The darkness was not peaceful. Delois felt her body falling through an endless, suffocating void. Her stomach plummeted, and her heart hammered wildly against her ribs.

Suddenly, the blackness shattered like glass. She was thrown into a dream so vivid it made her skin crawl.

She was watching herself. She saw her own body, looking thin and desperate, clinging to Julian Sloan's arm. Julian's face was twisted in pure revulsion. He peeled her fingers off his sleeve like she was a diseased insect.

The scene violently shifted. She was looking into the Thornton family kitchen. Her sister-in-law, Felicie, was hiding behind the door. Felicie was pointing at Delois's retreating back, her shoulders shaking with silent, malicious laughter.

The nightmare accelerated, flashing like a broken film projector.

She saw her elderly parents walking down Main Street. Their shoulders were slumped. Neighbors pointed and whispered about their crazy, desperate daughter. Her parents kept their heads down, swallowing the bitter humiliation.

Then, the images turned bloody.

She saw a bank officer nailing a bright red foreclosure notice to the front door of the Thornton farmhouse.

She saw her oldest brother, Gonzalo, his face bruised and bleeding. Cold steel handcuffs were snapped around his wrists. A police officer shoved him roughly into the back of a squad car.

A screech of tires tore through her eardrums. She saw her second brother, Connie, lying on the asphalt. A pool of dark blood expanded rapidly around his head.

She saw her mother, Blanca. Blanca was lying in a sterile hospital bed, her skin gray and sunken. Blanca's weak hand squeezed Delois's fingers one last time before her chest stopped moving forever.

Delois tried to scream, but her throat was paralyzed.

The dream snapped to a completely different world. A towering skyscraper in Manhattan.

Bart Hawkins stood in front of a massive floor-to-ceiling window. He wasn't wearing his wet leather jacket. He was wearing a dark, perfectly tailored bespoke suit that screamed unimaginable wealth.

A television in the background played a financial news report. The anchor's voice announced Bart Hawkins as the country's newest billionaire tech mogul.

The camera angle of her dream zoomed in on Bart's massive mahogany desk. Sitting right in the center, carefully preserved, was a faded, cheap cotton handkerchief.

Delois recognized it instantly. It was her old handkerchief. The one she had thrown at him in disgust years ago.

The air in the dream turned freezing cold. The luxurious office vanished.

Delois found herself curled into a tight ball in the corner of a damp, moldy basement. Her bones ached from the cold. Her stomach cramped with violent hunger. She was completely alone. She closed her eyes in the dark, waiting for death.

The sheer terror of the vision crashed over her like a tidal wave. She fought against the paralysis.

She opened her mouth and forced the air out of her lungs.

"No!"

Delois's eyes snapped open. Her pupils were dilated, adjusting to the dim light. She sucked in a massive, ragged breath of real air.

She was lying in her own bed. The familiar floral wallpaper surrounded her. Her forehead was slick with cold sweat. Her nightgown clung to her damp back. She instinctively reached up, her trembling fingers wrapping around the old, wooden amulet her grandmother had given her. The familiar, braided cord and the cool touch of the wood grounded her slightly.

Her mother, Blanca, was sitting on the edge of the mattress. Blanca held a damp washcloth in her rough hands. Her eyes were swollen and red, the skin around them puffy from hours of crying.

The moment Delois opened her eyes, Blanca dropped the washcloth. She leaned forward and crushed Delois against her chest.

"You foolish girl," Blanca sobbed, her voice cracking. "Why would you do something so stupid? Why would you jump?"

Delois felt the solid, warm weight of her mother. She felt the callouses on Blanca's hands gripping her shoulders. Her brain fired on all cylinders.

She looked at the old wooden dresser. She looked at the faded curtains. The horrific images she had just witnessed weren't just a nightmare. They were a brutal, unfiltered preview of her actual future. And they were a key. As the terror of the vision receded, the locked doors in her mind burst open. The missing six months of her life came rushing back in a dizzying torrent. Every humiliation, every stupid mistake she had made over Julian, every cruel whisper in town-she remembered it all with agonizing clarity.

She realized she was nothing but a pathetic, tragic side character in a story meant to destroy her family. But right now, her mother was alive. Her brothers were safe. The farm was theirs.

Delois wrapped her arms tightly around Blanca's waist. The lingering panic in her chest hardened into something cold and sharp. She would not let that future happen. She would tear it apart with her bare hands if she had to.

Suddenly, the heavy thud of boots echoed from the hallway.

"I'm going to kill that bastard!" her brother Gonzalo roared, his voice shaking the floorboards.

The sound of Gonzalo's roar sent a violent jolt of adrenaline straight into Delois's bloodstream. Her heart seized.

She shoved the heavy quilt off her legs. Her bare feet hit the cold wooden floorboards. The room spun wildly, but she ignored the nausea and threw her weight toward the bedroom door.

She yanked the brass handle and stumbled into the hallway.

Gonzalo was standing at the top of the stairs. His face was flushed dark red with pure rage. In his massive hands, he gripped the cold steel of his double-barreled shotgun.

Beside him, Connie was furiously shoving heavy brass shells into the pockets of his denim jacket. The other three brothers crowded the narrow space, Ean gripping a heavy iron pitchfork, while the youngest twins, Leo and Luke, stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their fists clenched, their jaws set in murderous lines.

Blanca had rushed out behind Delois. She threw her arms wide, trying to physically block her massive sons from going down the stairs. The men simply pressed forward, their combined weight forcing Blanca to step back.

Delois gripped the wooden doorframe to keep from collapsing. She forced air into her burning lungs.

"Stop!" Delois screamed, her voice cracking with desperation.

Every man in the hallway froze. Five pairs of eyes snapped toward her pale, sweating face.

Gonzalo's grip on the shotgun loosened slightly. A flash of deep pain crossed his eyes when he saw how weak she looked. But the anger quickly swallowed it.

"Get back in bed, Delois," Gonzalo growled, his teeth grinding together. "I'm going to break both of Bart Hawkins's legs."

Delois pushed off the doorframe. She stumbled forward and grabbed Gonzalo's thick forearm. Her fingers dug into his flannel shirt.

"He didn't push me!" Delois yelled, her chest heaving. "Bart didn't push me into the river!"

The brothers exchanged confused, doubtful glances. Connie shook his head.

"You hit your head hard, Del," Connie said gently. "You don't know what you're saying. Ann saw him do it."

Gonzalo gently but firmly peeled Delois's trembling fingers off his arm. He stepped around Blanca and started stomping down the wooden stairs.

Panic clawed at Delois's throat. If they attacked Bart now, the blood feud would escalate. It would trigger the exact chain of events that ended with Gonzalo in handcuffs and Connie dead on the asphalt.

She ignored the blinding pain in her skull. She lunged forward and wrapped both her arms tightly around Gonzalo's waist from behind.

Gonzalo stopped dead on the steps. He didn't dare move forward and risk dragging her down with him.

Delois pressed her face against his broad back.

"If you walk out that door and touch him," Delois threatened, her voice dropping to a dead, serious whisper, "I will kill myself right now. I swear to God, Gonzalo."

The sheer absolute certainty in her voice sent a chilling silence through the stairwell. The brothers stared at her, completely paralyzed by the threat.

Before anyone could speak, the deafening roar of a failing engine shattered the quiet.

A rusted, beat-up Ford pickup truck skidded onto the gravel just outside the Thornton front yard. The brakes squealed in protest.

The driver's side door was kicked open. Bart stepped out. His face was a mask of cold indifference. In his right hand, he carried a white plastic medical kit. He had driven halfway down the road before the image of Delois's pale, trembling fingers coated in dark red blood overpowered his common sense. He cursed himself for caring about a Thornton, but he couldn't just leave her bleeding from a head wound.

Gonzalo looked through the hallway window. He saw Bart standing on their property. The hesitation vanished. The rage exploded.

Gonzalo ripped himself free from Delois's grip. He dropped the shotgun on the floor and charged down the rest of the stairs like a runaway freight train. He burst through the front door.

Connie was right on his heels.

Delois let out a terrified scream and sprinted after them, her bare feet slapping against the wood.

Out in the muddy front yard, Gonzalo used his sprinting momentum to throw a devastating right hook aimed directly at Bart's jaw.

Bart's reflexes were terrifyingly fast. He jerked his head to the side. The fist grazed his ear. The medical kit slipped from his fingers, crashing to the ground and spilling white gauze rolls into the mud.

Connie tackled Bart from the left side. The three large men crashed into the wet, slippery grass, a tangle of swinging fists and grunts.

Bart was strong, but he was outnumbered. Gonzalo's heavy boot connected solidly with Bart's stomach. Bart let out a sharp grunt of pain and stumbled backward, his guard dropping for a split second.

Gonzalo pulled his arm back for a finishing blow to Bart's face.

Delois didn't think. She threw her body directly into the center of the violence. She spread her arms wide, shielding Bart's chest with her own back.

Gonzalo's eyes widened in horror. He tried to pull the punch, but the momentum was already carrying his heavy fist straight toward Delois's face.

In a fraction of a second, Bart's large hand shot out. He grabbed Delois roughly by the waist and yanked her hard against his chest.

Bart spun them around, using his own broad back as a human shield.

Gonzalo's fist slammed heavily into Bart's shoulder blade. The massive impact knocked Bart off balance. His boots slipped in the slick mud.

They fell backward. Delois crashed down right on top of Bart's solid chest. The sudden, violent stop snapped her head forward.

Her lips smashed directly, perfectly, against Bart's mouth.

The impact knocked the breath out of Delois.

For one agonizingly long second, the world stopped spinning. She felt the rough, chapped texture of Bart's lips against hers. She felt the rapid, heavy thud of his heart hammering directly beneath her ribs. His breath was hot and tasted faintly of mint.

The shock sent a violent jolt of electricity down her spine. She scrambled backward, her hands pressing into the wet mud to push herself off his chest. Her face burned with a sudden, furious heat.

Bart rolled up to a sitting position instantly. He turned his head sharply away from her. The tips of his ears were dark red.

He raised the back of his hand and wiped it roughly across his mouth, pressing hard enough to leave a red mark on his own skin. He kept his eyes fixed on the grass, his jaw muscles jumping.

As Delois pushed herself up to her knees, the sudden movement snagged the thin cord around her neck. The old, braided string of her grandmother's amulet snapped.

The heavy wooden pendant slid off her skin and dropped silently into the tall, muddy weeds. Neither of them noticed.

Gonzalo stood over them, his chest heaving. The shock of almost hitting his sister had morphed back into pure fury. He took a step forward, his fists clenching again.

"I'm going to tear him apart!" Gonzalo roared.

Delois threw her arms out again, staying on her knees between Bart and her brother.

"I said stop!" Delois screamed, her voice tearing at her throat. "He didn't push me! I slipped! Bart jumped in and pulled me out of the water! He saved my life!"

She spat the words out as fast as she could, her chest heaving.

Gonzalo froze. Connie, who was picking himself up from the mud, stopped moving. The brothers stared at her, their angry faces twisting into expressions of deep confusion.

The heavy silence in the yard was stretched thin, but underneath it, a strange rustling echoed from the dense tree line bordering the property. The sound of snapping twigs and heavy, hurried movement went completely unnoticed by the arguing men. Suddenly, the tension was broken by a sharp, violent cracking sound coming from the dense tree line bordering the property.

Everyone turned their heads.

A massive wild boar burst through the thick bushes. Its coarse black hair was covered in dirt. Its small eyes were wide and panicked. Two sharp, yellowed tusks curved out from its snout. It was breathing heavily, snorting loud, aggressive breaths.

The beast locked its eyes on the group of humans. It lowered its head and charged.

The trajectory was a straight line directly toward Delois, who was still kneeling in the grass.

Delois stared at the approaching tusks. Pure, paralyzing terror flooded her veins. Her legs turned to lead. She couldn't command her muscles to stand up.

The boar closed the distance in seconds.

Just as the beast was about to ram into her ribs, a large, calloused hand clamped down on her upper arm with bone-crushing force.

Bart gritted his teeth. The veins in his neck bulged as he violently yanked her backward and shoved her behind his own body.

The boar blew past them. The foul smell of wet animal hair washed over Delois's face.

The beast missed them by inches and slammed headfirst into the old wooden fence bordering the yard.

The impact sounded like a gunshot. The rotting wood splintered and collapsed in a cloud of dust and debris. The boar shook its massive head, dazed by the collision. It let out a confused squeal, turned clumsily, and limped back into the safety of the trees.

The entire sequence lasted less than five seconds.

The yard was dead silent, save for the sound of harsh, ragged breathing.

Bart was still gripping Delois's arm. His chest rose and fell rapidly. He looked down at her. His dark eyes were wide, stripped of their usual mockery, revealing a raw, unfiltered panic that he had almost lost her.

Delois looked up at the sharp angle of his jaw. Her own heart was beating so fast it felt like a hummingbird trapped in her throat.

Before either of them could speak, the screech of tires ripped through the air.

A polished sedan slammed to a halt right behind Bart's rusted pickup. The driver's door flew open.

Jessi Hawkins stepped out. Her high heels sank slightly into the dirt. Her perfectly styled hair bounced as she marched furiously toward the yard.

Jessi's eyes locked onto her son. She saw him covered in mud, standing in enemy territory, his hand wrapped tightly around Delois Thornton's arm.

Jessi's face twisted in pure disgust. She marched right up to them, raised her hands, and shoved Delois hard in the chest.

Delois stumbled backward, breaking Bart's grip.

"Get your hands off my son, you shameless little tramp!" Jessi shrieked, her voice echoing down the street. "Haven't you caused enough trouble trying to hook a city boy? Now you're throwing yourself at Bart?"