where it got her. Eighteen and knocked up. Abandoned by him, driven away by her family. Destroyed. Every man after that has been merely a necessity, a ladder rung to safety and then, much later, when she’d earned it, to comfort. Her first husband, the contractor, found and secured after Chelsea was finally out of the house at eighteen, brought her legitimacy and respect. Her second husband, the judge, has brought her power and wealth.

Maybe when he dies, rutting with his secretary over his mahogany desk, she’ll finally get those new floors.

3.

Ella waits just outside H hall in a little splotch of shadow that only appears between sixth and seventh period. The brick wall picks at the back of her shirt and catches at individual hairs as she leans back, trying to feign coolness, arms crossed to hide the trembling in her hands. If she gets caught out here between classes, she’ll get suspended, or at least reprimanded. If her dad finds out she has a boyfriend, he’ll kill her.

He’ll straight-up kill her.

The door swings open, and Hayden appears, dressed as always in a button-down and khakis, his floppy blond hair riding that perfect line between class president and class clown. He’s grinning, and she used to think it was a special grin just for her but now she knows it’s because he’s anticipating some tongue.

“Hey, angel,” he says.

“Hey,” she answers.

He drops his book bag with a thump and puts a hand just over her shoulder, flat against the brick wall, pinning her in. She flinches a little and turns her face away, can’t stop herself from the reaction. He sees it, and his other hand caresses her face, roughly pulls her jaw around until she’s facing him again, and holds her chin so he can dart in for a kiss. She lets him, but . . . well, she’s not into it. It doesn’t feel like it should, like how it’s written in the books she reads, where girls describe good kisses as warm, dry, soft, gentle, probing. She reads those scenes and her tummy flutters, and the first time Hayden kissed her, her tummy fluttered like that, too. But now it twists up, tense, and nothing about his kisses is soft.

His lips are hard, his stubble scrapes, his tongue pushes, his teeth clack. His breath tastes like fake blueberry, and she wants to gag, knowing he’s been vaping with Tyler again even though he promised her he wouldn’t, even though if his dad found out, he’d be in tons of trouble. His tongue pokes and prods, reminding her of the dentist’s professional and practiced onslaught. She opens her eyes, just a little, and his eyebrows are furrowed. She feels him frown against her mouth as he withdraws.

“What’s wrong, El?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, why won’t you kiss me?”

Something inside her rebels at that, as if he’s annoyed that she thought for a minute that he worried about her as a person. He acted like he did, at first. They were friends. They flirted after school every day during drama rehearsals. They would text and chat and send memes and run lines on the bench outside by the parking lot while her friends watched and giggled. But as soon as she agreed to be his girlfriend, as soon as it was established that he could kiss her whenever he wanted to, things changed. He was more . . . businesslike? It doesn’t feel much like love, she knows that much.

Sure, he gives her a flower on their monthly anniversary, always in front of a crowd, and yes, they’re going to prom, and he’s already coordinated colors with her. But she thought there would be something more. Ongoing tummy flutters and deep conversations and inside jokes and nightly texts telling her to sleep well. She thought there would be sweetness.

He’s never sweet.

She wants to pull away from him, maybe end it, but he’s in drama club, and all their friends are in drama club, and if she dumps him for literally nothing when he’s the perfect boyfriend, they’re all going to turn on her and hate her like they did with his ex Maddie Kim last year and someone will purposefully trip her in front of the entire school during the next play. Because in public, Hayden treats her like a princess.

He puts her on a pedestal.

She wants to jump off.

“It’s just . . . I’m not that into PDA,” she finally says.

“It’s not PDA. Totally private.”

With a snort, Ella gestures to the busy road on the other side of the school’s chain-link fence.

“Fuck everybody else. I’m just focusing on us, babe.”

He darts in for another kiss, and it’s like being dive-bombed by a seagull, like he’s determined to take whatever he can from her. His hands begin at her hips, squeezing gently, and run up and down her back a few times like he’s going through the motions, and then inch their way around her front, his wide thumbs with their bitten nails probing for the underwire of her bra. She wriggles away from him, hoping he’ll take the hint, but he just doubles down, his eager thumbs digging hard enough to bruise her ribs.

“Come on,” she says, pushing his hands down and holding them firmly. With the brick against her back, shredding her shirt, she can’t pull away. “It’s almost time for next period. Did you study?”

He yanks his hands out of hers and checks his phone, his lips twisted up in annoyance as his eyes reflect the screen. “It’s fine. I always get A’s, anyway.”

And he does. She has to study her ass off because her dad said he’d take her car away if she got bad grades, but Hayden just shrugs his way through class and somehow gets near-perfect grades. He’s smart, he’s in drama, he’s on the baseball team. He’s everywhere. He’s perfect. His dad is a teacher here. And to everyone else, he’s this golden boy.

That’s how Ella saw him, too, at first. In books, the bad boy is really a good boy who shows his good side only to the girl he loves. But in real life, the good boys are all hiding the fact that they’re really bad boys, and no one believes it until it’s too late. That’s why her friend Kaylin got raped by the assistant basketball coach and had to leave school last year. He, of course, is now the head coach. Because there wasn’t any evidence, and when it came down to Kaylin’s word versus everyone else, Kaylin lost. Good basketball coaches are hard to find.

As for Kaylin, the basketball team blamed her for the games they lost. After she got mysteriously shoved during a fire drill stampede and broke her arm, she decided to homeschool. She doesn’t answer Ella’s texts anymore.

“Hey, can you give me a ride home?” Hayden asks. He’s a sophomore and won’t get his brand-new Jeep for a few more months, but she’s been driving her ancient Honda for a year.

“I have to get home and watch Brooklyn,” she lies.

“So drop me on the way. I promise I’ll be good.”

The bell rings, and the door bursts open. Kids hurry in and out, giving her a knowing look that makes her cheeks burn.

“C’mon, babe. Gimme a ride,” he pleads, rubbing her arm. “I’ll behave.”

She doesn’t want to, but she’s ashamed to admit that she knows damn well she’s going to do it anyway.

And she knows damn well he won’t behave.

“I have to go.” She spins and darts into the crowd, ducking her head and turning sideways to squeeze through spaces where Hayden can’t follow.

He knows all her classes and sometimes shows up to joke around with the teachers his dad is friends with. She was impressed at first, but now it almost seems like he’s checking up on her. Sometimes it feels like the only place he can’t find her is the women’s restroom, so that’s where she spends her time between classes when she needs some space. The one at the end of F hall is usually quiet, but today, oddly, her friend Olivia is there.

“Did I see you and Hayden sucking face outside H hall?” she asks as she applies slick pink gloss at the mirror. “I swear, he’s so hot it’s not fair.”

“I know, right?” Ella pulls a brush out of her backpack to smooth down the messy effects of the brick wall and Hayden’s hands. She never knows what to say when her friends gush about Hayden, but she knows that anything bad she says will get back to him somehow. That makes one of her friends a bad friend, but she doesn’t know who it is, and she suspects all of them would be glad to take her place.

Or at least they think they would.

A toilet flushes, and Sophie steps out of a stall. There are three mirrors, and now Ella is at the center sink with a girl on either side applying makeup and glancing at her in a smiling, measuring way. They’re pretty much her best friends, or they once were. They’ve been tight since middle school and used to do sleepovers all the time, when they were younger, but this feels more like an ambush than a casual bathroom meetup. Olivia and Sophie are always together these days, and Ella usually feels left out. Now, not so much.

“I know what Hayden got you for your three-month anniversary,” Sophie sings, glopping on more mascara. “You’re so going to love it.”

“Because you helped him pick it out!” Olivia giggles, her eyes alight. “You didn’t answer my texts the whole time you guys were at the outlet mall.”

Sophie rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, you know we’re just friends!”

Everything is light and playful and sweet, like it’s a game to them, but the sort of game that was designed so that Ella would lose no matter what.

“And I know what he wants from you. It’s cheap and easy . . .” Olivia clears her throat to get Ella’s attention and makes a very specific gesture.

The other girls dissolve in laughter, and Ella’s face goes red. That gesture—it’s not a thing she’s done with a guy, not a thing she wants to do with Hayden, and definitely not a thing she wants to discuss with anyone else.

“I mean, I got him some cologne and was going to bake him a cake, but go off,” she says, trying and failing to match the brassy, bold, manic way they talk.

Sophie puts her hand on Ella’s shoulder, her perfect eyebrows drawing together. “Okay, but seriously, though, you know guys expect that, right? I know Hayden is your first, but . . .” Sophie giggles. “You kind of have to.”

Ella steps out from under the other girl’s hand. “I don’t have to do anything.”

Olivia shrugs a shoulder and applies another layer of gloss. “You do if you want to keep him.”

If only she knew how unthreatening that threat is. Take him, if you want him, she wants to say. But she won’t, because by the time he’s in her passenger seat this afternoon, he’ll be asking her why everyone’s saying she doesn’t love him anymore.

“You do want to be his girlfriend, right?” Now it’s Sophie’s turn to swoop in, her brown eyes wide and innocent, like she’s only worried about Ella’s feelings.

Ella swallows hard; it’s like being stabbed in the front and the back at the same time. She remembers when they were younger and actually confided in one another, when they swapped secrets and talked about crushes as these far-off possibilities. When they told one another the truth. She remembers Olivia crying, swearing she would never be like her mother, with a different boyfriend every year, supporting an endless stream of out-of-work losers. Now Olivia has a different boyfriend every month. And Sophie was so angry about her parents’ divorce, furious with her mom for cheating with another married man and her dad for just walking out. Now she’s spending time with Ella’s boyfriend behind her back and proud of it. What happened to them? When did they go from girls to bitches? And why didn’t Ella notice it happening?

At that last slumber party, emboldened by their own secrets, Ella told them about her parents, about what her dad did to her mom at night. Even though she could tell neither girl believed her, they hugged her and cried with her and swore she would never be like that, would never let a man have that much power over her.

And she won’t. Sometimes it’s easier to just go along, but Hayden doesn’t own her, doesn’t control her. One day soon, he’ll dump her for someone else, and then she’ll get all the sympathy and none of the catty looks and whispers. Until then . . .

“Of course I want to be his girlfriend.” She giggles and applies her own lip gloss. “He’s pretty much perfect for me.”

The other girls exchange a glance she doesn’t quite understand but doesn’t like, and Ella checks her phone. The bell is about to ring, which means she needs to hurry to class, as Mr. Harkey hates lateness.

“Can you give me a ride home?” Sophie asks.

“Well, I’m already taking Hayden—”

“Time for more sexytimes!” Olivia croons.

“Ladies?”

The mood in the restroom changes with that one word spoken softly from the hallway. Olivia and Sophie drop their reckless, bold, party-girl personas and are just teenagers again. All three girls instinctively huddle together, nervous and clumsy as antelopes.

“The bell is about to ring,” Mr. Brannen says, leaning into the restroom, both hands in his pockets and feet still technically in the hall.

Their vice principal is known for this, for cornering girls in tight spots when they’re supposed to be somewhere else. He’s blocking the only exit now, and as the bell rings, he looks up at the speaker in the ceiling, knowing and almost apologetic.

“And there it is. Looks like you three are going to be late to class. Unless you have a good excuse.”

Mr. Brannen is her dad’s age, maybe, with a belly that strains against his shirt buttons. His hair is thinning, and he wears ugly, pointy shoes, and when his flat brown eyes crawl over her, Ella wants to curl up and die. She’s heard stories about him, especially since he divorced his wife, but they’re always secondhand.

“I’m not feeling so good,” Olivia says with an exaggerated sniffle.

“Oh, I bet the boys will still kiss you. I know I would!” Mr. Brannen winks and grins. “But if you need to go to the nurse’s office, go on. The health of our student bodies is our highest priority.” Olivia shuffles past him, and he knocks out his hip just enough to touch her. “What’s your excuse, Miss Gibson?”

“I started my period early.” Ella is impressed with how Sophie sticks out her chin and glares defiantly.

“TMI, Miss Gibson, TMI. Did you know the pill can help with regulating your cycle? To avoid unpleasant surprises.”

“Yes, sir,” Sophie says, hurrying past him. “Thanks to health class.” She doesn’t even look over her shoulder in apology as she leaves Ella all alone.

Mr. Brannen’s hands move around in his pockets like he’s playing with loose change. “Miss Martin. One of my favorite students. Good grades, no disciplinary actions. But I’ve heard a rumor.” He steps closer, cups a hand around his mouth as he whispers. “Have you been experimenting with PDA in our humble hallways?” He steps back, grinning like he’s pleased with himself. “You know that’s not allowed.”

“I—no, sir. I won’t. I mean I haven’t.” Ella knows her face is red, knows she’s a bad liar, but she can’t bring herself to tell the truth.

Mr. Brannen leans back against the wall, his jacket falling open to show a zipper only halfway up. “It’s normal for girls your age to experiment. Why, in the Middle Ages, you’d already be married with children.” He winks again. “And in some states and cultures, you’d be considered quite a catch at your age.”

Ella is stunned and disgusted and can’t think of a single reasonable response to an adult man telling her that, much less one who holds her entire future in his hands. But apparently her input is not necessary, as he keeps talking.

“I know it’s exciting, but let’s try not to break any rules. If I catch you ‘macking with your bf,’ as they say, you’ll owe me a Saturday-morning detention, which happens in my office and at my discretion. You need to learn what happens to girls who break the rules.”

Ella swallows hard because the only alternative is dry heaving.

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiles and nods, calm and certain and pleased. “I always did like the sound of that. Yes, sir. One of the many perks of the job. Now get to class, Miss Martin. And if your teacher asks where you were, just tell her you were with me.”

Ella can only nod as she hurries out the door, knowing she can’t avoid touching some part of him and hoping it’ll just be his hip. She’s pretty sure that was his hand drifting past her butt, but it was so quick she can’t quite be sure. That’s how it always is with Mr. Brannen—everything he says feels totally inappropriate and gross, but if it was repeated to the counselor or the police, it could be written off as normal and innocent, as just another girl being histrionic over nothing.

When she gets to class, she doesn’t say she was with Mr. Brannen.

She’d rather take the tardy than give everyone something else to gossip about.

4.

It’s almost time for David to come home, and Chelsea wonders the same thing she does every day about this time: Will they have a good night, or a bad night?

She never feels small until her husband walks in the door. It’s not that he’s a big man—he’s of average height and resents that fact—but he works out all the time, and there’s just something about his presence that makes her shrink down.

Her job, on the surface, should be simple: Be a good wife, a great mom, a loving partner. But there are so many intricate rules she’s had to learn over the years. It’s like walking through a minefield every night, knowing full well where several old pitfalls lie in wait but also aware that there are new dangers to be discovered. He was such a sweet boyfriend in high school, and then they got married far too early because she had to get away from her mom, and he decided to go to college and bring her along, and her entire life shrank down to being pregnant in student housing and learning how to cook his favorite meals in their tiny cinder-block kitchen without setting off the smoke alarm.

Now, every weeknight, in the time between the garage door grumbling and the kitchen door opening, she wonders if it was a trap all along or just a natural progression that happened so gradually she didn’t notice, if she’s the frog in water slowly building to a boil.

His car door closes, and Chelsea stands where he can see her the moment he’s in the house.

“Girls!” she calls. “Dad’s home!”

The only answer from upstairs is rhythmic thumping, punctuated with shrieks of laughter. Brooklyn just got the new dance game for her fifth birthday, and it’s so rare the girls play together these days that Chelsea didn’t want to disturb them. David prefers it when all three of them greet him at the door, respectful and attentive and polite, lined up like golden retrievers, but . . . well, Chelsea doesn’t really want them down here. Not when he finds the letter and sees that their bank account is somehow, impossibly, overdrawn.

The door opens, and David’s smile sours. Instead of greeting Chelsea with a kiss, he takes off his blazer and carefully folds it over a chair.

“The welcome wagon’s quiet tonight.”

“There was an update to their favorite game,” Chelsea says, hating how meek and apologetic she sounds. “They’re playing together so nicely.” She goes up on tiptoe and wraps her arms around his neck, and he drags his nose along her jaw, breathing in the perfume he buys her every Christmas whether she’s run out or not. Beautiful, it’s called, the same one his mother used to wear. She tried a different one once, something she picked out herself, and he told her she smelled like burned sugar, not at all how a woman should be.

“My day was good,” he says, a reminder.

Her arms uncurl from his neck, and she drops down from her tiptoes and steps back. The look on his face is gentle and reprimanding but also somehow pleased to see her mess up. It’s the look her mother gave her when she was five and got sent outside to get a switch, as if it was a relief to have a reason to punish her. It makes Chelsea want to make things right, and she hates that. She’s always supposed to ask him about his day, but he never asks her about her day unless he’s trying to butter her up.

“I’m glad,” she answers, aiming for perky. “How’s the Hartford account going?”

His frown deepens. She asked the wrong question.

“Not well.” He looks around the kitchen, suspicious. “What’s for dinner?”

“Chicken Caesar salad.” She points to the fridge.

“Rotisserie leftovers?”