The Rebel - Kelsey Clayton Page 0,1

home, pronto. I mean it, Tess.”

I don’t justify that with an answer. Delaney, my twin sister and literal other half, has been my best friend since birth. Meanwhile, my father has basically made it his mission to ruin my life. There isn’t any possible situation where I would take his side over hers. If I manage to get in touch with her, the only thing I’ll be doing is giving her the heads-up to stay away until he doesn’t have a stick up his ass.

“So, where are we going?”

Uncle Dom buckles his seatbelt and pulls out onto the road. “To a place called The Underground.”

My brows furrow. “The Underground? That doesn’t sound like a restaurant.”

“Nothing gets by you, does it?”

A heavy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. Something isn’t right. I don’t know what kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shit he’s pulling, but my uncle went from the loving man I’ve known all my life to someone completely different in a matter of seconds.

“You know, I’m actually not feeling so hot. Maybe we can do breakfast some other time.”

He laughs, with the look on his face displaying how sinister he really is. “Silly girl. We’re not going to breakfast. Your sister and her boyfriend are hiding from me, and I bet you’re just the thing I need to lure them out.”

Panic sets in and I go to open the door, but it’s safety locked. “Let me out of the car.”

“Not going to happen, darling.”

I turn, kicking at the window to try and break it. Yet still, it doesn’t budge. It was like this car was made to withstand some sort of onslaught.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

My head whips around to face him, and I narrow my eyes to slits. “Fuck you.”

Again, he lets out a humored laugh. “Suit yourself.”

He turns his focus to the rearview mirror and nods subtly. I don’t get a chance to see what he’s looking at, however, before two arms come from behind and firmly hold a cloth over my mouth. It only takes a few seconds until everything goes black.

I gasp for air as I wake from my terrifying dream. The familiarity of my room does very little to calm me down. All the events replay in my head like a horror movie I can’t seem to escape from. None of it may be happening right now, but the scars are very real.

Knowing the last thing I want to do is be alone right now, I get up and head across the hall, quietly slipping into my sister’s room. As soon as I’m next to the bed, Delaney scoots over and pulls back the covers for me.

“Another nightmare?” she questions tiredly.

I sigh and cuddle up next to her. “Yeah.”

The best part about having a twin sister is how connected we are. She doesn’t say anything else, simply because she understands I don’t want to talk about it. That day is something she and I have both tried to leave as far in the past as possible, but as the age old saying goes: some things are easier said than done.

I WAKE IN THE morning to the sound of my sister quietly moving around her room. She takes stacks of clothes from her drawers and places them into her suitcase, reminding me she’s leaving tomorrow. The irony that I should be doing the same isn’t lost on me. Unfortunately, I made some idiotic choices last year and now I’m required to repeat half of my senior year. I guess that’s karma’s doing, and man is she a bitch.

“Can’t you take me with you? Hide me in your suitcase or some shit?”

She chuckles, walking to the side of the bed to sit beside me. “You know I would if I could.”

The two of us learned early in life to rely on each other. When our parents would argue. When our sister tried bossing us around and then lied to get us in trouble when we didn’t let her. When our best friend showed up at school after vanishing for years, only to act like she had no idea who we were. It’s always been her and me—the one constant thing I knew I could count on.

“What am I going to do without you?” I murmur sadly.

“The same thing you always do—make dad want to rip his hair out and laugh as you do it.”

I laugh, partly because it makes me sound like a maniac and partly because it’s true. It’s