PROLOGUE
TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO…
The little boy’s stomach grumbles and twists with hunger pains. He can’t remember a day, an hour, or a minute when it didn’t feel as if his stomach was eating itself away. Although starvation has been present most of his life, it never gets easier.
His mom doesn’t even notice her own hunger pains anymore, let alone the way her son’s cheeks have sunken in or his hollowed-out eyes.
His mom, with her mouth hanging open, is still slumped in a half-upright position on the couch, one of the two furniture pieces left in their tiny one-bedroom apartment. Slowly, things have disappeared. His bed. The kitchen table. The small number of toys he’d accumulated from his mom’s visitors to keep him quiet and away. She told him it was to pay rent and keep a roof over their head, but he knew they were lies.
On the third time the landlord came to collect the rent, his mom told the boy to go for a walk. Which turned out to be a regular thing every time the landlord came over. He’d always be gone when the boy got back, but every first of the month, he’d showback up, and the boy would leave the only safe haven he knew, if you could call it that.
He doesn’t know or care how she convinces the landlord to let them stay, he’s just happy to still have somewhere to sleep at night. Once when he was nine, they lived outside for six months until one of his mom’s friends offered to let them stay with her. It was the most miserable time of his life. Adding the cold to the hunger had been far worse than now.
A lot of guys come around these days. Sometimes they get mad and scream at him if they can’t wake her up, but it’s not his fault. She can’t even wake up when her own child begs and cries for her that he’s hungry.
But he’s grown tired of begging. It makes him feel so helpless. And nothing changes from day to day anyway.
Another pain twists his stomach, and he turns back toward the fuzzy TV, barely able to make out the picture on the screen. It used to work okay, but one of his mom’s guy friends ripped off one of the rabbit’s ears.
Climbing off the dirty floor, he walks over and stands in front of his mom. His hands are fisted at his sides as he stares at her. Seeing her like this used to make him sad. He used to worry that she was dead. Now it only makes him angry.
He watches the other moms outside of their crappy apartment through the dirty glass, holding the hands of their children, walking along the sidewalk. The way they smile down at their kids makes his heart constrict. His mom has never looked at him like that.
He nudges her shoulder, but she barely moves. He pushes a little harder.
“Mom, wake up. I’m hungry.” He despises the note of pleading in his voice, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. He’s too hungry. Too starved. The nausea and the cramping have started.
She doesn’t react.
“Mom,” he says a little louder. When she still doesn’t move, he shakes her shoulders with both of his little hands.
She groans. “What?” Her face screws up and she pushes him back, not bothering to open her eyes.
“I’m hungry.”
“Go away.” She swats her hand in the air and lies across the couch.
“I need something to eat.” He wants to stomp his feet, but he knows only little kids do that.
“So get something.” She lifts one skinny arm and motions in the general direction of the kitchen.
Does she really not know the cabinets are empty?
“Mom, wake up.” His voice hitches at her disregard for his well-being.
When her breathing evens out again, he knows trying to wake her is a lost cause. His hands squeeze into fists, and he lets out an angry grunt before stomping off to the small bathroom.
The little boy can’t wait for the day when he doesn’t have to rely on anyone to take care of him. When he’s an adult like his mom, he’ll take care of himself no matter what.
He stares at himself in the cracked mirror and turns on the water, saying a small prayer that water will come out of the tap.It does, and he splashes water on his face and arms, then a small amount to stick his hair down.
He figured out quickly that if he’s dirty or smelly, his marks are more likely to see him coming. But if he takes the time to clean himself, they usually think he’s just like any other kid his age. No one immediately notices his worn clothes and the dirty shoes with holes. Most people are too busy with their own lives to really pay much attention to him.
He leaves the apartment with one thing on his mind—pickpocket someone with enough cash in their wallet to buy himself a meal at the family diner down the street. The waitress there is nice, and sometimes she sneaks him a piece of pie.
Two hours later, the boy returns to the apartment with a full belly, worried that maybe he ate too much. He’s eaten too fast or too much before and thrown it up only for the hunger to come on faster again, which means everything he did to get food was for naught.
The moment he closes the apartment door behind him, a shiver runs up his spine, and his muscles tense.
