Exhausted, starving, her body and mind battered, Addis knew she no longer had any fight left in her. But worse than that was the fact that she had finally accepted that she had nothing, and no one, left to hang on for. Picturing Aunt Grace’s face when she realized Addis would never be coming home again, she burrowed under a heavy blanket of guilt that she was giving up. She wished she had the will to go on, but she just didn’t.

Emerson.

Her best friend’s name was a whispered cry that eked its way past the balloon of grief in her chest. She squeezed her eyes tight against the memory of being pulled from the space below the cattle guard, her screams mingling with Emerson’s, watching her best friend’s wild-eyed panic as she’d shaken her head in denial and reached up as if by sheer will she could save Addis.

At that exact moment, Addis had known that her death was unavoidable, but that it didn’t have to be the end for Emerson, that in fact, this could be her friend’s best chance to truly escape.

An incredible pressure had built inside her as she mouthed I love you. Then, shutting out Emerson’s terrified screeching, she’d allowed her body to go limp as she was hauled up. She’d waited until her captor practically dropped her and turned back for Emerson before putting what remained of her waning energy into an earnest struggle, kicking, biting, and scratching until she’d spotted her best friend clawing her way out between the gap in the metal.

Run, Em, run. She’d pleaded with her eyes when Emerson wavered, her horrified stare trained on what was unfolding in front of her.

A rough voice had growled as two weathered hands clasped onto Addis and yanked her up, but the words had been lost in the violence of her struggle because she knew – she was no longer fighting for her own life; she was fighting for the friend who’d stood beside her through all life’s ups and downs. Even if the price was her death, she owed it to Em to try.

The last sounds she’d heard from Emerson were her soft, muffled whimpers a second before she’d slipped into the shadows of the trees. There had been a string of curses, and then Addis’s head had snapped back as pain exploded in her left jaw and radiated up into her temple, sending a burning sensation flashing across her entire face.

And then there had been nothing but darkness.

Until she’d woken up with the sun dipping into nothingness, and a few scattered stars beginning to peek through the fragmented clouds.