PROLOGUE
Opal—12 Years Old
Pain was easier to carry than fear.
That was what Opal told herself as she walked the cracked sidewalk leading home, one hand clutching the frayed strap of her backpack, the other hovering near—but not touching—the swelling beneath her eye.
Pain, she understood. Pain made sense. But fear—the kind that curdled in her stomach every step she took on the walk from school to the motel—was harder to swallow.
Her worn sneakers slapped the concrete in quick, uneven beats. Sometimes she looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody was following her…but today she didn’t care as much.
School let out twenty minutes ago, but the alleys were already filling with high school kids skipping detention. A cluster of older men stood behind the liquor store, smoking. And the clang of someone pushing a rusted shopping cart seemed to vibrate in Opal’s throbbing eye.
She kept her head down the way the school counselor always told her to, though the woman with her fancy blouses and skirts had no idea what this neighborhood was really like.
Don’t draw attention. Don’t look scared. Don’t run.
And above all:Don’t let anyone see you’re hurt.
But the bruise under her left eye was impossible to ignore. It throbbed with every heartbeat, a hot, angry bloom beneath her skin. She felt it growing, tightening, spreading.
She crossed the final street to the motel—theirmotel—and slowed without meaning to. She looked at her world,reallylooked at it…and saw it from a new perspective.
The motel sign was missing half its letters and flickered even in daylight. A sheet of warped wood hung in place of one of the upstairs doors. Plus there was the broken-down car that no one ever fixed blocking three spaces. Nothing unusual.
Except forhim.
The man from last night was back, sitting on a plastic lawn chair near the row of vending machines she never had money for, assuming they even worked.
Same wife-beater tank top. Same faded tattoos. Same expression, like he was watching everything and nothing at once.
Opal hesitated. She wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. Her mother drilled that into her between night shifts at whatever underpaid nursing job she held down that month.
Buthewasn’t exactly a stranger. Not after what happened the night before.
He didn’t pretend he didn’t hear her parents screaming. He didn’t turn up the TV or slam a door. And when things got really bad, he burst into their room and stepped between them. What he said to her parents, Opal couldn’t hear, but one quiet sentence stopped the fight cold.
No one had ever done that before.
He looked up when she passed.
“That black eye’s new.” His voice was rough like he smoked cigarettes and chewed glass. “Didn’t have it last night.”
Opal stopped, her pulse faltering. She could walk on. Go straight to the room. Pretend she didn’t hear. But her throat felt too small for lies today.
“No,” she muttered. “I got it at school.”
The man nodded once, as if that made perfect sense in a world where nothing else did. He didn’t ask who. He didn’t give her words of pity. And that loosened her throat a little bit.
She shifted her backpack higher on her shoulder, trying not to wince when the movement jostled her eye. She could feel each heartbeat pumping heat through the bruise, swelling it like a balloon.
He watched her with those unreadable eyes. “Your parents were quiet after I left last night.”
She stiffened. Talking about her parents, herlifewas completely against the rules.
Heat crept up her neck, the kind of shame that came from living a life everyone could hear and no one would ever understand. “Thanks for…um…last night. You didn’t have to do that.”
He shrugged like it meant nothing. But if it meant nothing, why had he bothered?
