Page 3 of The Vagabond

MAXINE - TWO YEARS AGO

W e were probably going to die there.

Not immediately. Not violently. Not in some cinematic blaze of glory. No—we were going to die slowly. In that crusty halfway house on the edge of nowhere, forgotten by everyone who once cared, and hunted by the ones who never did. The kind of place time forgot. Or maybe abandoned on purpose.

The paint peeled off the walls in long, curling strips like dead skin. The porch creaked under its own weight—and under ours, every time we paced it like caged animals. The air was thick with mildew and dust and bad memories that had soaked into the walls and stayed.

Mia said the monsters would come eventually. And when they did, it would be a fight to the death. At the time, I thought she was being dramatic. But now? What the fuck did I know? Because in the space of a week, our whole world had crumbled.

Dad died.

Then the phone calls started—silent, breath-heavy, careful threats meant to wear us down. Then the house got hit. Twice. Mason grabbed us in the dead of night, threw us into his car without so much as a plan, and dumped us in that decaying house like broken furniture.

Just me, Sophia, and Mia. Our trio. Our tragedy.

And right then? I was pretty sure Mia wanted to smother both of us with a pillow and call it mercy.

We were driving her insane. And honestly?

I got it. Sophia and I weren’t built for hiding.

We were built for lipstick and lighting, nights out and attention.

We were nineteen, restless, and wired wrong with grief and boredom.

We snapped at each other constantly—over the stupidest shit.

Who got the last packet of ramen. Who used up all the hot water.

Who stole whose mascara. And Mia—our twenty-five-year-old, overly responsible, always-too-serious older sister—was unraveling by the hour.

She hadn’t smiled in days. Had barely slept on that mattress-on-the-floor excuse for a bed.

Every second she wasn’t guarding us, she was standing at the window, clutching the curtain like it might save her if something came through the dark.

“Mason says this neighborhood’s perfect for laying low,” she told us. “No one would think to look here.”

Yeah. No one would look. Because it was dead out there.

No cars. No neighbors. Just crumbling sidewalks and rotting porch swings.

Houses that looked like they were built during the Depression and left to die during the Recession.

This wasn’t hiding. This was waiting. And waiting felt a lot like drowning.

The house itself groaned like it was trying to evict us.

The water ran yellow. The plumbing whined like a dying thing.

Everything smelled faintly of mothballs and hopelessness.

Mason dropped off supplies every few days. Always with that same haunted look. Always with the same line:

“Just a little longer.”

But none of it felt temporary anymore. Even the shampoo he brought felt like a metaphor—two-in-one, hotel-grade, the kind that made your hair feel like it belonged to someone else.

I hadn’t felt clean in days. Not really.

I was starting to forget what being myself even felt like.

And that scared me more than any monster waiting outside.

Then came the truth—or the pieces Mia let us hear. Dad had been stealing from dangerous people. The kind who didn’t send court summons when you crossed them. They sent guns. They sent silent warnings.

And now there was a bounty on our heads we couldn’t buy our way out of, no matter how many boots or handbags we pawned.

I hated him for it. Not just for dying. But for leaving us behind to pay for his sins.

I flopped onto the couch like it might swallow me whole.

“How much longer do we have to stay in this dump?” I grumbled.

Sophia didn’t even look up.

She was busy examining her nails with the intensity of a surgeon.

“God, I’m so overdue for a manicure that it’s physically hurting me.”

Mia didn’t blink. Still at the window, scanning the street like she was waiting for the devil himself to show up. Her jaw was clenched so tight it looked like it hurt. Her eyes were hollowed out from too many nights without sleep.

“The alternative is being trafficked or killed,” she said flatly. “So yeah, I’m good with this hellhole.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “Dark much?”

“She’s not wrong,” I muttered, picking at a loose thread on the couch. “You’ve seen the guys Dad did business with. Not exactly the boy-next-door vibe.”

Sophia smirked. “That’s one way to meet a billionaire.”

Mia turned. Slowly. Her gaze could’ve shattered glass .

“A billionaire who buys girls isn’t someone you want to meet, Sophia.”

Sophia twirled a piece of hair around her finger, playing dumb.

But I saw it—the flicker of unease in her eyes.

We were annoying and we knew it. We were being brats.

But neither of us knew how to stop. The walls were too close; the days too long.

Our whole lives had been ripped away, and now we were expected to behave like grateful refugees.

“You’re going to die alone and bitter,” Sophia said, directing her words at Mia with a dramatic sigh.

I smirked. “What’s the bet she marries before we do?”

Sophia raised a brow. “Please. This place has more cockroaches than eligible men.”

“Can we not talk about husbands when we’re hiding from assassins?” Mia muttered, turning back to the window like it might offer her a different ending.

“What’s out there that’s so fascinating?” Sophia asked, stretching out on the floor.

“No billionaires, that’s for sure,” I added, trying to laugh.

It came out wrong. Crooked. Hollow. Mia’s voice dropped to a mutter.

“Sometimes I wonder if we were adopted.”

Sophia grinned. “Please. You’re the ugly version of us. Obviously we’re related.”

It wasn’t funny. Not really. And Mia didn’t laugh.

She went still. Her fists clenched at her sides, knuckles pale with the effort of keeping herself together.

What I would never say—what pride and arrogance kept locked behind my teeth—was that I thought Mia was so much more beautiful than either of us.

With her halo of hair like spun gold and her eyes that reflected like chips of blue ice. We looked so much alike. But Mia was exceptional.

I braced, expecting the blow-up. The screaming. Maybe the lamp-throwing. But instead, she exhaled. Slow. Controlled. Scary.

“I’ve had enough of this freak show,” she said.

Voice cold. Quiet. Final. She flicked the TV on as she passed us. A grainy cartoon blinked to life—something old, something too bright and too cheerful for the graveyard we lived in.

“A cartoon? Really?” I called after her, desperate to break the crackling tension.

But she didn’t respond. She disappeared down the hall.

Shut her door. And just like that—the house got quieter.

And heavier. Like something had shifted.

Something had cracked. None of us noticed it at the time.

But that was the night the countdown started.

The night we stopped being just sisters in hiding.

And started becoming girls with a plan to run.

We shouldn’t have done it.

God, I knew that. I had told Sophia that—more than once. But her voice had been sharp and relentless, needling through my resolve like a mosquito I couldn’t swat.

“What would it hurt?” she had said, flashing that signature pout, eyes wide like she didn’t already know exactly how to weaponize them. “We’ll just go into the city. Get our nails done. Come right back. It'll be quick.”

It was never going to be quick. It was never going to be safe.

But at nineteen, fear didn’t feel real until it was too late.

And we were so tired—of hiding, of the silence, of the dust settling into our skin and making us feel like we were fading along with the furniture in that halfway house.

Of Mia, standing like a statue in the front window, watching for death in every parked car and passing pedestrian.

She was always tense. Always ready for war.

And when Sophia had leaned in close and whispered that she had a stash of cash hidden back at the house, it felt like fate cracking the window open—just wide enough for us to slip through. So we did.

We waited until Mia passed out from exhaustion—finally, blessedly asleep—and we ghosted through the house on silent feet. We had no plans. Just our petty defiance, and an urge to break free of our chains.

The freeway wasn’t far. We walked it like we belonged there, thumbs out, pretending we weren’t terrified teenage girls looking for trouble. A man in a beat-up ute pulled over. He had bad breath and a thick beard, but before I could blink, Sophia had already opened the door.

I should’ve stopped her. But I climbed in too, heart thundering, telling myself it would only be for a few hours. We'd be back before Mia even woke up.

The city looked the same. Familiar. Comforting. As if the chaos of the last few weeks had been some fever dream and we were finally waking up. Our street was quiet. Still. I remembered thinking the worst was behind us.

It wasn’t. We didn’t even make it to the front steps. Two black vans came out of nowhere. Fast. Coordinated. Professional. Screeching tires. Slammed doors. Boots hitting pavement. Hands. So many hands. Grabbing. Ripping. Splitting us apart. I screamed. Fought. Bit. Kicked.

Sophia’s voice—panicked and shrill—shouted my name, but it was already fading. Then the van door slammed shut, and she was gone. Just like that.

The last time I saw her, she was reaching for me. But I never got to reach back.

They took me to a club. Not even a nice one—sleazy, loud. The music made my skull vibrate. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I kept screaming Sophia’s name. Kept asking where she was. Over and over .

But it didn’t matter, because no one answered. They just stared. Leered.

Then a man stepped out of the shadows. His suit was tailored. His cologne sharp and expensive. He introduced himself like I should’ve cared.

“Frank Falcone,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mia’s.”

He said her name like it was a test. I said nothing. That was the moment I realized her name could kill me. That all of this—the vans, the hands, the silence—was because someone wanted to get to her. Or maybe all of us.

He asked where she was. I kept my mouth shut. No good would come of them having control over the three of us.

They dragged me down a red-lit hallway, the floors sticky, laughter muffled behind closed doors.

I was shoved into a room. A prison of sorts.

Tied to a chair. The ropes cut into my wrists like punishment for disobedience.

Then the camera came out. Click. Click. Click.

Flashbulbs like gunshots, photographing my humiliation like I was merchandise.

My shirt was torn open. No words were spoken.

Just angles, lighting—like I was being prepped for auction.

Then they untied me. Let me walk around the small, confined space like I should be grateful.

They didn’t need restraints anymore. The fear was doing that job just fine.

I didn’t know what day it was. Time blurred.

Hours stretched. No Sophia. No Mia. No escape.

They drugged me before the next phase. There was a burn in my arm, then cotton flooding my brain, the way my limbs betrayed me. The world grew soft around the edges. Slippery. Unreal. But what came next was very real.

The cargo ship. Metal groaning beneath my feet. Salt in the air. Girls—dozens of them—lined up like cattle. Some younger than me. Some older. All empty. All silent. Some cried. Some didn’t even blink. Just stared down at the floor like they'd already left their bodies behind .

Below deck, there was only darkness. The stench of seaweed, decay, and sweat. We were packed in like freight. Everyone was silent. There was just fear. So much fear. And in that darkness, I remembered what Sophia had said back in the halfway house.

“That’s one way to meet a billionaire.”

I almost laughed. Almost screamed. Instead, I vomited. Because she was right. I was about to meet one. But not at a gala. Not in a penthouse. Not in some modern-day fairy tale.

No. I met him drugged, shackled, and sold. His name was Altin Kadri. He didn’t greet me or give me his voice. He just looked at me like I was an investment. A thing.

They took me to his castle—yes, a fucking castle—perched high on a cold, foreign cliff. With stone walls and iron gates. Towers like jagged teeth.

The air smelled like old books and money and blood. I stumbled up the stairs. Half-conscious. Half-aware. My wrists still raw. My skin crawling with the weight of hands that touched me like I didn’t matter.

And in the haze of that descent into hell, I thought of Mia’s eyes—cold and clear and always watching.

I thought of Sophia. Her laugh. Her pout.

Her dreams of a life we would never have.

And something inside me broke. Because this?

This was the kind of billionaire Sophia had never imagined.

And I realized—brutally, irrevocably—that there was no saving me now.