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PROLOGUE
NINE YEARS OLD
The baby wasn’t crying anymore.
I wasn’t sure when I noticed that he’d stopped, but it was the silence filling the room beyond mine that dragged me from sleep.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes.
Why wasn’t he crying?
Sometimes he would cry for hours, and there would be short bursts of silence interspersed with wailing screams.
Sometimes he would only cry for a few minutes. Maybe he was sleeping.
He didn’t sleep much, though. Mama said he had something wrong with him that made it hard for him to sleep.
I turned my head, listening closely for any sounds coming from the living room. My fingers squeezed the bars of the crate as I pressed the side of my face to the metal. I held my breath and listened.
Not a single sound.
That meant George wasn’t here. He was always loud. Shouting at Mama, blaring the TV, shouting at the baby, shouting at the neighbors, stomping around our apartment like he owned it.
In the quiet, with the faint sounds of cars occasionally passing by outside, I pulled the corner of the thin pillow back, reaching underneath for the small hairpin I’d hidden there.
I’d gotten good at picking the padlock George put on the crate. When he was gone, I’d sneak out and check on the baby, check on Mama, and get some food. Use the toilet. Sneak some snacks and hide them back in my crate.
My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, so I hurried to the lock, stuck my small hand through the bars, picked it open. It clattered to the floor, and I flinched. Froze and listened for any signs of a reaction. Any sign that George really was home and was being quiet for once.
Nothing.
Carefully, I lifted the small bar and pulled it out, then pushed open the door and crawled out. Finally standing after being stuck in that crate felt good, and I stretched a bit.
Oh, the hairpin. I had to remember to hide it again. Crawling back inside the crate, I tucked it safely into my hiding spot, then emerged once again and pressed my ear to the door.
All I could hear was my heartbeat and my own breathing. Carefully, as slowly as I could, I turned the knob and cracked the door open, peering outside.
The hall was dim, the only light coming from the edge of the living room. I couldn’t see much from here, so with light feet, I stepped into the hall and crept along the cold wood floor.
Mama would be in the living room with the baby. She was always there. She’d told me once that her job was one she could do at home, and though I didn’t understand what it was and she never really explained it past I entertain some friends every now and then, I did understand that whenever these men came over, I had to go hide in my room.
But that all stopped when George came to live with us last year. Mama had a new baby, I had a younger brother, and George…
Well, I wasn’t sure he liked any of us. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to be here when all we ever did was make him angry. He had been nice, in the beginning. But that kindness had slowly melted away until all the was left was a mean man with nothing but hatred for us. He hated me the most because I was always questioning him. He’d tell me to do something and I would ask him why I had to do it.
Mama never really told me to do anything. She didn’t care what I did. But George cared. And I didn’t like listening to him. He was big and mean and smelled like smoke and garbage.
He called me an ungrateful brat. One day, he brought home an enormous crate. I’d thought maybe he’d gotten a dog, but my excitement was short-lived when he informed me that if I didn’t want to obey him, I could spend all my time in here.
Being in the crate didn’t make me want to obey him. It made me angry.
But I’d figured out how to use Mama’s hairpins to pick the lock, and whenever he went out, I’d sneak from the crate and visit Mama and the baby.
I really loved my baby brother. He was so tiny and he never cried when I was with him. I even got a smile out of him once.
When I reached the edge of the living room, I braced my hand on the wall and peered around it.
I didn’t know what I was looking at.
