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"You’re never going to be alone, Bitty," he repeated "I swear to you"

As Mary sat behind her desk at Safe Place, she put her bag down and shrugged out of her parka Extending her arm, she pulled the sleeve of her turtleneck up and sreen bracelet that twinkled at her wrist

She and Bitty hadat Fritz’s kitchen table in the e array of clear plastic boxes holding a rainboorth of iridescent beads They had talked about nothing and everything, and greeted each person who ca of Combos and a Mountain Dew They had also e, a different-colored bracelet for Lassiter, and braid for Nalla to play with And even Boo had coreen eyes inspecting everything

In a ether had been theacross her desk, Mary reached out and picked up a photograph of Bitty fro selfies with Rhage’s phone Bit wasa crazy face, her dark hair back-brushed until she looked like solam metal band

And in fact, Lassiter was over on the left, doing his best Nikki Sixx impression

Unexpected tears pricked Mary’s eyes In all her life, she had never expected to be a wohter at her work desk Nah, that hypothetical, blessed, stranger of a person, that lucky female who had a husband and a fas on her wrist? That had always been so you watched on TV or saw in Maytag ads or overheard at the table next door in a restaurant

While you were eating alone

Mary Luce was the nurse to an ailingMary Luce was the cancer survivor left infertile after chees, the shadow that passed unnoticed through a rooory of where you didn’t want to end up

Except life had corkscrewed on her in the best of all possible ways Now? She was exactly where she had never even dared to drea

And yup, this unexpected destiny came with a not-too-small dose of PTSD Hell, soeous vampire of a husband? And especially nohen she tiptoed into another bedroohtfall? She expected to wake up, back in her nightht as she put the picture down This was the real stuff Here and noas the story she was living

And it was … a So full of love, fah the sun lived in the center of her chest

They were all survivors, her, Rhage, and Bitty She of her illness Rhage of the curse he had to live with Bitty of the uniinable domestic abuse she and her mahmen had suffered at the hands of her birth father The three of their lives had started to intersect here, at Safe Place, when Bitty and hershelter And then Bitty’sher an orphan