Those Girls by Chevy Stevens Read Free Book Online Page A

should make the broth so it filled me up longer. She fried up some of the remaining deer meat and added a couple of carrots we’d taken from the field to the pot she’d made for her and Courtney—she tried to convince me to eat some of the meat but I’d seen deer in the fields, their big brown eyes, and I couldn’t do it. I made a separate pot of soup for myself, just noodles, broth, and carrots.
    “We’re going to have to leave in a couple of days,” Dani said. “He won’t let us stay—he’ll put us in foster homes.”
    “You don’t have to go—you’re almost eighteen. You could move out with Corey. We could just go into a home together, me and Courtney.”
    Courtney looked like she was going to cry. “It would just be for a couple of years,” she said. “We could make it work.”
    “No,” Dani said. “We have to stay together and it’s too risky staying here.”
    “We don’t have any money to start over anywhere else,” Courtney said.
    “I should just turn myself in,” I said.
    Dani grabbed my shoulders hard.
    “No one is going to the police. You’re not going to jail, and you’re not going to foster care.”
    “This is my fault,” Courtney said.
    “No, it’s Dad’s fault,” Dani said. She let go of my shoulders, but looked in my eyes. “He was going to kill Courtney—you had to do it.”
    I pushed my bowl of soup away.
    “I’m scared,” I said.
    “We’re all scared,” Dani said, pushing the bowl back to me.
    *   *   *
    Courtney and Dani were waiting for me outside the barn after I finished work the next day. We used to walk home alone or Dani would go to her boyfriend’s, but now we stuck together. When we got to our house, a box was on our front steps. Inside there was some food, dried pasta, canned meats, soup, and even a few pairs of old jeans and some shirts. I remembered that the sergeant had some daughters a few years older than us. Then we noticed the dusty boot print on the porch. He’d dropped off the box himself. Had he been looking through the window? We checked around the house for footsteps. There was a boot print near the shed.
    It was time to leave.
    Dani drove to Corey’s. When she got home, her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy. She went straight into her room and wouldn’t come out for hours.
    Courtney shouted through the door that she was taking the truck and Dani didn’t say anything. Courtney grabbed her guitar and headed out the front door.
    “Where are you going?” I yelled after her. “Can I come?”
    “Stay with Dani.”
    I wondered if she was going to see a boy and felt frustrated, helpless. She was going to get us in more trouble. Dani should’ve stopped her. I paced the house until I calmed down. It would be okay, Courtney was smart.
    I walked to the farm and stole some eggs from the henhouse, then picked some chives from the garden and some tomatoes and green peppers from the greenhouse, hoping Ingrid and Walter didn’t see me. I shooed one of the border collies who was following me around, his tail wagging.
    I made Dani scrambled eggs and knocked softly on her door.
    “Made you some dinner, Dani.” No answer. I went back downstairs and fed myself but left her plate under a cover.
    She came down five minutes later, her face splotchy, and picked at her eggs, then gave me heck for leaving a mess in the kitchen.
    “And what the hell were you thinking, stealing that stuff? You should always have one of us with you for a lookout.”
    “Sorry, Dani.” I smiled, happy that she was angry at me. Meant she was feeling better.
    Courtney came home when I was doing the dishes. She gave me a wan smile and a “Hey.”
    “Where you been?” Dani called out from the living room, where she was packing some of our framed photographs into a box.
    “Selling my guitar.”
    Dani came in. “What the hell? Why?”
    “We need the money and I don’t plan on singing anymore.” She touched her burn. “I’ll never make it big with this on my