Chapter One: Laina

The light of the sun was so much stronger than I remembered. I walked along the sidewalk, barefoot, squinting all the while. My shoulders were slumped—my right one in particular ached like a bitch. My face hurt too, but all that was nothing compared to the pain throbbing up my left arm from my hand.

I didn’t know where I was. A shitty part of town, but that wasn’t saying much. Most parts of this place were shitty. The house I’d finally gotten out of was as nondescript as a house could be. All you had to do was keep walking, and eventually you’d wind up downtown.

People drove on the streets, not bothering to stop and help me. They probably didn’t care about a girl hobbling along, dripping blood as she went. Most people in this city had turned a blind eye to the bad things in it, especially during the day. Again, the sun was so freaking bright, it was damn near blinding.

I walked for what felt like hours, and maybe it was. Maybe it really did take me hours to reach downtown, to where the buildings skyrocketed toward the sky, all shiny and new.

This city had seen so much. One bloodied girl hobbling along wasn’t so out of the ordinary. Not long before I’d been kidnapped, for instance, the city was almost taken over by a man and his followers. A little makeshift army full of stupid, angry people who wanted violence. Law enforcement had handled it, as far as I was aware. My dad never told me any of the details.

I spotted a police car parallel-parked in front of a deli that took up the corner spot beneath a five-story high building, and I managed to reach the car and knock on the window with my elbow.

Nothing.

I leaned down and saw the cop wasn’t in there. Of freaking course.

“Hey, you. Get away from the vehicle,” a woman’s voice called out, and I turned to see a female officer exiting the deli, holding onto a brown paper bag. Her lunch, I assumed. She wore all dark blue, her uniform, and her mouth was drawn into a thin line. Her eyes were hidden behind aviator glasses, so I couldn’t see her expression.

She closed the distance between us, repeating, “I said—” But then she must’ve noticed how dirty I was, how beaten-up I was, the way blood dripped from my left hand and fell down my arm as I held it against my chest, for her tone quickly changed, “Do you need help?”

Uh, duh, I needed some freaking help.

“My name is Laina Hawkins,” I told her, sounding quite calm, given the circumstance. “My dad is Vance Hawkins, the mayor.”

The officer almost dropped her bag, muttering, “Shit. You’re that girl that was kidnapped.” She reached for the radio on her chest, repeating some code I didn’t know, along with requesting an ambulance. After that, she cautiously walked toward me, setting her bag down on the roof of her cruiser.

It was all a blur after that. She tried to ask me what had happened to me, where I’d come from, the house I’d escaped from, but I didn’t feel like talking much. I kept my mouth shut. Eventually, backup arrived, along with an ambulance. A crowd had gathered, and as much as the cops tried to keep them away from me, it didn’t matter.

It was only a matter of time until everyone in this city knew who I was, I’d make sure of that.

I was packed up and brought to the hospital, where they checked out my injuries and asked me countless more questions. The doctor tried to ask me how my injuries happened, especially the one on my left hand, but I told him I didn’t remember. It was all hazy in my head, the adrenaline pumping too much for me to really comprehend reality.

I didn’t know how long it took for them to clean me up, bandage me up, and get me hooked on IVs with fluids and some kind of medicine to help ward off infection, but it felt like an eternity.

Laying there in a hospital bed, bandaged up, watching everyone practically racing in the hall as they went back and forth, around the police who’d stationed themselves outside my door, was kind of funny. All this time, I’d been right under their noses, and they never noticed.

I wondered how long it’d take for my dad to come. It was probably why the cops had stopped asking me questions about my kidnapper and where I’d been, where I’d escaped from—he’d given them an order to leave me alone or something. Being the mayor, he had certain privileges, and therefore I did, too.

My dad had gotten what he’d always wanted. It was time for me to get mine.

Someone new walked in the hall, and I flicked my eyes to the windows in my room, watching. It wasn’t my dad. It was a woman, along with a man wearing a suit. She looked to be in her early twenties, with blond hair a shade off from mine. She and the man in the suit were talking to the police officers. Their voices were muffled, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

I didn’t know them, so I didn’t really care.

After a minute, the woman turned toward my door, coming inside. She gave me a smile as she shut the door behind her, locking the man in the suit and the police officers out. She wore a sparkly outfit that showed off her legs, and she had bright blue eyes that reminded me of mine. A pretty light shade that made other girls jealous.

She sat down in the chair beside my bed, pulling it closer. We had the room to ourselves, no roommates here. Again, being the only child of the mayor had its privileges.

“What’s your name?” she asked, her voice careful. She leaned toward me, her gaze focused on me and me alone. Though she sounded nice, she seemed intense at the same time, like she was two steps away from crazy.

“Laina,” I answered her.

“Laina,” she repeated. “My name is Lola. I hear you’re the mayor’s daughter.” She glanced at the windows, at the man in the suit, who was still talking to the cops in the hall. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here.”

I managed to shrug. “I don’t really care.”

That got her to laugh. She didn’t seem to care about my attitude. “After what you’ve been through these last two years, I get that. Look, I know you don’t know me from some random person on the street, but I’ve made it my mission to protect the girls in this city. I’m sorry we couldn’t find you. I’m sorry this had to happen.” She gestured to my left side, where my hand sat, bandaged up.

I lifted my left arm, letting my eyes fall to the space where my pinky and my ring finger should’ve been. The doctor had said it was a clean slice. “Why would you look for a stranger? You don’t know me.”

“No, but like I said, I want to keep the girls in this city safe. When I heard you were kidnapped… to be honest, I thought you were dead. I thought no one in this city would ever see your pretty face again. Or your body. Bodies have a way of mysteriously disappearing here.” She smiled at that, like she was talking about rainbows and butterflies and not dead bodies.

“What do you want?”

“The cops said you don’t remember where the house is, where you got out.” When I nodded, she went on, “Do you remember anything else about it? Was there anyone else there with you? Another woman?”

I was slow in shaking my head. “No, I was alone the whole time.” Well, except for when my Devil visited. Then I was the opposite of alone.

“You don’t remember seeing any other rooms where other girls might’ve been held?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Why? Is someone else missing?”

Lola nodded. “Yeah, she went missing right before you, so I thought maybe it was connected… but maybe not. This city does have some sick fucks in it, so I shouldn’t be surprised there’s more than one kidnapper out there.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so in the end, I said nothing.

“You fought with your kidnapper when you escaped. Did you kill him?”

It took me a while to mumble, “I don’t think so. It’s hard to remember.”

She leaned toward me, setting a hand on my right arm and squeezing it. “Listen, I know I’m a stranger to you. I know you have no reason to believe in anything I say, but believe me when I say this: I’m going to do everything I can to make sure no one hurts you again. I’ll put one of my guys on it. If your kidnapper is still out there, watching, waiting to take you again, he won’t get close enough to try.”

All I could say to that was, “Okay.” Again, I didn’t know this woman or why she cared so much about me. Was it all because she thought I could lead her to my Devil, who in turn could lead her to her other missing woman? She wanted to use me, just like everyone else.

Lola got to her feet. “Get some rest. I assume dear old daddy’s gonna be here soon. I’ll be in touch, Laina.” She said nothing else, spinning on her heels and sauntering off, walking out of the room and exchanging a few words with the man in the suit.

Lola. She seemed nice enough, but I detected a hint of crazy. I didn’t know who the hell she was, but whoever she was in this city, she had to have some power, for the police to let her come in here, unaccompanied, and ask her own questions. Some kind of big name in the criminal underworld or something.

I watched as she and the man walked away, leaving the police stationed outside my door. Well, whatever that was about, I hoped she found her missing friend—if only so she wouldn’t have to use me to try to find her.

Now that I was free of that room, I didn’t want to go back to the way things were. I wasn’t the girl I used to be. Two years had passed. I was nineteen now. I wouldn’t go back to hiding in the shadows, being the good girl my dad wanted me to be. I was my own person, and there was only one thing I wanted to do.

Laina Hawkins wanted to fuck shit up.