Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Awareness made the hair on my body stand up. Damon
hadn’t come back tonight, but as long as nothing had changed,
then he was still the same. He liked to be up at night, so he
could still be on his way, and I needed to hurry if I was going
to put miles between me and this town before anyone found
out I was gone.
I should’ve left when the feds came after my dad more
than a month ago. I knew more was going on. Or I should’ve
left two days ago when my mother and sister were summoned
to a meeting with Damon’s father, and Arion came out
engaged. But I was leaving now. I wasn’t spending a single
night with him in this house.
My duffel was pulled out of my hands, and I knew Ethan
had taken it to toss in the backseat.
“Hurry up. It’s cold,” he said.
I climbed in, forcing the dog into the backseat and pulled
the door closed, fastening my seatbelt.
A strand of hair, loose from my ponytail, brushed across
my lips before getting sucked into the corner of my mouth
with all of my panting. I nudged it out of the way.
“Are you sure about this?” Ethan asked.
“I can’t stay in that house,” I told him. “I’ll leave them to
whatever sick game they want to play.”
“He won’t let you go.” I could hear him shift into gear
again and the engine rev. “He won’t let any of you go. Your
mother, your sister, you… In his mind, you all belong to him
now. You, especially.”
The car took off, I pressed back into my seat, and with
every inch we sped away from my family’s home, the nonexistent
breath on my neck got hotter. I hadn’t slept well in a
while, but from this moment on, I’d always be looking over
my shoulder.
You, especially. Ethan was one of my best friends, and he
knew the whole story and how bad this was for me.