ig

Smith's file

rly. She'd volunteered at an animal center while juggling part-time jobs and school. She'd had two full rides, NYU and a school in Kentucky, and she'd taken

t

ole family back here in the city, and she'd listed no one. I

self. *That's all she is, and

The second I heard her name had come through, I went down to HR myself, took her file, and told them to close the applications

lways claimed, the one by the window. The twenty-dollar sketches she sold to students on weekends, which could have easily

obvious it almost made me feel sorry for he

myself it would make it better: the harder she pre

dull that nobody would read it twice. It would bind her to me for two years. It would make her mine in every way a courtroom

voice drifted through the

n around. "S

I saw her, barely.

urn

es too long and the fabric worn thin. She held herself very straight. And her eyes

m hit me in the

her ear while Damon looked at her as if she'd hung the stars. Lily, who smiled at

he desk so she would

it

awl of the city below, and then came back to me, and she kept

u'll handle my calendar, my calls, and my flight preparations if the need ever aris

erstan

yo

rves she'd been fighting since she walked in. I

han anyone you've e

,* I thought. *T

her name, neat as a schoolgirl, the signature of someone who'd n

st snatching the pen out of her fingers to tel

lat against the woo

Cage Global,

he hope in her eyes at the thought of a better life,

id softly.

d I was holding. I walked back to the window and found her far below, a small figur

ound a hospital visitor's badge. I

at the wall for hours. Damon, who looked up the last time

cause Lily Smith had taken a boy who loved her with his whole heart and broken him into piece

onger knew the day of the week, and

n was all I had. And

ling," I whisper

, one day at a time, until Rain Smith understood exactly

to my desk, and