Chapter OneWhen the sheriff of Twist Creek County—and all those other sons of bitches, the Baldwin-Felts agents and bloodthirsty strikebreakers—finally caught my great-great-grandfather and dragged his ass up from the mine to make a spectacle of his execution, they killed him by hammering a railroad spike through his mouth.
That’s what they did to labor strikers a hundred years ago—machine guns, spare World War I munitions, railroad spikes. And I don’t know if you’ve gone and picked up a railroad spike before, but they’re big. Big enough that my great-great-grandfather must have choked on it. He must have gagged waiting for the hammer to come down. One time I opened Dad’s toolbox and put a big rusty nail between my teeth and held it there, breathing around the metal, trying to imagine how it’d be to go and die like that.
Our family name is misspelled in the article, by the way. It’s Abernathy. Not Abernethy.
Chapter TwoLast week, I stole a fistful of old photos, made exactly three sets of copies at the school library, and put the originals safely back in Dad’s lockbox. The originals are blurry, and the scanner made it worse, but it’s enough. Twisted metal and out-of-focus fire, Mrs. O’Brien’s charred corpse almost visible if you squint. I have one of the sets now: all the photos on the same piece of cheap printer paper, folded twice and jammed in my pocket. But before I sneak out to the graduation party and make a mess of things, I check on my parents.
My dog, Lady, trails behind me as I slip out of my room. “Shh,” I whisper, crinkling her ears. She huffs. “Don’t fuck me on this.”
Mom’s in bed for once. She sleeps all curled up, knee to her chest and wrists tucked under her chin. I get that from her. She has the fan going too, full blast even though summer rarely gets warm enough to justify it, with the corner of grandma’s quilt clutched tight in her hands. She deserves the rest. Nursing home’s been running her ragged. I leave her be.
Dad, though, is passed out at his computer. The light of the screensaver makes the living room look strange; it washes out the camo-print blanket and reflects in the glass eyes of the deer head over the TV. I step carefully, avoiding the spots of the old floor that creak, and lean over my father to inspect the tangle of emails and printouts.
Election results map. West Virginia municipal guide, the
running for office version. A bunch of email drafts, all unfinished, most to recipients I recognize but some I don’t. Tylenol. Discarded cane under the desk. Lockbox of photos from the accident that I definitely didn’t find the key for last week.
I should probably be excited he’s gotten it in his head—seems like he’s gonna run for a county seat again, if I’m reading all this right—but I just feel sick. After what happened last time, it’s hard not to be scared.
But that’s why I’m helping, right?
Quiet as I can, I gather the printouts in a folder and ease them into a drawer. Close the emails and PDFs. Wipe the browser history, scrub the downloads folder, clear the “Recent Items” section of the File Explorer. Lady sniffs the couch and watches me sideways, asking why the hell I’m sneaking around. Dad snores a little. In the blue light from the screen, the scars on his leg are paper white.
And then I stop. Maybe I could—
I pull out my phone and reopen my own email draft, a finger hovering above
send.
I don’t have to send this. Full honesty, I probably shouldn’t. Mom and Dad have enough to deal with right now, because being poor means there’s always something to deal with—endless medical bills, squirreling away cash to keep the heat on this winter, fronting house repairs because our landlord can’t be bothered—and I’ve been putting this off for so long that, really, what’s a few more weeks? Months?
But whatever. I’m already doing stupid shit tonight.
I hit
send.
An email notification flashes on the desktop. Subject line:
Mom, Dad, I’m trans. Body text:
I’d say there’s something I have to tell you, but the subject line is kind of a spoiler . . .
etc. etc.
Dad should thank me. If I forgot to hide something, this should cause enough of a ruckus that Mom won’t notice.
Still, before I leave, I double-check the desk and pour Dad a glass of water, because he always wakes up thirsty. The photocopies are heavy as buckshot in my pocket. The email notification on the desktop makes me itch.
Bite the bullet, Miles. Do it.
Lady sits in the kitchen, head cocked but silent. She knows when not to bark. Good girl. “Love you,” I say over my shoulder to the quiet house.
Copyright © 2026 by Andrew Joseph White. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
