He’s boxing me up and shipping me off.
Discarding me.
My lungs hitch and my eyes fill with tears.
But this isn’t the first time that’s happened to me, isn’t the first time I’ve had to start over.
I know how to survive.
I leave the letter on the bed, slip my feet into the sneakers Jace brought, and though I want to leaveeverythingbehind—a kernel of hate for anything that involves Brooks growing in my stomach—I know I need to be smart. So, I pack up the clothes,the food, even the envelope of cash—though it makes that kernel inside me grow. I tuck them all carefully into a bag, along with my purse.
Then I leave, hiking my way out of the mountains and down into the little town.
I take a bus to the city.
I find a place to stay. A job.
And for a while, everything is fine. I’m sad. I’m heartbroken. But I’m alive and safe and moving forward.
Eventually, though, even that bit of peace is broken.
It starts with a woman with model-like looks and long blonde hair approaching me, telling me of a “fabulous opportunity,” and when I blow her off, a different approach is made by a man who doesn’t like it when I tell him no.
Atall.
That’s when the harassment begins. When my life starts falling apart—one friend, one job, one apartment at a time. Until I’m desperate and alone, and when I’m ripped out of my bed in the middle of the night, I know I have no choice but to follow the orders given to me.
To survive, I do things that haunt my dreams, that fill me with regret.
And all the while…
That kernel of hate inside me continues to grow.
TWO
BRIAR, FIVE YEARS LATER
I never thoughtI would be this person.
But…when it comes to the choice between doing something right and moral, and surviving the next few months, I know I don’t have any options.
Know I stopped having choices years ago.
On a rainy mountaintop I thought would be the beginning of a happy life.
Instead, it became a nightmare.
Mynightmare.
I adjust my gloves, know I can’t risk leaving behind even a trace of evidence that I was here.
Hating that Iamhere with every fucking fiber of my being.
“Just suck it up and do it,” I whisper.
Because once it’s done, I never have to set foot in this place again.
Never have to look out over the peaceful rolling hills surrounding the estate and remember, never have to walk through the gardens I spent so much time in, and wish things were different. Never have to see rooms with the big windowsand the bright, cheerful wallpaper I picked out, and hurt so deep inside. Never have to walk up the winding staircase to the tucked away reading room where I could while away hours and hours, getting lost in fairytales I thought were my reality, and know?—
