The Girls I've Been(6)

It all unraveled pretty fast. When they fell, they fell from a damn tall height, so the crash was all the worse. And when they rose again, what Mom did to rise like that . . . Well, Lee doesn’t talk about that time. Not when she’s sober, at least.

I wonder if she thinks I’ll judge her. I don’t know how she thinks I could. She knows what I’ve had to do to survive.

Broken girls, both of us, growing up into women with cracks plastered rough over where smooth should be.

Me, I was born into the con. Came into the world with a lie on my lips and the ability to smile and dazzle, just like my mother. Charm, people call it. Useful is what it is. To see into the heart of someone and adjust accordingly, instantaneously, to mirror that heart? It’s not a gift or a curse. It’s just a tool.

I’ve never known a time when Mom wasn’t working someone. Or what it’s like to have a dad who loves you, even briefly. And I’ve never known a life outside of lying.

But I remember the first day I met Lee. I was six, and she was . . . strong. In the way she moved, how she dressed, the look she shot Mom when she started making excuses about my not going to school . . .

I’d never seen anyone who could shut Mom up. Mom was the one who bewitched people.

Lee didn’t need to bewitch. She commanded.

I’d never felt more instantly connected to a person in my life. I didn’t love her immediately. I was already too wary for that. But I recognized something in her, something I wanted to be but couldn’t even articulate yet: free.

I didn’t know then that she walked away from that day with a plan forming. The idea that I was out there under Mom’s thumb gnawed at her. And Lee, she’s the type that gnaws right back. It would take six years for her to execute her plan fully. But when she’s got a mission, Lee’s scary-focused. And getting me away from Mom was her mission.

Now? Getting me out of the bank is her mission. But I’m not twelve anymore, and she’s not alone this time.

She’s got me.





— 8 —


9:28 a.m. (16 minutes captive)

1 lighter, no plan



Gray Cap’s gun is steady, but his eyes aren’t. They’re darting back and forth, from the seven of us to the ringing phone, then to Red Cap’s position near the door. He can’t decide where to pour his anger.

I can see the moment it clicks. His focus zeroes in on the teller to our left, the shotgun swinging to point at her. “Did you hit the alarm?”

I’m jammed between Iris and Wes like Nora-meat in a sandwich, so when Wes tenses and Iris’s breath hitches, I don’t just hear it and feel it, I’m practically absorbing their stress through my skin. Because they both know if Lee’s outside, it’s because I sounded the (metaphorical) alarm.

“No, no, I didn’t!” the teller insists.

He steps forward again, into the little lobby we’re crowded in, and we can’t shrink away fast enough because there’s nowhere to hide.

“Is she in a patrol car?” Gray Cap asks Red, who’s still flattened against the wall, peering out the sliver of window available to him.

He shakes his head. “Silver truck. She’s dressed normal.”

“Gun?”

Several. But Lee won’t pull them out unless she has to.

“Can’t see one.”

Gray Cap is just itching to shoot someone. I can see it in every line of his face. I know that look.

The phone keeps ringing. My sister’s outside, a wall and who knows how many feet away. Lee’s been my sense of safety forever, and I want her like I’m little again. Like I wanted her that night when everything went to hell.

I have to remind myself I’m older now. Almost a grown woman, with my shit-kicker boots and my choppy hair, and all the damage wrought on me scarred into strength. I hate the whole “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” saying. It’s bullshit. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you is worse. Sometimes what kills you is preferable. Sometimes what doesn’t kill you messes you up so bad it’s always a fight to make it through what you’re left with.

What didn’t kill me didn’t make me stronger; what didn’t kill me made me a victim.

But I made me stronger. I made me a survivor.

Well, me and Lee and my very patient therapist.

“Maybe you should answer the phone?” The teller’s voice trembles as she suggests it. “The police—they’ll give you what you want, I’m sure.” Her words dissolve as Gray Cap turns to stare at her, the gun swinging close.

“What’s your name?” he asks.

“Olivia.”

“I’m going to just get this out there,” he says, leaning forward. “Whatever they’ve trained you to do in a robbery? Throw it away, sweetheart. I know your rules—and the cops’ playbook—front to back.”

“Please,” she whimpers.

I’m so sure he’s going to shoot her, I’m about to rise to my feet when the phone stops ringing, and the silence is so abrupt, it snatches his attention away.

Iris’s shoulder twists against mine, and Gray Cap whirls at the absence of noise, too late to stop Red Cap from picking up my sister’s call.

“You fucking—” he starts, and then he doesn’t say anything else, running over to the phone and snatching it out of his partner’s hands.