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Prologue
The girl woke up screa
The pain that had engulfed her the night before hadn’t subsided while she lay unconscious, lulled to sleep by the drugs the doctors had given her The pain wrapped around her legs, defying theveins
She tried to sit up in her hospital bed and look around the dark room There was no one there, not even her parents She started to shake and cry, not understanding what had happened to her, not able to deal with the agony that had taken over
She was alone and forever daed
Finally one of the night-shift nurses appeared at the door and ca over to her
“What is it, Ellie?” the nurse asked but the girl couldn’t speak Her sobs were too powerful She could only shake her head anddown her face
The nurse knew She quickly adirl’s ar, one of the worst instances the nurse had ever seen The doctors had done what they could but without insurance, her parents were unable to pay for any reconstructive surgery A skin graft could have saved the girl fro horrible scars in the future
Her parents weren’t even around They had been sitting in the waiting rooone elsewhere, leaving the girl alone in the hospital The nurse was extre fro to the way they explained what had happened to the girl
Though it was believable that the girl came from the type of low-income family that would allow her to search for car parts on a nearby trash heap, the whole story about accidently spilling battery acid on her leg didn’t ring true The nurse thought it sounded like her parents were probably running aor abusing the girl There was definitely soirl had been in so much pain that neither the doctors or the nurses could find out what her version of events were
Except now The girl’s sobs were subsiding as thequickly in her eleven-year-old syste whether or not she should try and ask her This was a job for Child Services, not her, but there was soirl she wanted to protect It was like she could see the child was already da happened
“Ellie,” she said gently, srow up to be a stunning wo promise in the usually aard pre-teen phase Thather beauty would be marred by the scars that would come
The girl opened her wide brown eyes and looked up at the nurse Her face et fro pain
“Ellie,” the nurse went on, “are you able to tell me what happened to you?”
The girl blinked, unsure of what to do or say She could barely remember what happened herself but knew that what had happened rong And even though her parents hadn’t told her yet to keep quiet about Travis Raines, the bad man whose house her mother made her break into, she knew all too well to keep her hter of con artists, after all, and truth was never an option
Still, there was a part of her that wanted to tell the nurse what happened She wanted to get the Travis man in trouble She wanted him to be put away for what he did to her
“I … I don’t reirl said, so terribly afraid she’d tell the truth
The nurse studied her “Do you re for car parts?”
Car parts? The girl had no idea what her parents had told the doctors The confusion cah for the nurse to pick up on it
“Ellie, as the last thing you re, did your parents do this to you?”
The girl’s face fell as she tried to figure out what to do
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” A at the doorway
The girl cringed at the sound of her ly delirious state, she orried that she er her
A at the nurse
“Why are you questioning“That isn’t your right”
The nurse stepped back froize “I’m concerned about her”