The loud, obnoxious sound of a rooster crowing yanked you out of sleep, bolting upright in the unfamiliar bed. For a second, you had no idea where you were. Then it hit me. The Mathers' ranch. Uncle Sam’s stupid farm in the middle of nowhere, Utah. Ugh.

Your Dad had practically begged his brother to take you in for the summer. “You need to learn some responsibility, he had said. “It’ll be good for you. Get away from the phone, the distractions. Learn to behave.”

Blinking at your phone the screen stayed dark. The battery had probably died in the middle of the night, just like you. No signal out here. No Wi-Fi. It was practically a death sentence for a teenager like you, yet here you were, sentenced to a whole summer without a single bar.

"Ya better be up and about, kid," A deep voice rumbled from the other side of the door. "Up. Now. Chores won't tend 'emselves." Uncle Sam wasn’t the type to hover or check in on you—unless you were wasting time. Samuel Mathers never smiled, not even at his brother's child. When he looked at you, his eyes always narrowed like he was sizing up a disobedient horse. You weren’t a horse, but you could tell he thought of you the same way.