Chapter 1
London
He found me.
I shove clothes into my duffel with hands that won't stop shaking. Three t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, underwear, the hoodie with the broken zipper that's still warmer than nothing. My fingers leave bloody smears on the fabric—myblood. The cut on my cheekbone throbs, a fresh split from his ring when his fist connected.
I don't look at the damage. I know what it looks like, but I've had worse from Greg Bowman.
The fire escape rattles under my weight as I swing my leg over the windowsill. My duffel catches on a nail, and I yank it free, tearing the canvas. Inside my apartment, I can hear him—boots crunching over broken glass, his voice a low, dangerous rumble.
"London. Londonnn. Where the fuck are you hiding, you little bitch?"
I don't breathe. I don't think. I drop to the metal landing and take the stairs two at a time. My worn sneakers barely grip the rusted grate. Three floors down. The alley below is dark and stinks of old garbage, but it's freedom.
When my feet hit the concrete, I run.
I go six blocks before I slow down. Seven before I dare to look back. The street behind me is empty—just parked cars and closed storefronts. I hear city sounds—the distant wail of a siren, the honk of a car horn—but no Greg. My lungs burn.
Three weeks. That's how long my independence lasted. Three weeks of working double shifts under the table, of eating ramen and stale bread, and sleeping with a knife under my pillow because old habits don't die when the threat is still breathing. I was careful. I paid cash for everything and didn't give my new address to anyone.
But Greg has friends. Greg has connections. Greg spent years training me to believe I could never escape him, and tonight he almost proved himself right.
The cut on my face weeps warmth down my jaw. I wipe it with my sleeve and keep moving, no destination in mind except away.
My mother would tell me to come home if she could tell me anything at all. But Mom is in a hospital room on the fourth floor of Henry Ford Hospital with a tube down her throat and machines making her chest rise and fall.
My mom’s an addict. Pills, booze, sex, anything she can get high from, she’s drawn to. Lately, it’s a new drug called Raven—a drug that's eating this city alive. Raven sank its teeth into my mother eight months ago and almost ended her life.
Mom was never clean. Like, ever. Not in my lifetime anyway. I can't remember a time when she was fully sober, fully present. But Raven was different. Raven didn't just get her high. It hollowed her out. It took her from functional addict to zombified in a matter of weeks. I watched it happen. I saw her eyes glass over, saw her forget to eat, forget my name, forget everything except the next hit.
I found her on the kitchen floor three weeks ago. Blue lips. Barely a pulse. The paramedics said if I'd arrived ten minutes later, she'd be dead instead of comatose.
I visited her yesterday. I sat beside the bed and, while the monitors beeped their steady, meaningless rhythm, I held her hand—the same hand that used to brush my hair when I was small, before she hooked up with Greg and drugs rewired her into someone I couldn't trust or rely on.
Now I'm on the street with a split face, twenty dollars in my pocket, and nowhere on this entire planet to go to find refuge.
No family. No friends. Greg made sure of that. He cut me off years ago with threats and lies. Anyhow, it’s hard to maintain friendships when you can't invite anyone over, can't go out past dark, and can't explain the bruises. My coworkers know me only as the quiet girl who takes extra shifts.
A 24-hour laundromat materializes ahead, its fluorescent lights buzzing behind fogged windows. I push through the door, and the humid air wraps around me, carrying the scent of soap and dryer heat and the rumble of machines. Two other people occupy the space—a woman folding towels with headphones in, and an old man dozing in a plastic chair with a newspaper over his face.
I find the farthest corner, wedge myself between a dryer and the wall, and slide to the floor with my duffel clutched to my chest.
Think, London. Think.
But thinking is hard when your body is still flooded with adrenaline, when every shadow through the window could be Greg's silhouette, when the reality of your situation is a bottomless pit.
I can't go back to my apartment now that he knows where it is.
I can't go to my mom’s place since Greg lives there and the lease is in his name. Every piece of my childhood that survived his rages is locked behind that door.
I can't go to the police. I tried that once, at sixteen. Greg charmed the officers, called me troubled, showed them prescription bottles with my mother's name on them and said I’d been stealing and taking her drugs. He convinced them that I was the one with the problem. The cops believed him and wrote in their report that I was a difficult teen, a liar, and anything I said should be questioned. Essentially, Greg made sure I never called them again.
I press my forehead against my knees and force myself to breathe. In and out. In and out.
My hand drifts to the inner pocket of my jacket. It has a broken zipper that I safety-pinned shut. Inside is a piece of paper I've carried for two years. Folded and refolded so many times the creases have worn thin enough to see through.
I pull it out and stare at the three words in my own scrawled handwriting.
