Page 35

LIA

I had my driver let me out at the front lobby. I’d dressed in power-beige this morning, monochromatic almost, from my shoulders down to my boots, so I looked like I belonged—it was like wearing office camo—plus I still had my badge in my purse, right next to the Ativan Dr. Genziani had given me.

I scanned through the lobby and the elevators, and took the first one up to the right floor, and three turns in an open-office concept later, I could see one of the glass cages, like the ones Rhaim and I had taken over, when we’d started on the IPO, only this time it was full of stuffy old men.

Including my father.

Including my uncle.

I froze.

I hadn’t seen him in person since my father had pulled him out of the fire—and I’d been crying then, that it hadn’t worked, that I hadn’t managed to kill him—and it was like a decade’s worth of tears that’d been stoppered up inside started flowing now, instinctually.

I couldn’t stop them, and I hated the way I betrayed me.

“Miss Ferreo?” asked one of my father’s secretaries. She was overburdened with binders, probably catching the board up on all the work I had done before I’d been shoved out. “Are you all right?”

I was not all right.

I was twelve.

I was ten.

I was nine.

I was falling.

I was trapped.

And then Freddie Sr. stopped talking to the man beside him, looked out, spotted me, and smiled.

I felt the wet heat spreading down my thighs before I consciously knew what was happening—and then I ran away, chased by my memories and shame, to the elevators, and when one didn’t come fast enough, into the stairwell, where I raced down five flights before throwing myself into a corner and bawling my eyes out, while keeping my legs open, trying to dry out my pee.

I was helpless.

I was hopeless.

And no one was ever going to save me.

Time passed, while I let the cold cement around me press in. The lights were nice and bright inside the stairwell, so that was good—and there were no moths here, just me, unable to escape again.

Again-again-again-again-again, I thought, and I let the word spiral around me, until it was imaginary, like everything else in my life.

Things had stopped having meaning, I didn’t even know how long ago.

They just didn’t.

Real life was a river that I stood on the banks of and felt wash around my feet, but anytime I tried to walk in, it spit me back out.

You’re not real.

You don’t matter.

You’re not here .

“Lia?” And then I heard a familiar voice, that pushed away the encroaching doubt, grounding me immediately. “Little girl?” it asked again, this time far more concerned, and a broad shadow flew over me as Rhaim rushed down.