Excerpt from One Kick by Chelsea Cain, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Frank?" hollered the man.

"We'll be up in a minute," Frank called. His eyes moved from one set to the next. "Then you'll want to see this," he added.

The basement air tasted like mildew. The basements always tasted like that.

Frank wasn't saying anything anymore. He was just rubbing the back of his neck.

"Is my mother alive?" she asked.

He took his glasses off and cleaned them on his shirt. "I don't know who your mother is," he said gently.

"Linda," she reminded him. She twisted the hem of her nightgown around her fingers. "She shot herself." She knew about caliber size. The faster and heavier a bullet was, the more damage it caused. Some people survived gunshots to the head. "I'll know if you're lying," she said.

Frank hooked his glasses back over his ears and stared at her for another moment. His eyes were wide. His red eyebrows and beard were streaked with blond, like he'd spent time in the sun. Even his ears had freckles. "She's dead, Beth."

She pulled at the nightgown, stretching the giraffes. "Oh," she said. Hot snot filled her nose, and her eyes burned, but she didn't cry. "She was nice. She couldn't have kids, you know."

"Is that what they told you?" Frank said.

"They took care of me," she said.

Frank knelt beside her chair so that they were eye to eye. "I need to know: Were there any other kids?"

His glasses were octagons, not ovals. His shaggy curls were still wet from the storm; his beard sprouted wildly in all directions. Men were supposed to shave every day. It was a sign of discipline. "I want to stay with him," she said.

Frank looked pained. "I'm sure that your family has never stopped looking for you," he said.

She wondered if that was true.

Frank hadn't done a very good job cleaning his glasses. She could see his fingerprints on the lenses. But his eyes seemed nice enough.

A dog was barking outside. Not theirs. They didn't have any dogs. She wasn't allowed.

"How old are you now, Beth?" Frank asked her.

"Ten." She hesitated. Her chest hurt. It felt like someone was squeezing it. "But . . ."

He raised his sun-bleached eyebrows at her.

She could still hear the barking. Or maybe it was just the screen door banging. She didn't know. Her skin felt hot.

"I had a dog once," she said, remembering.

Frank was motionless. "What was its name?" he asked.

"Monster." She felt warm tears slide down her cheeks. She was shaking. The memories were coming up her throat. She had worked so hard for so long to swallow them down. It was a relief. "My old birthday was in April," she added, wiping her nose with her hand. "Mel changed it. So I guess I'm actually eleven."

Frank squinted at her and tilted his head. He was close, but not too close. "How long have you lived with Mel?"

She thought for a moment, trying to piece the details together. "Monster used to run away. I was in the front yard looking for him, and Mel said he could help me find him. He said he'd drive me around the neighborhood. I was in first grade."

"What's your name?" Frank asked, and she heard the crack in his voice.

Her name. She knew it. She could feel it under her collarbone. It was like having a word at the tip of your tongue, when you can see it, the shape of it, but you can't quite remember what it is. She concentrated. "Kick?" she guessed.

He tilted his head more and leaned forward a little. "What did you say it was?"

"Kick?" she tried again. But that wasn't it. Something close to that . . .

"Kit?" Frank said. "Do you mean Kit Lannigan?"

It was like she had touched an electric fence, that feeling of all your cells crying out at once. She scrambled backward in the chair. "We're not supposed to say that name," she whispered.

Excerpted from One Kick by Chelsea Cain. Copyright © 2014 by Chelsea Cain. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.