one
. . .
I rununtil my lungs burn, until my legs threaten to buckle, until the night swallows me whole. My stepfather's drunken words chase me like hellhounds—"You're mine to sell, you ungrateful little bitch"—and I can still feel the sting of his hand across my face. The rain starts as I hit the edge of our property, a cold, unforgiving deluge that matches the tears streaming down my cheeks. I have nowhere to go. No money hidden in my pockets. No friend waiting with open arms. Just the desperate need to escape, to run until Raymond can't find me anymore.
Three hours ago, I was setting the table for dinner, my fingers trembling as I arranged the silverware just the way he likes it. One mistake and there would be hell to pay. I've learned that lesson too many times to count. The bruises on my wrists haven't even faded from last week.
"Cecily!" His voice, already slurred from afternoon drinking, booms through the house. I drop the fork I'm holding, the clatter against porcelain making me flinch.
I hurry to his study, where he sits behind his massive oak desk, tumbler of amber liquid in hand. The smell of expensive whiskey and stale cigarettes makes my stomach turn.
"Yes, sir?" I keep my voice small, my eyes down.
"That business partner of mine—Mr. Hargrove—he's coming for dinner next week." Raymond's lips curl into something that might be a smile but looks more like a wolf baring its teeth. "He mentioned how pretty you are. How... ripe."
My blood freezes in my veins. I know what those words mean. I've been dreading this moment since my mother died two years ago, leaving me alone with this monster who married her for her money and stayed for the power of controlling her daughter.
"I'm seventeen," I whisper, though I know age means nothing to men like Raymond.
He laughs, a grating sound that scrapes against my ears. "Old enough. And it's not like you're good for much else around here. Hargrove will pay well for a night with you. Maybe more if you don't disappoint him."
The world tilts beneath my feet. I've endured so much—the verbal abuse, the occasional backhand, the constant fear—but this is different. This is a line I cannot allow him to cross.
"No." The word escapes before I can stop it.
Raymond's face contorts, rage replacing amusement in an instant. He stands, knocking over his chair, and stalks toward me. "What did you just say to me?"
I back up until I hit the wall. "I won't do that. You can't make me."
His hand closes around my throat, not enough to cut off my air but enough to make his point. His breath, hot and whiskey-soaked, floods my face. "You'll do what I tell you to do. Your mother left you to me, and I own you. I can sell you to whoever I want, whenever I want. And if you think you can stop me..."
The rest dissolves into threats so vile I force myself to stop listening. Something in me snaps—a tether I didn't know washolding me here. When his phone rings and he releases me to answer it, I don't think. I just move.
I grab nothing but the thin jacket hanging by the back door. My purse, my ID, my small savings hidden under my mattress—all left behind in my blind panic to escape. The only things I have are the clothes on my back and the fifty dollars I had tucked into my pocket earlier today when I thought about maybe buying a new book.
Fifty dollars won't get me far. Won't even get me a motel room for the night in most places. But I run anyway, down the winding driveway of the estate that's been my prison, out to the main road where I flag down a passing truck.
The driver—a middle-aged woman with kind eyes—takes one look at my face and opens the passenger door. "Where to, honey?"
"The city," I say, because it's the only place I can think of where I might disappear, where Raymond's reach might not find me. "Please."
She drops me downtown three hours later, refusing the twenty dollars I try to press into her hand. "Keep it. You look like you need it more than I do."
And then I'm alone, standing on a corner of a city I've visited only a handful of times, always under Raymond's watchful eye. The skyscrapers loom overhead like sentinels, their windows gleaming despite the late hour. The rain that started during my escape has followed me here, soaking through my thin jacket, plastering my hair to my scalp, numbing my fingers and toes.
I wander aimlessly, hugging myself against the chill. Where do you go when you have nowhere? What do you do when every option has been stripped from you? Hotels require credit cards I don't have. Shelters might ask questions I can't answer. And Raymond... Raymond will be looking for me by now, his rage building with every passing minute.
The rain comes down harder, turning the world into a blur of neon reflections on wet pavement. My teeth chatter and my body shakes, not just from the cold but from the realization that I might have escaped one nightmare only to run headlong into another. Hunger gnaws at my stomach. Exhaustion pulls at my limbs. Fear drums a steady beat in my chest.
I find myself in front of a building that seems to touch the clouds, all gleaming glass and polished stone. The windows reflect my pathetic image back at me—a soaked, trembling girl with wild eyes and desperation written across her face. I look like prey. I feel like prey.
For a moment, I consider going back. At least Raymond's house offers shelter, food, a warm bed. At least there, I know what to expect, how to navigate the minefield of his moods. Out here, I'm adrift in an ocean too vast to comprehend.
But then I remember his words—"I can sell you to whoever I want"—and I know I can't go back. I'd rather die on these streets than become a commodity to be traded between rich, powerful men.
A sleek black car pulls up to the curb in front of the building. I step back into the shadows, instinctively trying to make myself invisible. The car door opens, and a man steps out—tall, imposing, wrapped in an expensive coat that the rain seems afraid to touch.
Even from my hiding place, I can feel his presence—a gravitational pull that makes the air around him seem charged. He moves with fluid grace, the kind that speaks of absolute confidence, of never having to question his place in the world. His dark hair is short, slightly tousled in a way that looks deliberate rather than accidental.
