My gaze locks on a glistening body of water peeking through lush trees across the congested street. I break into a pathetic run toward it. Cars blare their horns at me, barely swerving in time to avoid taking me out. I’m skin and bones. The impact would kill me in an instant.
I spent so long wishing for death, but now that I’ve had a taste of freedom, I want nothing more than tolive.
Ichooseto live.
As soon as I breach the line of trees bordering the river, I leap into the cold, murky water. I sink all the way down to the rocky bottom and hold myself there until my lungs ache.
Still, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach won’t leave. I want to claw my skin off. I want to scream until my throat goes hoarse. I want to incinerate his touch embedded into muscle and bone. Into the very center of my being.
That man is dead. But deep down, I know he has forever broken me.
CHAPTER ONE
EZRA
ELEVEN YEARS LATER
Standing in the middle of a pockmarked, blacktop street, I stare at a rundown warehouse and sift through my latest thefts, trying to figure out where I fucked up.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’d get myself into trouble. Fate had my name on a list from day one. I cheated it once, and now it wanted payment in blood. Not just mine, either.
Dragging fingers through my chin-length blonde waves, I spin my lip ring around with the tip of my tongue. Fuck my self-preservation instincts today. I don’t have much to show for my short time on this earth, anyway. Just a backpack stuffed with ratty clothes, a shitload of trauma, and a long-time friendship with an old homeless man I call Jakey, who might not even realize if I never make it back to our side of the city.
Jakey.
Visions of my reed-thin friend, battered and bruised, flash through my brain, his favorite tattered Carhartt jacket I stole for him freckled with blood, and a fucking piece of paper stapled to his chest with a map of this location sketched on it.
To say I wish I had the strength to mess these people up for hurting my Jakey is an understatement, but even after all these years of freedom, I can’t seem to steal enough food to keep more than lean muscle on my bones.
As I stride to the chained gate, my eyes trail the razor wire fence surrounding the massive warehouse. Might cost me a few new scars to clear it if shit goes south, but it’s doable.
Four men clad in black with balaclava masks spill out of a graffitied security booth, rifles cradled in their arms. I dig my black-painted fingernails into the soft flesh of my palms as my heart dips in my chest.
I really fucked things up this time, didn’t I?
Stealing began as a means to ease the gnawing ache in my stomach. With no true skills or education, I had zero hope of finding a job when I escaped that basement. Humans aren’t designed to handle my amount of baggage, but I’ve done my best to cope on my own.
I’d expected the police to pick me up and convict me of murder. No one ever came. And I had no desire to ever return to a foster home. They’d all proven just how little my life actually meant, especially when the CPS visits stopped altogether.
That should have been my first red flag to run.
Eventually, I stumbled upon kind, quirky Jakey in a scrapyard. Catching sight of me lurking among the trash as he warmed his hands around a barrel fire, he invited me over. Told me wild, fantastical stories to settle my nerves. Promised me he would never hurt me.
Jakey restored my faith in humanity. Hewantedto care for me like the parent I’d never had, but I quickly realized how much he needed me to take charge.
I can’t say that was the start of my troubles, but the pressure to make sure I always had cash on hand definitely pushed me toward the edge of a cliff.
One I now actively choose to leap off.
The adrenaline rush of stealing made me feel alive. Invincible. Even when I sometimes got bloody. My injuries were never enough to stop me from having another go, like some fucked up thrill ride I couldn’t quit.
So, when the offer came to take on bigger thefts—mostly swiping confidential business files for a random guy that haunts the docks—I hadn’t put much thought into where those jobs would lead me. I was desperate for the money to get me and Jakey on the other side of the river.Permanently.
Chest leaden with guilt, I approach the warehouse gate. The closest gunman drags it open enough for my thin body to slip through. Guns immediately point at me and shouting commences in another language, deep and throaty. I don’t understand a single word of it, but I lift my hands in submission.
“Um… I think I’ve been summoned,” I say, battling the urge to fidget when one wrong twitch of a muscle could have me turned into swiss cheese.
I’m motioned toward the warehouse, three of the gunmen closing in around me, and my pulse shifts into a higher gear.Nothing but a rat in a cage.
