Some roads lead away from home. This one leads straight into the fire-and there's no turning back. Nineteen-year-old June Addison should have graduated by now. Instead, she's repeating high school in a small California town where secrets fester behind closed doors. Her best friend dreams of college. June just wants to survive the week. At home, things can't get any worse. Her mother's boyfriend watches her like he's waiting for the right moment. Her mother refuses to see it. And June-worn down, out of options-is quietly unraveling. The pressure is building, and she's running out of places to hide. June must decide how far she's willing to go to protect herself. Meanwhile, across the desert in Santa Fe, a new hire at a government research facility begins to suspect that nothing beneath the surface is what it seems. What starts as a quiet job quickly spirals into something far more dangerous-something that will eventually collide with June's world in ways no one can see coming. Set against the sunbaked highways of late-1980s California, Hear Me Baby, Hold Together is the first book in a five-part series of tightly woven, novella-length thrillers-stories about trauma, survival, and the brutal beauty of trying to reclaim your life when everything is working against you. This installment ends on a cliffhanger and continues in Book Two.