Chapter 1 The Night Everything changed

ANYA'S POV

"He's losing so much blood. We need someone to save him!"

"We need blood stat!"

I blink awake, and suddenly I'm transported from the hospital room to Louise's Diner. I'm dozing at work again. I must be so tired, I dreamt of when Micah needed blood, and I was the only one who could donate to him.

We've been through a lot – Micah and I. We met at a foster home, and now we're working hard to run away from our shitty life in Chicago to Greece. Rather, I'm working so hard...Micah is yet to get a job. And although my job at Louie's dinner barely pays to cover my foster mother's hospital bills, and taking care of Micah and me, I take all the extra shifts I can.

"Girl, you need to go home. You look like you died in 2006 and nobody told you," Talia says, leaning against the breakroom doorway with a soda can pressed to her cheek. "Goodnight, Anya. For the hundredth time - you work too damn hard."

I shrug."Someone's gotta pick up the extra shifts."

"Yeah, but why does it always gotta be you?"She watches me for a beat before adding,"Seriously. Three doubles this week? Are you trying to pass out on the grill line?"

I manage a half-laugh as I shove my apron into the laundry bin. "If I don't, who will?"

She raises an eyebrow. "I don't know, literally anyone else? It don't always gotta be you. I'm the one who owns this place, and even I don't take as many shifts as you do."

I shake my head, but her words stick. They always do. Talia's like that - soft voice, sharp mind, the kind of woman who's seen everything and survived.

As I reach for my bag, she adds, quieter, "You going home to someone who's worth all this?"

That stops me for half a second. I think of Micah - his shaggy brown hair and green eyes form in my mind, but I don't know why I don't say yes to her question. Talia doesn't push, she just nods, like she already knows the answer anyway.

Just then my phone buzzes, and it's a text from Micah. I tug it from my pocket with frozen fingers and a half-smile already forming. But the smile freezes when I see the text.

Micah: Don't bother waking me. I'm exhausted. Locked the bedroom door.

I frown because this is odd. I read the message once, then again, before I text him back.

Me: But I brought food... your favorite.

No reply. Just the delivered checkmark taunting me. I ignore the feeling in my chest, but just tuck the phone away and zip my hoodie higher, trying to convince myself he's just tired. That I'm being paranoid. That everything is fine.

It has to be fine.

I walk fast, my steps echoing off empty sidewalks. By the time I reach our building, my fingers are numb and my toes ache. The stairwell reeks of weed and stale piss as always. I pass Mrs. Dillard's cat sleeping like royalty on the banister and haul myself up the stairs two at a time.

But when I reach the apartment door, my heart stutters. Not because I'm in love with Micah - it's not like that. But he's been with me through everything, through the kind of moments that either break people apart or fuse them together in ways they can't explain. I don't know if what we have is love, or just survival, but whatever it is, it's always felt like home.

The paper bag in my hand is still warm, grease soaking slightly through the bottom. I bought the extra tzatziki because he loves it. Chicken souvlaki, too. I had to skip lunch to afford it, but it didn't matter. I hope the smile on his face will be worth it.

I twist the knob and step inside the small apartment we share.

"Micah?" I call out, soft and unsure.

My voice gets swallowed by the stale heat of the apartment. At first, I see nothing out of place, but then the smell hits me, it smells like takeout and something else-metallic, almost. Like blood. No. Not blood - Sweat, skin, sex.

It smells like sex.

And asoon as my brain places the smell, it floods my senses.

Micah's door is slightly ajar. That's the first crack, the first little thing that doesn't feel right. He never leaves the door open. Especially since I told him I would like for us to wait until marriage. Plus, the neighborhood we live in is unsafe.

I take two steps inside, and I hear it before I see it. The sound that changes everything.

A moan.High-pitched and needy, followed by a low grunt. I freeze, my eyes locking on the closed bedroom door at the end of the hall. It's cracked just enough. I thought he said he locked it.

My body knows before my brain does. I move like I'm in a dream, slow and heavy, every step like walking through molasses.

I reach the door, and push it ajar and that's when I see the sight I'm not expecting – I see her first, she's naked, her pale thighs are wrapped around Micah's hips like they've done it a thousand times. Her red hair is messy and wild, her nails digging into his shoulders like she owns him.

Micah.

My Micah.

He doesn't look like a monster. That's the worst part.

My eyes look over his narrow, boyish frame he never quite grew into. He looks kind of guy who wore graphic tees in college and never stopped. Look at his soft brown hair, a few strands falling over his forehead. Green eyes, too clear, too bright for what he's doing. Freckles across the bridge of his nose. The kind of face that makes people say, "He'd never do that..."

But he is.

Right in front of me.

I don't scream. I don't cry. I just stand there.

His hands are wrapped around her throat, his body moving like it's never moved for me. Harder. Rougher. Even with me watching, he doesn't stop, he keeps moving in and out of her, like his release is more important than breaking my heart.

"Shit," he mutters. That's all he says. No panic. No apology. No Anya, wait, I can explain.

Just one word. Detached, like I'm the wrong one for being here. Like I'm some stranger off the street. Like I haven't given him everything.

I suddenly can't breathe.

I can't feel my hands. My knees lock. My chest hollows out like someone dug into me with a knife and scooped everything out.

The bag drops from my hand. It hits the floor with a soft thud, the kind of sound no one notices. But it feels like the loudest thing in the world.

I turn and run.

Out of the apartment. Down the stairs. Into the street.

I don't know where I'm going. I just need to get away.

I pass neon signs and honking cars, a man yelling into his phone, a woman dragging a toddler behind her. Life is still happening. For everyone else. But not me.

Everything feels unreal. Like I've stepped out of my body and left the real Anya standing there in that apartment with her dreams bleeding out on the floor.

We were going to go to Greece. Save up and backpack across the islands. We said we'd make it. We said we'd never end up like the people who raised us.

Micah was my home. My constant. My family when I didn't have one. We left foster care together and promised to take care of each other. We had a dream.

I think of my foster mother in the hospital– Anna. She's the only foster parent that wasn't mean to me, the closest thing to a family to me besides Micah, but she's unconscious in the hospital and has been that way for months.

And now-

Now I have no one.

My feet carry me through streets, but I keep walking. It's only when I'm a few streets away that I realize where my legs are taking me-I'm walking towards the hospital. Usually, when I don't know where to go, I head to the hospital to check on Anna's health and just sit with her in silence.

I'm taking a shortcut through an alley when I hear footsteps behind me. Suddenly, I realize I'm not alone. As though my heart can sense the incoming danger, it starts beating a thousand times per minute.

A dark voice comes from behind me, dark and sinister. "Hello Anya."