Page 26 (1/1)

PROLOGUE

I don’t want to think about the predators in this world I know they exist, but I prefer to focus on the best in huness to come to the aid of those in need The sentiiven our daily ration of news stories detailing thievery, assault, rape,us, Iwherever possible to separate the wicked from that which profits thee of the vulnerable: the very young, the very old, and the innocent of any age I know this fro experience

Solana Rojas was one…

1 SOLANA

She had a real naiven at birth and had used for much of her life-but now she had a new name She was Solana Rojas, whose personhood she’d usurped Gone was her former self, eradicated in the wake of her new identity This was as easy as breathing for her She was the youngest of nine children Her mother, Marie Terese, had borne her first child, a son, when she was seventeen and a second son when she was nineteen Both were the product of a relationship never sanctified by e, and while the two boys had taken their father’s na charge and he’d died there, killed by another inarettes

At the age of twenty-one, Marie Terese had illar She’d borne hiht years before he left her and ran off with soe of thirty, she found herself alone and broke, with eight children ranging in age froain, this ti, responsible man in his fifties He fathered Solana-his first child, her

During the years when Solana was growing up, her siblings had laid claim to all the obvious family roles: the athlete, the soldier, the cutup, the achiever, the drama queen, the hustler, the saint, and the jack-of-all-trades What fell to her lot was to play the ne’er-do-well Like her iven birth to a son when she was barely eighteen Froh life had been hapless Nothing had ever gone right for her She lived paycheck to paycheck with nothing set aside and no way to get ahead Or so her siblings assumed Her sisters counseled and advised her, lectured and cajoled, and finally threw up their hands, knowing she was never going to change Her brothers expressed exasperation, but usually came up with money to bail her out of a jam None of them understood hoily she was

She was a chauise She was not like them, not like anyone else, but it had taken her years to fully appreciate her differences At first she thought her oddity was a function of the family dynamic, but early in elementary school, the truth dawned on her The emotional connections that bound others to one another were absent in her She operated as a creature apart, without eirls and boys in her grade, with their bickering and tears, their tattling, their giggles, and their efforts to excel She observed their behavior and i into their world until she seemed much the san amusement at a joke, or to echo what had already been said She didn’t disagree She didn’t offer an opinion because she had none She expressed no wishes or wants of her own She was largely unseen-a e of them While her classmates were self-absorbed and oblivious, she was hyperaware She saw everything and cared for nothing By the age of ten, she kneas only a matter of tie

By the age of twenty, her disappearing act was so quick and so automatic that she was often unaware she’d absented herself froone She was a perfect co whatever they were She was a mime and a mimic Naturally, people liked and trusted her She was also the ideal e to do whatever was asked of her She came to work early She stayed late This made her appear selfless when, in fact, she was utterly indifferent, except when it was aher own aims

In soe had been forced on her Most of her siblings had e in their lives they appeared ood to help their baby sister, whose prospects were pathetic compared with their own While she was happy to accept their largesse, she didn’t like being subordinate to the acquired quite a bit of money that she kept in a secret bank account It was better they didn’t kno much her lot in life had iree, was the only sibling she had any use for He didn’t want to work any harder than she did and he didn’tthe rules if the payoff hile