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

Their neighbor was lying. He still had electricity.

She needed to tell someone. But her father had told her to stay where she was. She looked back at the kitchen door, but there was no sign of her mother. The men's voices still boomed from the front hall—her father laughing a little too loudly.

She could hear the screen door banging in the wind. Johnson hadn't pulled it closed all the way. The screen would rip in the storm. She felt like a knot that someone was pulling tight, her whole self contracting, the air squeezing out of her lungs.

The screen door banged.

The sound was like an openhanded slap. Her lungs expanded, taking in air, lifting her to the balls of her feet. The Scrabble tile dropped from her hand onto the floor.

And she ran. She scurried across the dark living room, the quilt flapping behind her like a cape, and wrenched open the door to the front hall. Her father looked at her, eyebrows lifted, mouth open. He was so tall—he could lift her up to touch the ceiling. Mr. Johnson's back was to her, just a normal-size man. His wet boots sat neatly together just inside the door. His wet raincoat was on the coat tree. He was standing on the rug, drying himself off with the towel her father kept by the door.

"I saw a light," she said, out of breath.

Her father went gray.

The screen door banged again, and the front door burst open like a thunderclap. Her father stumbled back as the men forced their way into the house. They didn't bother to take off their boots or dark jackets. Water flew off of them, spattering her. They were shouting, barking orders at her father, who cowered in front of them. Someone was trying to pull her backward, away from him. She yelled to be let go and saw her father reach for his gun. But the men had guns, too, and they saw him and yelled "Gun!" and their guns were at eye height, so that everywhere she looked she saw the barrel of one pointed at where her father shrank at the base of the stairs, his Colt trembling in his hand. His eyes were frantic, glistening with tears. She'd never seen him cry before.

It was loud and quiet at the same time, everyone still, the crackle and honk of walkie-talkies, the adults breathing heavily, the rain, the front door.

One of the men stepped in front of her. He was the first one who moved, which meant he was in charge. They were FBI. The letters were printed in white across the backs of their jackets. Federal Bureau of Investigation. State police, local police, DHS, DEA, Interpol, ATF. Her father had taught her to identify them, and which ones to fear most. The FBI, he'd said, was the scariest of all of them. She had imagined them having eyes like goats and angry faces.

But this FBI agent didn't look like that. He was younger and shorter than her father, with a freckled face, reddish beard, and shaggy hair. His wire-rimmed glasses were beaded with water. He didn't look mean, but he didn't look nice either. He was speaking sternly to her father in a voice that she'd never heard anyone use with him before. His words sliced through the air. "FBI." "Search warrant." "Arrest." "Probation violation."

"I've done nothing wrong," her father sputtered, and the redheaded agent inched toward him, blocking her view, so that all she could see now were those three letters on his back, FBI, and one of her father's moccasins.

"Easy, Mel," the redheaded agent said. "You don't want the little girl to get hurt."

Her toes curled, gripping the hardwood.

"Put your hands behind your head," the redheaded agent said, and then he stepped to the side, and she was surprised to see her father lifting his elbows and threading his fingers behind his head like he'd done it before. Her father's Colt was in the redheaded agent's hand. She saw the agent give it to one of the other men. She didn't understand. Her father needed to stand up, to show these men how strong he was.

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.