Prologue
Grey
Age 8
I sneered at the cop who had just closed the door to the SUV I had been placed in.
All he did was take one look at my clothes, and he didn’t bother to say anything to me.
Sure, they were threadbare. Sure, there were holes in the knees of the well-worn jeans I had on. Sure, there were holes in the t-shirt that it couldn’t be called a t-shirt anymore.
And yes... he had seen me dumpster-diving for food.
Sometimes, you just had to do what you had to do. And when it came to feeding myself and my six-year-old sister... I had no qualms about doing something to take care of us.
Two hours later, I was sitting behind a table.
The metal cuffs around my wrists were aggravating.
I rubbed at the skin.
The door opened, and a man in black pants and a blue button-down shirt walked in.
And had I been in the right frame of mind, instead of starving... I would have started to put two and two together.
But I wouldn’t... not until years later... not when everything could have been different.
He pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
Then he asked, “Why were you dumpster-diving?”
And since he was the first person to actually ask me a relevant question, I answered him, “My mom probably ran off with some man. She left my six-year-old little sister and me alone with no money. Kacie said she was hungry.”
The man looked at me, looked deep into my eyes, and then he seemed to come to some sort of understanding.
That was when he pulled something from his pocket and gestured to my wrists.
The moment I put my wrists on the table, he used a key and unlocked them.
I sat there with my arms braced on the table as he walked out of the room I had been taken to.
And I sat there for an unknown amount of time.
I was released two hours later.
My sister was there waiting.
Her dirty-blonde hair was in a disarray that needed to be washed, and her dirty clothes were too small on her already smaller body. She was six, yes, but she looked like she was four.
Her dark green eyes, the color so much darker than mine, came to me then. And there in those depths, answers I wouldneed for years to come reflected back at me... I just hadn’t known that at that particular time.
We were placed in a car and taken to a home.
Foster parents, we were told, were taking us in.
And so, the course of our childhood had been set.
Age 9
