I nearly leave before I cross his name off, but I remember. Taking the note from my back pocket. I see the one side first, her name and address and then turn it over. A list of names, seven of them, one already crossed off stares back at me. With the pen from the cup holder, I cross off Jay Danning. I’m surprised the mark is so clean compared to the first line I’d drawn through the name above. It’s then I notice my heart pounds harder when I think of her than it does from what just happened.

Soon. It’ll all be over soon.

HALEY

10 years ago

Shame weighs on me, heavy and suffocating, but the fear cuts even deeper, slicing me to the bone.

The reality that weighs me down: I’m fifteen, and I’ve been arrested.

Arrested.

The word echoes in my head, driving the shame even deeper. Anxiety washes through me in waves.

Two men burst into my bedroom while I was sleeping and pulled me out of the bed. They handcuffed me while I stood there in my pajamas. I couldn’t understand what they were saying. My screams didn’t help. My pleas for them to stop. The terror was far too overwhelming.

Arrested? Me?

It was a bad dream. It had to be a bad dream. It couldn’t be real.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to wake up.

But I didn’t wake up.

Not even when they started to take me out of my bedroom. They weren’t cops. Not real cops. They were kidnapping me.

I struggled, and my shoulder hit the poster that's been hanging on the back of the door since I was eleven. The actor’s face tore in half, and the paper crumpled under one of the men’s feet.

“Mom!” I knew she would come for me. I knew she’d stop these men from kidnapping me. That’s what they had to be doing. Not arresting me, kidnapping me. “Mom, help!”

One of them slapped me. Fast. Unthinking. Like he done it a million times before.

Shock betrayed me, making my body still as they gathered me up making my fighting useless.

“Stop. Dad!”

I hadn’t been getting along with my parents. They didn’t like the friends I made at school. They didn’t like the dark clothes I’d been experimenting with.

They didn’t like how I’d stayed out a few times, unable to make myself leave.

But they wouldn’t let this happen. They wouldn’t! My parents were going to stumble out of their bedroom any second and save me.

I tried to shout it as we passed their bedroom door, but there was too much to say.

“Mom, please,” I screamed instead. “Mom, they’re taking me. Mom! Dad!”

But the door didn’t open.