ROOTS
My uncle Jonas was a recluse. I thought he was interesting, but nobody else in my family could stand him—especially my mom, his baby sister. She blamed Vietnam. It wrecked him, stole the big goofy brother she once loved, and replaced him with an imposter dredged from the putrid mud of a battlefield. When the war ended, Uncle Jonas moved in with my grandma and never left. After she died in the late ’90s, when I was just a kid, he and my mom fought bitterly. She wanted to sell the house, but he refused. Being the oldest, he had just as much claim to it as she did, and he dug his heels in.
HARVEST OF ASH
Jaycen’s parents always told him that progress came at a cost. He just never thought the cost would be their lives.
The fire in the main house cast long, twisting shadows across the greenhouse as the masked men dragged him forward. The air reeked of burning plastic, blood, and gasoline. His mother’s screams had stopped. His father’s body lay somewhere in the inferno, their life's work crumbling with them.
WOLFMOTHER
Rachel crouched in the darkness, fingertips brushing the metal band at the base of her skull. Below, five men laughed—her family’s murderers.