LIFE PATH [BOOK I] | JENLISA

TWO

LISA

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2000

I'D KNOWN I might face death if I ran.

If not from a bullet, then starvation or exposure.

That was why I'd waited far longer than I should have. Why I'd lost weight that I needed and strength I couldn't afford to lose. I'd been sold to the Kims two winters ago, and I should've been smarter.

I should've run the night they filled my mother's fist with cash, stuffed me in a urine-soaked car, then shoved me in the barn with the rest of their kiddie prisoners and introduced me to my education the very next day.

The night I was sold was hazy, thanks to a strong cuff to the head when I'd dared to cry, and these days, I couldn't remember my mother, which was fine because I never knew my father, either.

I only knew that we'd been made to call Mr. and Mrs. Kim Ma and Pop.

I'd obeyed out loud, but in my head, they were always the hated Kims. Just as hated as their blood relative currently foiling my escape plan.

I glowered at the baby girl, adding another level of intensity, doing my best to work up enough rage to kill her and be done with it.

Just like I didn't know my father, I didn't know how she'd ended up in my backpack. Had she crawled in by herself? Had another kid put her there? Had her mother even placed her inside for some reason?

The bag wasn't mine. The scuffed-up thing belonged to Mr. Kim who filled it with booze and thick sandwiches when it was harvesting time. It sat bold and dusty by the door, hanging out with its friends the musty jackets, broken umbrellas, and well-worn boots.

I scratched my head for the hundredth time, trying to figure out the riddle of why my carefully plotted escape had somehow ended up with an unwanted passenger.

A passenger that couldn't walk or talk or even eat on her own.

Tears pricked at my scratchy eyes.

I should be miles away by now, but I still hadn't solved this problem. I still didn't know how I could run quietly and hide secretly with a baby who would, at any moment, start screaming.

Just because she'd been deathly quiet and serious since I'd found her didn't mean she wouldn't expose me and get me killed.

I cocked my head, studying her closer, hating her pink clean skin and glossy black curls. Her cheeks were round and eyes bright. She was a mockery to every kid in the barn with sunken faces and withered bodies that looked like trees poisoned by petrol.

She was lucky. She'd been cared for. She'd slept in a bed with blankets and teddy bears and hugs.

My fists curled, reminding me all over again of my one missing finger on my left hand.

Would they miss her?

Would they search for her?

Would they even care?

I'd lived my life with one existence: where parents were cruel and beat their children, branded them with hot cattle irons, and fed them by trough and pail.

Up until a year ago, I'd believed that was how all kids were treated. That we were all vermin only fit to toil-Mrs. Kim's words every night as we crawled exhausted into our mismatch of cots and pallets.

It wasn't until the night Mr. Kim cut off my pinkie for stealing some freshly baked apple pie that I saw a different story.

I'd tempted fate by sneaking back into the farmhouse-which was the very reason I had nine digits and not ten anymore. After passing out and coming to from the pain, I'd exhausted my search for a cleanish rag to replace the blood-soaked undershirt around my severed finger, and decided the farmhouse would have a tea towel I could borrow.