You call this fate?

Prologue

There are some moments in life more potent than others. You know the kind; the ones that form like a gaping wound and never truly heal. Time allows you to worry the scab and, when you finally cave and do the deed, you find the festering inside worse than you could imagine, a toxic dump of rot only waiting to be released.

The second most potent day of my life started with me escaping in a stranger's truck and hiding in the basement of a family I'd never met. I was being hunted. They wanted to hurt me, to take me back. Or maybe this was the last straw; maybe this time they would just kill me.

Maybe I would let them.

I crawled into a corner behind a tattered sofa, the baby in my arms mumbling in sleep. In the faint glow from the skylights, barely enough to look by, I focused on her face, on the fuzz of auburn hair blazing over her head and the fluttering eyes, open a crack in deep sleep. I'd promised to look after her. I'd promised Gerald I would look after her, this child who wasn't mine but would have to be from now on.

I couldn't die. For this little girl, I couldn't. After months of faded hopes, there was finally someone who needed me. Someone for whom I was the whole world, in every sense of the word.

I had to live. I would live. And I would be free while I did that.

There was loud banging on the front door of the house, the sound reverberating through the walls and reaching my ears like the flapping of death's wings. I shrank into myself, placing a light hand over the child's mouth without thought, like I meant to smother any screams she might utter. The wall behind my back was cold and damp, its chilling fingers caressing my back and whispering the secrets of graves.

My fractured foot lay twisted in an uncomfortable comma, the pain blazing a trail of fire up my leg. Hitching a wild gasp, I pulled it closer with a shaking hand, panic lending strength to my already failing resolve.

"Open up!" came a deafening bark, surprisingly clear this deep down in the bowels of the house. I crammed my lower lip into my mouth, listening to my heart beating in my throat. A minute went by.

"Where's the bitch?" The words were louder and clearer than before. I hadn't heard the keys turn or the door open, but the men were in. They had let them in.

"Who?" a timid female voice gasped. "Who're you talking about? What are you doing?" She sounded alarmed. If my life hadn't been hanging by a frayed thread, I would have smiled.

"Get out of the way." There came the sound of a thunderous crash, followed by the song of shattering glass. There were decorative ceramic plates on the mantle, I remembered. Had he pushed her into them? The fine sheen of sweat on my forehead pooled into large drops, snaking into my eyes.

"Mom?" came another woman's voice, this one high-pitched and terrified. She had been up in her room, I knew. "Mom, what—"

"Go upstairs, Tasha! Stop doing this! There's no one here. Who are you looking for?"

Wood splintered. Furniture legs dragged against marble flooring. "Where are you, little bird?" sang the man. "Where are you? Is this where you're hiding? Come out, baby doll, and we won't hurt you. Come out..."

"Oh, for God's sake, who are you looking for?"

"A girl," a different, still unfamiliar, voice said. While the first man was too loud and too broad, almost growling, this one spoke in cultured, smooth tones, as if bored with the ongoing affair.

I couldn't place their voices. He didn't come. A smile leaked over my lips. He didn't come.

"A girl about your height," the soft-spoken man was saying, "with dark hair and brown eyes. She would've been scared and asking you to hide her. I do hope you didn't listen," he added with feigned concern. "That won't go down too well for all involved."

"A girl? You think—" Loud thuds interrupted her. Boots on stairs. My senses were so heightened with adrenaline I felt myself in the room, right there with them. "Where do you think you're going? There's no one there!" The thuds continued, followed by a squeal. "Don't touch her, you filthy bastard! Tasha, come here!"

The loud man laughed and the girl shrieked once more. Then came the sound of pattering feet, and: "Baby, are you alright? Did he hurt you?"

Whatever Tasha said was too low for me to hear.

"No one need come to harm, madam," the soft-spoken man said. "Just tell us where the girl is."

"I've seen no one! Do you think I would let some random girl come into my house this time of the night? Do I look mad to you?"

Something crawled up my barefoot, over the dried blood and swollen flesh, something with too many legs. I swatted at it with a shaking hand, tears springing to my eyes as I bit down harder on my lip.

"There's no one here, sir."

"Keep searching, Bill. She has to be somewhere." I could hear the impatience in Softy's voice. The smashing and shattering continued.

Finally, the knob on the basement door rattled.

The breath left my lungs in a strangled wheeze. The baby jumped, eyes starting to flutter. I smoothed a trembling hand down her back, sure I would be dead—or worse—in the next ten minutes. My torn chamise was riding up and I stared at the bruise on my inner thigh, at the four fingers and thumb in vivid blue and purple, wondering if my heart would finally give out.

"Open this door! Where does it go?" Bill sounded very excited.

"That," said the older woman, tone sharp, "is the basement. And here,"—the sound of tinkling keys—"go ahead and see what's in there too. There. Is. No. One. Here."

The keys jingled louder. I dragged a thick curtain from the ground over my head, pulling the child back a little and sticking her thumb in her mouth. She gurgled deep in her throat, then started to suck. I pulled my legs yet closer, the blinding pain all but drowned in a surging wave of raw panic, and let the billowing cloth settle over us.

The door creaked open.

"Where's the light?" Steps descended the staircase.

"The bulb popped two days ago. We haven't gotten around to fixing it," the older woman said. Thud, thud, thud. "There's nothing down here, I keep telling you."

"Hmm..."

The click of a torch being turned on was ominous in the dead silence of the basement. The crashes resumed. I tightened my arms around the child, breathing in her ear to drown out the sounds.

It was a minute or two later, as the frantic search continued, that I felt the many-legged creature on my leg again. I tried to sit still. I tried so, so hard. I sucked in a silent breath and counted till ten as my ears caught on fire and my nails all but dug into the baby's back.

But I must have moved, for the curtain shifted.

I froze. No, no, no... They hadn't seen. They couldn't have seen. They—

"Now, what was that, I wonder... No one here, is there?"

At the sound of the gunshot, the baby opened her eyes.