Prologue:

At first everything is fine. I'm riding in a convertible. It's my boyfriend's car. I'm sixteen and he's twenty-one. We're spending spring break at his parents' condo in L.A. The radio is on, playing loudly. His hand is on my thigh. The only thing I can think of is getting to the condo and being alone with him for a week. I find myself looking at his face as he's driving. Soft blonde, almost gold, hair hangs over his green eyes. He looks worried, and I know why. We live in Texas. To get to the condo, you have to cross a long stretch of desert. We're currently in the middle of it. There's no one for miles.

I place my hand over his. He looks at me and manages a small smile. "How are we fixed for water?" he asks. I reach down and grab the backpack off the floorboards. I open it, looking at the contents inside. One bottle left. He glances over and sighs.

"Gas?" I ask.

"Almost empty," he responds. His mouth is tight with anticipation. I'm starting to get scared too.

Then something happens. I don't know what it is, but suddenly I'm being thrown forward. My seatbelt comes unfastened and I fly from the car. Sky, then ground, then sky again tumble into my vision. I try to scream, but no words come out. I hit the ground facedown and lie still, trying to breathe. There's a weight on my back and legs and I can't move. A voice from beside me begins to speak.

"I told you to stay out of this," he says. I try to open my eyes but the sand gets into my eyes. I hear the unsheathing of a knife and try to scream. More sand gets sucked into my mouth and I choke, trying to breathe. "You should have listened to me," the voice says again. Sand is moved against my body as the person crouches down next to me. The tip of the knife runs along the back of my ear. I lift my head high enough to spit out a mouthful of blood and saliva. "Bastard," I choked out, looking up at my attacker. I definitely recognized him. My mother's younger brother smiled malevolently and grabbed me by the hair. He pulled my face toward his. I whimpered as my legs stretched out from the debris that was pinning them.

"Yes," Sebastian said. "I am a bastard. And that makes it so much easier for me to kill you like the bitch you are." I worked up a mouthful of saliva and blood and spat it in his face. He wiped it off on his shirt sleeve.

"Like you killed my mother?"

"Precisely."

"Asshole," I said. Sebastian looked at me, amused. His hold on my hair grew stronger and I struggled against him. The knife came down slowly, growing ever closer to my face. I grit my teeth together, fighting back cries of pain as he cut into my cheek. Hot blood ran down my face. The knife tore into the skin of my forehead. Pain won out over my struggles to take this silently and I screamed. Sebastian only laughed. He used the knife to trace back along my neck. A soft moan escaped my lips as the knife came sliced dangerously near the veins in my throat.

My vision grew blurry and I fought to catch my breath. I started seeing black spots mixing in with Sebastian's face. I blinked, trying to clear my thoughts. It didn't work. The world faded from my view and turned dark. I sighed, feeling the pain escape me.