His Vow to Adore by Shanae Johnson

Author:Shanae Johnson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Those Johnson Girls

Will grabbed fresh fruit from the fridge. He knew that Tricksy had a thing for apples. Her favorite movie as a kid was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. She had fixated on the apple that the old hag had given Snow White. True, it had poisoned the princess and put her into a sleep, but that sleep had given her her prince. Therefore Tricksy found it romantic.

Will tested two apples, making sure they were firm, which meant they would be sweeter. He placed those into the picnic basket. Satisfied with his wares, he closed the fridge and turned around.

A sound coming from the closet pulled him up short. The sound was too large to be a rodent, and not a single rodent had ever dared come into Tessa Matthews’s house. The boys were sure her ghost came in the night to dust away the cobwebs and tidy up the corners.

A second sound came from the closet. It was a definite squeak. But not a vocal squeak that would come from a tiny throat. More like the squeak of a pair of sneakers against the floor.

Since it was a Monday morning and all the kids were off to school, Will could hazard a guess what, or rather who, the culprit was. He pulled open the closet door and his suspicions were confirmed.

"Nothin' here to see. So why don't you just let me be?"

Will winced at the kid's bad rhyme. He'd been treated to it all last night during dinner whenever Ashton, who would only answer to the nickname Ashtray, spoke.

As a quiet kid who preferred books to people, the closet had been one of Will's favorite hiding places as a kid. There were a number of times he'd been in there and had forgotten to make it to the school bus. Since there was no book in his hands, Will was fairly certain Ashtray had missed the school bus on purpose.

"Did you find what you were looking for in there? A dust pan? Broom?"

Ashtray looked around the small place as though he was just now realizing it was a broom closet filled with cleaning supplies.

"I assume since you decided to stay home from school, and that you're in the broom closet, you're going to help my father and Charlie with the day's chores?"

The gulp down the kid's narrow throat and into his small chest was audible. "Uh, yeah, yo. I'm about to clean up, bro. That's why I'm behind this doh."

Will had read and heard some truly bad poetry in his days, but this kid? Oh, this kid's verses were brutal. Ashtray stepped out of the closet and into the light. That's when Will saw another sign of brutality.

Beneath Ashtray's shirt collar, between his neck and his shoulder, was the unmistakable outline of a handprint. It looked as though someone had grabbed him there, very roughly. The handprint was smaller than Will's, but slightly bigger than Ashtray's hands.

"You having some trouble at school, Ash?"

The kid pursed his lips. Whether in

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