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Part One
The Price of Mason
Teresa
Ellamore, Illinois
Teresa Nolan clutched a plain manila folder to her chest as if it were some kind of life preserver. In a way, she guessed it was. The contents consisted of a petition for a name change, an order to show cause for the change, her social security card, birth certificate, and driver’s license. All things to help her become someone new.
Someone safe.
Next to her, her mom shifted uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair just outside the county clerk’s office. “How long have we been waiting?”
Teresa consulted her phone as a new text popped up. “Seven minutes,” she answered, checking the time before opening the message.
E: Is it done yet?
Sighing over the persistent nagging from her cousin, she wrote back.
Teresa: Soon. We’re at the courthouse now. Waiting.
To which she received an immediate response.
E: So there’s still time to change your mind?
Teresa turned the phone off and stuffed it back into her purse. She wasn’t going to change her mind, no matter how much E insisted this was a bad idea. Rubbing the back of her neck, she trailed her fingers over the scar where Jeremy had cut her. If she hadn’t turned at the last second, that scar would’ve ended up on the front of her throat, and she probably wouldn’t be alive right now.
Staying alive seemed more important than keeping her name. Even her parents agreed. So, no, her mind was not going to change. She was doing the right thing.
She hoped.
Okay, maybe she had no idea what the right thing really was. But she was still doing this. She had to do something to protect herself. And every few seconds when the doubts rose, she just swallowed them determinedly back down.
Her mother leaned toward her. “You saw the packet in the mail this morning from that college, right?”
That college.
Teresa nodded, her indecision bubbling up her throat again, tasting bitterly like panic. The package hadn’t been from the university she’d always planned on going to in her hometown but from some no-name community college halfway across the country, near her aunt. After she and her mom were done here at the courthouse, Teresa planned to head home and start packing so she could move hundreds of miles away and into the loft above her aunt’s garage, where she would attend classes at that college, using her new identity to remain far-far away from her psycho ex-boyfriend, Jeremy, who’d tried to kill her.
Her knee began to bounce as she remembered the look in Jeremy's eyes when he’d told her no one would ever love her the way he did. She’d never forget the light that had glinted off his knife or how terrified she’d been when he’d slashed his blade toward her.
Her mom set a reassuring hand on Teresa’s thigh, making her jump and then stop bouncing her knee. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’re doing the right thing.”
Teresa nodded again, the action more certain than her resolve.
“We’re going to send you somewhere he won’t find you. And then, as soon as the trial’s over and he’s locked away for good, we’ll change all this back and you can come home again. Okay?”
Teresa gave a third nod, this one less enthusiastic. She didn’t have quite as much faith in the “temporary” part of the plan as her parents did. Jeremy’s father was a powerful attorney. The odds of putting him away forever didn’t feel as if they were in her favor.
And what if Jeremy did go free? What if this moving away, hiding, and changing her identity business ended up not being temporary? What if he just found her, and she had to run again, or he actually succeeded in killing her the next time? What if she was never Teresa Nolan again?
