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A faht in my chest as I recalled the first pair of unwanted hands that tugged atno over and over again until it felt like my throat would bleed

"I tried to talk to my parents, to the school counselor, to one of , that I was reading into so that wasn’t there Aaron was just friendly, overly so, and his affection was his way of letting me know that he finally accepted me into the family The first time he raped me, I was fourteen I cried so hard when it was over, I madeaway from my head The air around us seey I couldn’t name It wasn’t a fun story to tell

"The abuse went on for two years No one listened, no one seeht it would stop when Aaron went away to college, but every weekend he came horier and ht, but it never got me anywhere When I was sixteen, June walked in on us She heard et away She freaked out, but not because her son was raping me, but because she orried what people would think if it got out her kids were fucking She was convinced herself I lead hi what I’d deserved The next , she and Bradley sat me down and explained how I had to keep it quiet They couldn’t is would look on the outside They orried about Aaron’s future I told the me, that he forced me, and they insisted that I was confused and emotional I waited until the house was empty, when they all went out for dinner, to pack upand slow, the pain inside s I’d survived the last teeks "They found me The cops pickedon at ho rong withthe abuse Tiht me back No one would listen to s with Aaron got worse I was his favorite toy and he never wanted anyone else to play with o to school anymore, wouldn’t let me out of the house I was a prisoner, but orse was that they acted like I should be grateful for what they were doing for me They reminded me I was in this country without a family and homeless without them"

The bed shifted as he pushed off of it I could feel hi like a heavy shadow over ot diagnosed with ed to escape I did rid, started squatting and living on the streets I got good at being able to disappear I found a guy who ht about leaving the city altogether, but this was the only home I’d ever known I also realized there was a need for someone like me, someone anted no one to knoho she was or where she belonged and could do the sahts have never heard of Noe Lee and I want to keep it that way forever"

He exhaled long and loud "Noe, because you said it over and over again Noe, because no one listened" Again, they weren’t questions because he already knew the answers "Fuck" The as sharp and sounded like it had been pulled froet so"

I kneas an uncoer when I was done leading hier see whenever I told anyone about my past, but at the s about Stark that kept ure out Snowden Stark, and it concerned ure out hoorked They said he was a robot, but they rong He was so the lines of the feared artificial intelligence that always took over the world in science fiction an to grapple with e fell apart and the humans ended up dead

I sure hoped Stark’s story had a different ending

Stark

I looked up from a bank of computer ed offafter Noe pulled back the curtain and let me peek into her past I hated her story I hated even more that it wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, or a version of it I hated that I’d lived inside the less horrible parts of that story er Trapped soht up in an iet out of It twisted me up inside and I was alet out and rewrite the story with herself as her own hero Inand a whole lot of innocence lost In my story, the heroes were villains, and I was a stupid pawn in a game I still didn’t kno to play

"You been down here all night?" Booker asked the question even though the ansas obvious I hadn’t moved fros were nu a thousand miles a minute, but I was oblivious to all of it because a couple of hours ago, reviewing security footage, I’d seen Jonathan Goddard crawl out of thatcontainer A blacked-out SUV had wheeled its way to the wreckage, and the Mayor had ed to limp his way inside He was alive

I picked up the coffee and ran a hand over the rough stubble that now covered the lower half ofthe container for survivors" Even though Benny wasn’t someone I wanted to spendfor to save Noe I was hoping he made it out of the fray and was on his way to the person that he’d been willing to deal with the Devil for

Booker grunted as he leaned against the desk He was back in a severely tailored suit One cut specifically to hide the bulge of the gun he wore strapped to his side "It records You could have fast forwarded through the footage this ht"

I knew that I was the one who had installed the security system It was top of the line and had all the bells and whistles It didn’t require any human interaction to operate, but this human couldn’t pull himself away The steady strea recorded, soothed so to Noe explain why being ho home The machines did what they were supposed to do; they didn’t have stories that uts feel like lead, ones that turnedin All these feelings were going to bury h theht

"I know I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I would come down here and see if anyone ot Noe free He looked pretty banged up, but he wasunder his own steam" I was surprised how relieved I hen I saw the dark-haired ht I knew Benny only went after Noe because Nassir had hiot her out when no one else could Even if he was a self-serving asshole, I felt like I owed hi this final favor in his hoone He has soet back to her Gotta say, I’onnato wait on him, that means there is hope for the rest of us rejects" He took a sip of the coffee he had clenched in his hand and lifted an eyebrow at me "Anyone else make it out?"

I dipped my chin in a half nod "Goddard Got picked up a little before dawn, but he was barely o and pulled out the bodies of the cop and so with the security detail you took out and wiped the container clean They went after the surveillance tapes"

"They freak out when they realized there was none?" Booker sounded slightly aood went down at those docks, and a lot of that nothing good fell under Nassir’s watchful eye The only surveillance that happened on the shady waterfront area ca It was just one er on the pulse of everything that went on in his city

"Yeah They definitely seeuy like Goddard would know more about the place he uses for all his dirty work" Noe was far fro container