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Do not feel sorry for yourself, I reminded myself. You are free. And the school was not your home anyway. You graduated. You could not stay, unless you chose to take the veil.
A little giggle escaped my lips at the thought of myself as a nun, perhaps even a teacher, at the convent. But the ache did not go away. I lay there, letting the remnants of my meal go cold in the bag.
My eyes snapped open. The room was dark. I must’ve fallen asleep, I thought groggily. I looked around the unfamiliar room, feeling completely disoriented.
That’s when I saw the doorknob move.
Someone was outside the room.
Someone was not just outside the room, they were trying to get in.
I stared wildly around, saw the fire escape, and shoved all my belongings into my backpack. Thankfully I hadn’t spread out, other than the local newspapers where I had been hunting for jobs and cheap sublets. I didn’t have much, but I wasn’t going to lose it because of some creeper who had followed a young girl. Or a thief checking random doors in a hotel, most likely. But it could be worse.
It could be my family.
Not yet. They could not have found me yet.
I was out the window and looking back longingly at my bag of now room temperature hamburgers when the door opened slowly. I scrambled down the fire escape, but not before I made eyes contact with the man coming into the room. He was in black with a ski mask over his face.
So a professional thief. Or a practiced rapist. I felt a cold shiver of dread traipse down my spine.
Definitely not someone sent by my father, if I had to guess. Those guys would be wearing custom made suits. I didn’t know much, but I knew that.
Our eyes locked. It felt like forever. Then I was dropping to the ground. I’d moved so fast that I hadn’t even registered taking the metal steps two stories down and letting go.
The alley was dark and empty. My knees hurt from hitting the ground. I forced myself up to my feet and started moving. Every step brought a shockwave of pain. I was limping as I ran out to the street and around the next corner, zigging and zagging through the city until I nearly collapsed.
I leaned against a building, looking around. No one was there. I had lost them. I hadn’t been followed.
My knees burned where I’d scraped them, tearing my jeans when I fell. The heels of my palms were bloody and raw. I flexed my hands and tucked them under my armpits. I started shaking.
I was in a whole heap of trouble.
There was nothing around here. Not even a diner where I could wash my hands and get a cup of coffee. I was tempted to walk and try and find another hotel or a place to go, but it seemed dangerous. In the middle of the night, I would stand out as a target on the streets. I had to find a place to hide until morning. I saw a thin alley between two buildings. It was the only place not lit by the unrelentingly bright streetlights.
I slid into the shadows to wait for the dawn.
CHAPTER FIVE
Vice
“Where the fuck did she go?”
I looked up from my phone, realizing belatedly I had spoken out loud. I was on the street outside the hotel Trace had tracked her to. I had been in LA for almost two days before he even found it. And now she was gone?
Fuck me.
Her room had been broken into. The clerk at the front desk hadn’t wanted to tell me at first. But I had paid him off to see the room and seen the scratches around the door jam myself. Only then had he admitted that the window had been wide open when they came to clean the room when she hadn’t checked out a day or so later.
Apparently, she had paid in advance. In cash. Smart girl. She was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
There were no signs of a struggle, unless they had done a damned good job of concealing it after the fact. That meant she had gotten away. But who had gotten to her first? Her father? A rival family?
Or, more likely, some random guy who had seen an extremely beautiful girl on her own and wanted to take advantage?
My blood ran absolutely cold as that scene flashed through my mind. Anastasia was so innocent to the ways of the world. The thought of anyone touching her, even of them simply frightening her, made me sick to my stomach.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said, scrolling through the camera feed on my phone. Trace had hooked me up so I could obsessively try to track her on the fly, while he was doing the same damned thing back home.
