Unlucky Like Us (Like Us, #12)

by Krista Ritchie

“Kin—” I start, but her name is torn out of my throat as someone barrels towards me. Mom. Her wide panicked eyes are on this impending demise, and quickly, she clutches the frame of the bookcase—the bookcase that’s at least three arm-spans wide. The bookcase that nearly swallows my entire wall. The bookcase that’s seconds from crushing me. She tries to heave the thing upright. “Go, Luna! Leave!” Mom yells at me. I’ve never heard her yell like that—with so much urgency and distress. She can’t support the weight on her own either, so I stay and try to dig my feet in. Kinney is suddenly on my other side, using her back and shoulder blades to thrust the bookcase to its original position. It’s at a fifty-degree angle. It’s bearing on all three of us. “We can’t,” I mutter, breath knotted inside me. “We can,” our mom says through gritted teeth, trying her mightiest to upright what I’ve dislodged. Guilt nips at me. “On the count of three, we all push our hardest, okay? One, two, three.”