Cassie hadn’t told anyone she was going to prom.
Not her mother, who was too drunk to remember what month it was.
Not her father, who’d walked out when she was six.
And definitely not the kids at school, who’d spent the last four years calling her “Trailer Trash Cassie.”
She’d bought the dress herself – $30 from a thrift store, pale yellow with a water stain on the hem she’d tried to cover with a safety pin.
She didn’t have a date.
She didn’t have a ride.
But she’d worked doubles at the gas station for three months to afford that ticket, and she was going.
The plan was simple: walk the two miles to the school gym, slip in through the side door, stay for one slow song, then leave before anyone noticed.
She made it halfway down the gravel driveway when she heard them.
The rumble started low, like distant thunder.
Then it got louder.
Louder.
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