Prologue

PROLOGUE

TIMOTHY

My first memory is from when I was eight.

A nice lady in a pretty pink dress came to our family home. I almost didn’t answer when she knocked. I wasn't supposed to talk to strangers.

But if she kept making noise, my parents would wake up in a foul mood. It was still dark outside, meaning I had hours of peace ahead of me if I could just get this lady to leave.

I swung the door open, the words ‘leave, please’ on my lips. Yet when I saw her soft smile and brightly colored clothing, I froze.

“Hi, Timothy. My name is Margot. There’s been an accident. I’m here to take you to your grandfather.”

Grandfather? Accident?

Did she have me confused with someone else? My parents were asleep upstairs. They’d never be awake this early.

Plus, I didn’t have any family besides my parents. They’d told me so for years, making sure I knew I had to depend on them completely.

Movement behind her made me jump.

Two police officers stood a few steps back, their eyes watching us closely. Oh, no. The police being here wasn't good.

I didn’t know exactly why. Only that Mom and Dad talked about them the same way Paster Dev talked about Satan in the pulpit on Sunday mornings. That had to mean something, right?

Not wanting to cause trouble, I let the lady inside. She motioned for me to lead her to my room.

Dirty sheets on a hardwood floor. A balled-up shirt as a pillow. A backpack half open with my schoolwork thrown all around it.

I winced as I realized my parents would be mad about someone seeing this. I wasn’t allowed to have friends for this exact reason. No one could know how we lived. It was part of the rules.

We packed up my clothes together, the lady talking a mile a minute.

“It’s rather warm where you’re going. You won’t need these coats,” she said as she laid down the barely held together winter jackets I’d scrounged from the lost and found last year.

I nodded, then went back to packing.

“Oh, and you need to wear something comfy for the plane ride. Nothing fancy. Cozy will do.”

Her gaze went over my jeans that were more holes than denim and the partially ripped shirt I had on.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, even as my hands began to sweat and my body trembled.

“Oh, such good manners. That’s sweet.”

She’d said I had to take a plane to get to my grandfather. Planes were dangerous. They’d fall out of the sky and crash, killing everyone inside.

It was better to drive. You could control your future that way.

Ignorant of my fear, the woman guided me from the house we’d been living in for the last six months.

Nothing could have prepared me for how much my life would change after that. How I’d go from barely eating each day to having three square meals plus snacks. How my days would be spent surrounded by love and affection instead of neglect and hatred. How I’d forget all the bad that came from before.

While some kids might have been upset at losing their parents so young, I couldn’t complain. Besides, when I lost them, I gained so much more.

Moving to Bellport, Louisiana, gave me a new start. It gave me a future I was excited about.

And eventually , it gave me happily ever after.