Keeping Caroline. Vickie Taylor

the kid in his hurry to save his eardrums.

      The sound abated as quickly as it had begun. Jeb crouched on the cold floor, his chest heaving. His eyes rolled wildly.

      Matt steadied himself with a breath, waiting for his buzzing nerves and ringing ears to quiet, then brushed his fingers across Jeb’s trembling knee. “Hey, kiddo—”

      Hardly a blur he moved so fast, Jeb sprang to his feet, lashed a solid kick into Matt’s knee and squirreled under the table. Against the wall, he curled into a ball, arms locked around his knees and head buried between his elbows, and rocked himself, sobbing silently.

      Matt watched him, guilt and self-loathing swelling inside him. Jesus, God, what had he done?

      Bare feet slapped across the floor behind Matt. Caroline flung herself into the room in a dead run, grabbing onto the doorjamb to stop her momentum. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

      Her gaze fell to the crumpled boy beneath the table. She dropped to her knees next to him. “Oh my God.” She reached out to Jeb. “Hey, little rebel. What is it? What’s wrong?”

      Jeb pulled tighter into his little ball.

      The fire in Caroline’s eyes scalded Matt. “What happened? What did you do to him?”

      Matt tried to move. To help her. But his feet might as well have been stuck in cement. The cement might as well have been sinking in a foul river. He couldn’t breathe, either.

      She gave him one heartbeat to answer. Two. Then her lips curled back in a snarl. “Get out.” Fury swam close to the surface in her voice. “Get the hell out. Now!”

      He stumbled back a step. Then another. He turned. He could hear Caroline cooing and clucking behind him, childish, nonsense words. The screen door slammed shut behind him as he made it out of the house. Out onto the porch. Into the air.

      But he still couldn’t breathe.