Chapter 2

The Girl Behind the Fence

The first time I tried to escape Halcyon Ridge, I made it as far as the laundry yard.

I had spent three days studying the guards.

Shift change happened at 5:40 every morning. For approximately ninety seconds, the east gate was watched by one man instead of two. A delivery truck blocked part of the security camera whenever it reversed toward the kitchen entrance.

On the fourth morning, I slipped out with a cart of dirty linens.

I reached the outer fence before someone grabbed my coat from behind.

They dragged me back by my hair.

Blake Rourke, the man responsible for what Halcyon called “behavioral correction,” waited in the processing room.

He was broad-shouldered and heavy-handed, with a scar across his lower lip. My suitcase sat open beside him. Every item I had brought from home had been dumped into a stained trash bag.

Blake held up one of my shoes.

“Seven hundred dollars?”

I said nothing.

He checked the label.

“Twelve hundred. I stand corrected.”

“That is theft.”

“So is leaving before your debt is paid.”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

Blake struck me hard enough to knock me against the wall.

The room flashed white.

When my vision cleared, I tasted blood.

“You eat our food. You sleep under our roof. You use our electricity.” He crouched in front of me. “You owe us for every breath.”

“Roman Blackwood will kill you.”

Blake smiled.

“If he wanted you protected, he would have protected you.”

That sentence hurt more than the blow.

For the next four weeks, they worked methodically to erase the person I had been.

They took my name first.

To the guards, I became Intake 47.

Then they took my face. A strike from a metal buckle split the skin from my brow to my cheek, leaving a red line that no amount of makeup could hide.

They took the smoothness from my hands and the steadiness from my voice.

But I refused to let them take my memory.

I memorized everything.

Blake Rourke favored his left knee when he walked.

Darius Cole, the facility director, kept two phones and used the silver one only after midnight.

The trucks delivering food carried legitimate customs seals, but the vehicles used to transport prisoners had their plates changed twice a week.

The camera outside Dormitory C lost its signal for eleven seconds whenever the backup generator tested at 2:15 a.m.

I recited the details silently before sleep.

Names. Doors. Vehicles. Accounts.

If I survived, I would need more than my word.

One afternoon, Serena Voss entered the room where I was sorting packages.

Her cream-colored suit and red-soled heels looked absurd against the concrete floor. She ran another facility on the eastern side of San Aurelio, a place the guards called Red Haven.

She stopped in front of me and lifted my chin.

“This is the Vale girl?”

Blake shrugged. “That’s what she claims.”

Serena examined my face.

“Pretty, even with the damage.”

I slapped her hand away.

Blake raised his baton, but Serena stopped him.

“No. Pride photographs well.”

A camera was brought into the room that night.

They positioned five women beneath harsh studio lights and placed sealed boxes on a steel table. Anonymous viewers paid to decide what we had to eat, hold, or endure. The more frightened someone looked, the more money appeared on the screen.

I understood the business model immediately.

Terror was the product.

We were merely inventory.

When they turned the camera toward me, I forced myself to look directly into the lens.

“My name is Evelyn Vale,” I said. “Roman Blackwood is my guardian. Tell him I’m being held at Halcyon Ridge.”

The live feed vanished.

A guard drove his fist into my stomach.

I collapsed, fighting for air.

Blake seized my hair and pulled my face toward his.

“You just cost me forty thousand dollars.”

“Then you should let me call him.”

“You’re still waiting for Blackwood?”

His laughter followed me back to the dormitory.

Hours later, an alarm sounded beyond the walls.

Not the short warning used for an escape attempt. This one rang twice, followed by a burst of activity in the courtyard.

Engines approached.

Guards straightened their uniforms. Workers scrubbed blood from the corridor floors. The women from Dormitory C were locked belowground.

I watched through a crack in the storage-room door as a convoy of black SUVs entered the compound.

The center vehicle stopped beside the administrative building.

Roman stepped out.

For one impossible second, the world fell silent.

He wore a black suit with no tie, one hand buttoning his jacket as security personnel surrounded him. He looked exactly as he had the last morning I saw him—controlled, immaculate, untouchable.

Relief hit so violently that my knees weakened.

He had come.

Somehow he had heard me.

I shoved open the storage-room door and ran.

A guard shouted behind me.

I did not stop.

“Roman!”

He was less than a hundred yards away, speaking to a silver-haired man beside the SUV.

“Uncle Roman!”

His head lifted.

I reached the inner fence and wrapped both hands around the wire.

“Roman, it’s me!”

A hand caught the back of my shirt, but I clung to the fence.

Roman turned toward the sound.

Our eyes almost met.

Then a woman in a pale blue dress stepped between us.

Celeste.

She slid her arm through Roman’s and pointed toward the far side of the compound.

“The smell is making me sick,” she said. “Can we go inside?”

Roman glanced past her.

I screamed his name again.

The guard behind me covered my mouth and pressed something hard against my ribs.

“Make another sound and you’re dead.”

I kicked backward, but my body was too weak.

Roman’s gaze lingered on the fence.

For one heartbeat, I thought some part of him had recognized me despite the distance, the bruises, and the blood.

Celeste touched his face.

“Roman?”

He looked down at her.

Then he let her lead him away.

I watched the man who had raised me disappear into the administrative building.

The guard tore my hands from the wire. My palms were bleeding where the metal had cut them.

“He came,” I whispered.

The guard twisted my arm behind my back.

“He didn’t come for you.”

They dragged me toward the basement.

Before the door closed, I saw Celeste pause beneath the covered walkway.

Roman continued ahead with Darius and the other men.

Celeste turned.

Her gaze traveled across the courtyard and found me in the guard’s grip.

There was no shock on her face.

No confusion.

She knew exactly who I was.

Slowly, without taking her eyes off me, Celeste raised one hand and pointed toward the basement.

Then she made a small, unmistakable gesture.

Take her away.