The Girls I've Been(20)

He didn’t slap me or hit me. He pushed me. Right off the couch, right onto my knees, and my wrists would ache from the jolt into the next day. I clipped my head on the coffee table, and it took seconds or maybe minutes for me to realize that the sticky warmth chilling on my skin was blood.

When she shrieked, he hit her. The kind of punch that I didn’t know then—but would learn—rattles your teeth in your head and fills your mouth with a tang that you can’t spit or wash away.

And instead of doing what she always said she’d do if anyone hit us—packing up, leaving in a flash, starting up somewhere different, with a new mark—she just shrank.

I’d never seen my mother, in her precise manipulation and ballerina grace, ever tremble before. It scared me even more than the blood in my mouth, so when his fist came rearing back to deliver another blow . . .

I wasn’t strong or brave. I had just turned eleven, and I was scared and I ran.

I left her there as I hid in my room and shook for what felt like hours until finally there was a knock at my door and a coaxing voice. Baby, come out, okay? He’s sorry. He didn’t mean to. He wants to make it up to you.

It was textbook. But I didn’t know that then, because some level of danger in the men she brought around me was a given. It was my normal.

But her not leaving when the man becomes a threat was new.

The new normal.

Because Raymond was love.

Love conquers all things, baby.

And it did—it conquered her.

But I refused to let him conquer me.





Part Two





Trust Is a Spear


   (The Next 72 Minutes)





— 22 —


    The Original




To understand Ashley, you have to know Katie. And to know Katie, you must meet Haley. And for Haley to exist, Samantha had to first, for practice, and before Samantha there was Rebecca. But before Rebecca there was . . .

A girl.

She has a name. But I was raised to keep it close, like secret treasure.

She was a daughter, once. But she got old enough, and then she was a convenient distraction. A little older, and she became a tool. Just a little older, and she was bait.

And once she was old enough? Those years down the line, that ended in eighteen candles?

The con would evolve. Perfect daughters aren’t needed forever. They grow up.

Into perfect prey.

There’s a choice, when you know your fate’s to be hunted and gobbled up and used.

You can give in like it’s inevitable or you can turn the tables.

I was raised for a kind of slaughter. But I grew into a huntress instead. One who always hits her target. No matter what.

Rebecca and Samantha, they were practice.

Haley and Katie were the real deal.

And Ashley?

Well, she was dangerous.





— 23 —


10:45 a.m. (93 minutes captive)

1 lighter, 3 bottles of vodka, 1 pair of scissors, 2 safe-deposit keys

Plan #1: Scrapped

Plan #2: Maybe working



“Ashley Keane,” he says. He takes me in, and I let it happen without showing the fear sparking under my skin. “Holy shit. I thought you were a goddamn myth.”

“You did not.”

He shrugs. “That’s what everyone says.”

I stare at the bit of Ace bandage peeking out underneath the edge of his shirtsleeve. “You’re covering up a prison tattoo, right?”

He manages to stop himself before he reaches to grasp his biceps, but it’s a close call.

“But you’re not squirrelly enough to have been in recently. You’ve been out for a few years at least.”

He just watches me. Proceed with caution. Who knows what set him off when Lee talked to him.

“If you were inside a few years ago . . . tough guy like you? You would’ve known the right people in there. So you would’ve heard about me,” I continue. “Even all the way out here.”

His mouth twitches. He can’t help himself. Of course he’s heard.

“There’s a price on your head,” he says finally.

“You can just say he put out a hit on me.” I shrug. “You don’t need to get all archaic and Sheriff of Nottingham about it.”

“Is the quipping a nervous tic or something, kid?”

“You’re the one using terms better left in the medieval times,” I say. “Maybe I was wrong . . . Maybe you’ve been inside longer than I thought.”

He rolls his eyes. “Last I heard, he wanted you delivered alive.”

I smile. Make the mark correct you. It’ll make them feel smart.

Men like him love feeling smarter than people. And they already know they’re smarter than teenage girls, of course. Practically everyone thinks they’re smarter than a teenage girl. It’s what makes being one so powerful, if you know how to use that giant mistake of an assumption.

“I guess you’re right: not a hit exactly. What it is, is a lot of money for a prolonged road trip to deliver the goods. Which is why you should stop pointing that at me.” I look at the gun. “Because if you kill me and it gets back to him, he’ll be pissed. Also if you kill me, you lose out on a double payday. You could rob the safe-deposit box and take me.” I don’t even mention Red Cap, because I want to see if he will. (I know he won’t. I’ve got him pegged. He’s already planning on screwing that guy over.)