“Put your hands where I can see them!” one officer demanded.
If bullets started flying, she’d be right in the middle. What if she got shot instead of rescued?
How had she gotten here? She was the strait-laced one, the one who obeyed the laws and followed the rules. She organized books for a living! She belonged in libraries and classrooms, not abandoned houses in the middle of gun fights.
Maybe she was meant to live a life of borrowed time. Despite everything she’d done to try to escape the fear she’d grown up with, it had found her in the unassuming library parking lot.
God, please help me!
The scuffle behind her grew louder.Were the men fighting with each other? The wall rattled as someone landed hard against it.
“I said no!” her protector yelled, thundering in the small room.
Her cheeks ached as she raged against the bindings, begging to be noticed—praying no one would start shooting with her stuck in the middle of the room.
The air around her stilled, and something thick lodged in her throat as a beat of silence fell.
“Nobody move or she dies!”
Her chin dropped to her chest as a broken sob wretched from inside her. Tangled hair fell in a curtain over her face as she wept, hard and loud. This was it. She’d never find love, get married, have kids, watch them graduate or get married and start families of their own. She mourned them all in one gut-wrenching moment.
She’d never make a difference in the world. She’d fade into history, unknown and insignificant.
The sharp bang rattled the walls of the weathered house, and her life changed forever.
1
Lauren
The stale air inside the prison threatened to choke Lauren as her gaze darted around the room. The gray walls of the waiting room blended with the gray floor beneath her pink and white sneakers.
She’d spent most of the morning fussing over what to wear. Now, all she wanted to do was go back in time and change everything. Not just the simple white sweater and jeans she’d chosen, but every decision that led her to this moment. She wanted to travel back in time and wipe this stupid idea from her head. What had she expected? It was a prison, not a lunch date with the girls.
Lauren gasped for another breath. There wasn’t any air circulation in this place. And where was the ambient music? It was quieter than her library. Shouts echoed in distant parts of the compound, but the waiting room held an eerie silence.
Good grief. What was wrong with this air? She searched the walls and ceiling for a vent. Of course, there weren’t any. The door she’d been escorted through was the only exit. That was stupid. Every room should have multiple exits.
The creak of metal on metal split the silence, and she jerked her head up.
“Lauren Vincent,” a deep male voice announced.
“That’s me.”
Duh. She was the only one in the waiting room. Of course the name was hers.
Why did the prison even have a waiting room? Were people really lining up to visit inmates? Was there a traffic jam between driving through the three-foot-thick concrete gate and the visitation room?
The male guard looked up from the tablet propped on his arm and gave Lauren a once-over. “Did you put all of your things in the locker?”
“Yes, sir.” Ugh. Why was her voice shaking? She wasn’t the one in prison. She was only visiting, like the narrow sliver on the Monopoly board that said she was close to something dangerous but sitting safely in her lane.
The guard took one step toward Lauren, and she moved an instinctive step back. The large man narrowed dark eyes beneath bushy brows and pointed a finger at Lauren’s face. “If you pass anything, I’ll know about it.”
Okay, was shereallyin the safe zone? She’d filled out the forms, showed every piece ofidentification she owned, and even made an appointment weeks in advance to come here.
And for what?
That was an excellent question—one she’d be turning over in her brain late at night when she over-contemplated all of her life choices.
