Prologue

THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS:

With a girl running through a forest, her veins tight with adrenaline. She exhales in short, even bursts. There is dirt under her fingernails, fresh mud stains on her jeans, blood on her sweatshirt, and vomit on her breath.

Soon.

Soon she will be home.

Images surface. The one stoplight on Main Street. The chipped green shutters of her house. The weathered flooring of her father's commercial fishing boat.

In the distance, a horn blares and she ducks, covering her ears, the sound slicing through her skull like an anguished scream. The world shrinks and becomes abstract, too colorful and too bright. The horn recedes and the trees slowly refocus.

She counts her breaths as her heartbeat steadies. One. Two. Three. Then she counts her steps. Four. Five. Six. How many will it take for someone to find her? Seven. Eight. Nine. Her bones are heavy, her feet tired. She has traveled a long distance. Her shadow stretches ahead of her, as if she's chasing it—come and catch me. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Her body wavers. Maybe she should sit down. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. She pushes herself to keep going. The sun rises higher behind the gray clouds. The air smells of pine and resin. Like water and moss. Like life itself.

"Hey! Are you all right?" A pair of hikers—father and son—appear, rounding the corner of the trail. They wear overstuffed backpacks, rolled sleeping bags at the top, a pot hanging from the bottom of one, two metal cups from the other. The girl slows her pace and draws closer to them.

Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen.

The father places an arm across his son's chest to shield him from the girl, and she falters, caught in the chokehold of their gazes. The son's eyes are brown with tiny flecks of gold, and they remind her of someone she used to know. Her mind tumbles and trips back in time.

Tell me, what would you do for someone you love?

Anything. I would do anything.

The father clears his throat. "Miss, are you all right?" He studies her.

She imagines what he sees. Filthy skin. Tangled hair. Bony body. Bloodstained sweatshirt. She is something the world has chewed up and spit out.

The son's nose twitches.

"Miss?" the father says with more force this time. He takes a single, tentative step toward her.

The girl licks her dry, cracked lips and works to keep her voice steady as she answers, "Yes?"

"Are you all right?" the father asks again.

The girl blinks. Shakes her head. Stares into nothing. "No, I don't think I am."

"What's your name?"

"My name?" Who is she? What has she become? A vessel. To be carried. To be kept. To be filled.

"Yes, what's your name?" The father drags the words out.

The girl hesitates. Her name is stuck somewhere inside of her. Down in the deep, deep dark where she hid it. To be safe. Don't remember. Never forget. She squares her shoulders and reaches for it.

"Elizabeth," she says on a whoosh of breath.

She has not spoken those four syllables in forever. Her name. Her real name. The name her mother picked because it was classic and royal and carried all her hopes and dreams for her daughter—college, career, a family, happiness. Once, the girl had worn her name proudly, like a crown. Once, someone whispered her name back to her, love on their tongue.

With a final twist, the girl wrenches her whole name free. "My name is Elizabeth Black. I think I'm missing."