PROLOGUE

My father had at last drawn us back into his orbit, yet I knew I couldn’t stay.

Lying in the dark, the familiar knot tightened in my stomach as I thought about my mother’s disappearance and all the times my father had abandoned us, leaving me in the care of an abusive uncle.

 

After everything that had happened, I hoped that being back with my father would feel like coming home. Instead, I found myself trapped inside of his ever-changing world. I was done with brown rice and mugwort tea. I was done with making macramé plant hangers to support his business.

​

I didn’t realize then that my decision to escape home would set in motion a chain of events that would pull me deeper into a savage, unforgiving world.

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I was already awake when the alarm clock beneath my pillow went off at five a.m. I quickly dressed, carefully climbed the basement stairs, and slipped out the back door.

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Crickets chirped as I stepped into the cool morning. The sky was filled with stars, but the birds hadn’t started singing yet. I paused and took a deep breath, looking around as though I were waiting for some kind of blessing—a sign that I was doing the right thing.

Omens sometimes appeared when I needed them most.

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Barefoot, I wore my favorite blue sweatshirt and carried my Converse sneakers in one hand and my heavy backpack in the other. Crouching low, I peered into the alley.

My boyfriend was waiting.

​

Willie’s silhouette stood beside his dusty-blue 1972 Toyota Corolla, the hatchback open. The moon cast a long shadow behind him across the dark alley.

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Willie was nineteen, tall, and wore a big Afro. Being with him made me feel grown up. I thought about the day we had met at Winchel'ls Donuts several months earlier—shortly before I robbed the place with Ricky.

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The night before, I had taken the garage key from my father’s keychain and left it in the lock. Now I turned the handle on the yellow-brick garage door facing the alley and slowly lifted it.

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My heart pounded as we loaded my boxes into the back of Willie’s car. I imagined my father discovering what I was doing and coming after me.

​

Would he try to stop me?

 

Or would he shrug and say he didn’t know what my karma was—that I needed to find my

own way?

 

But the car was loaded, and there was no time to dwell on it.

​

Willie climbed into the driver’s seat and quietly closed his door. Then he leaned across and pushed open the passenger door.

​

“Get in, Baby,” he whispered urgently. “We’re going home.”

 

I was thirteen.