Meg gave a surprised little yelp, stumbling backward. Her heels caught the edge of the couch and she sprawled back onto the floor, her head knocking against the boards loudly. I followed her down, clawing and scratching at her face, mashing her lips against her teeth with my palms, dragging my hands across her mouth over and over again.

I was so intent on getting my sister’s lipstick back, I was only vaguely aware of the racket we were making. I was grunting, crying, repeating that she didn’t deserve to use my sister’s lipstick, that she wasn’t special enough, to give it back. Meg was screaming as much as she could through my fingers, her eyes wide and frightened, her hands flailing at my hair, my face, my chest. And in the background, I heard Lexi’s voice as she cried for help.

There was blood. I could see there was blood. Meg’s pink mouth had been replaced by a much larger red one. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything anymore. What did it matter? What did anything matter now? I was alone. I had no home, no family, nowhere that I belonged. In that moment, I finally and truly understood what it meant to have nothing to lose.

I kept after her until I was yanked to my feet roughly by two hands under my armpits. As soon as I was pulled off her, Meg curled up on one side, her arms flung over her mouth, her cries more like muffled shrieks.

I turned wildly, half ready to fight whoever had pulled me from her, but was surprised to see that it was Grandfather Harold. His fingers dug into my shoulders, his face a deep, wrinkled scowl. Lexi gaped at me over his shoulder, trembling, tears running down her cheeks.

“Let me go!” I shrieked, twisting violently out of his grasp.

“What the hell is going on?” Grandmother Billie said, bursting through the screen door, her nightgown swishing and swinging above her hairy ankles. She looked from Meg to Lexi to my grandfather to me, her head whipping around almost comically.

“She attacked Meg,” Lexi said. “She scratched her up bad.”

I turned my hands over and gazed at the blood on my fingers. I was still out of breath, so angry I could hear my pulse in my ears, but in a way what had just happened seemed impossible, like it had happened to someone else. Had my hands not been all bloody, I might even have tried to deny it.

Grandmother Billie hurried over to Meg and knelt next to her, trying to pry her arms away from her mouth so she could see the damage.

“They…” I said, then paused. How could I continue? They stole my sister’s lipstick. They stole my memories.

Grandfather Harold took a heavy step toward me. “These girls ain’t never been in a lick of trouble until you got here. Now I understand why Ronnie wanted to be rid of you.”

“I’ve never been in trouble, either!” I cried out. “You don’t have any idea what I’m like.”

“I shouldn’t have agreed to this, family or not,” Grandmother Billie said.

By this time, Terry had joined the crowd, staring out through the screen door, Jimmy perched on one hip, rubbing his eyes. She pushed Jimmy’s head against her shoulder with one palm and shushed him but didn’t say anything.

I gazed at her, feeling ashamed.

Grandfather Harold motioned to Lexi. “Help your grandmother clean up your sister. We’ll deal with you tomorrow,” he said to me. “I s’pose we should call Tonette and get her home.”

They all shuffled back into the house, Meg’s cries turning to wet snuffles, Lexi glaring at me over her shoulder through slitted eyes. Aunt Terry watched me for a second longer; then I heard the sound of the screen door lock clicking into place.

At first I stayed rooted to my spot near the couch, the covered barbecue grill behind me, a stack of broken plastic lawn chairs close by. I blinked in the darkness, wondering how I had gotten here. How I’d gone from reading in a cozy armchair in a real bookstore to scrabbling open the skin of my half sister’s mouth in the space of half an hour. Or how I’d gone from cooking dinner for my family to sleeping alone on a porch in little more than a month. It all seemed so surreal. My life no longer felt like mine.

We’ll deal with you tomorrow, Grandfather Harold had said, and though I didn’t know exactly what he’d meant by that, I knew it wasn’t going to be good. Worse, he’d planned to call Tonette, interrupt her night of barhopping to let her know that I’d beat up her precious little girl. I would be in huge trouble, because as angry as my grandparents had been, it wouldn’t be anything compared to how angry Clay and Tonette would be when they found out.

“Well, I’m not going to give you the chance,” I said aloud. I needed to get out of this place where truth and lies swirled and bled together and stole all that I had left of me. I dropped to my knees and felt around until my hands landed on my backpack, which had been stuffed far behind the sofa, probably when Lexi and Meg were looking for something to steal. I pulled it out. It had been unzipped, but it didn’t look like anything was gone. I quickly grabbed the blanket that lay folded up at the end of the couch, stuffed it inside, zipped it, and pounded through the screen door into the night.

I wasn’t sure where to go. I hadn’t wandered around enough to have more than a vague idea of what was beyond the cookie-cutter houses and the strip malls. I could see pastures behind the house, and a thicket of trees on one side. I could maybe find an old barn to sleep in, or a clearing under a tree. But what if a storm came? I hated that I now got panicky over something so silly, but I couldn’t help it. Every day that the tornado sank deeper into my soul, I became more and more afraid of it.

In the end I decided to go with what was familiar, and headed into town.

Morning took a long time to come. I hadn’t slept at all, and I was exhausted from constantly looking over my shoulder, waiting for Clay or Harold or a cop to jump out at me.

I’d spent the night wandering around the main strip of Caster City. At first I’d hung around the back door of a boutique, sitting on smashed shipping boxes, playing cards until the stench from the Dumpster behind the Chinese restaurant next door overpowered me. I’d moved to a tiny grove of evergreens behind a fast-food place and stretched out on my back, studying Mom’s face in the photo on my phone and softly singing Marin’s bubble song until the mosquitoes drove me away.

I spent some time texting Jane, who was up watching movies with her cousin.

How’s life in Hickville? she’d asked.

I’m running away, I’d responded.

To where?

I don’t know yet.

I’d waited around, half-hoping she would extend an invitation to run to her, but she never did. Instead, she replied, I’ll keep you company.

While Jane and I texted, the passing cars got sparser and sparser, and soon there were none, and the stoplights began blinking yellow and even the gas station closed for the night. I felt alone, stranded, and somehow that felt right. I moved around to the front of the strip mall and window-shopped, as if this were something I often did at three o’clock in the morning.

But it was a long time before the sun came up, and I’d found myself wedged into the back doorway of a furniture store, using my backpack for a pillow, my eyes heavy and grainy from lack of sleep, my butt numb from the concrete.

I turned my hands over in my lap and studied them in the daylight. Somehow, the blood had been rubbed away from the skin, but there was still a ruddy brown color under my fingernails. I wanted to wash them—wash Meg off me forever—and ended up tucking my fingers under my thighs so I wouldn’t have to look at them.

In time, I heard the sounds of the world waking up. Truck brakes hissing and car doors slamming and the occasional horn or voice. I packed up my things and started walking again, pulling my cell phone out of my pocket. I dialed Kolby’s number first. I could confide in him. I could tell him how terrible it was down here. I could tell him I was running away and he would help me.