Chapter 5

I stepped out of the hospital, the cold night wind cutting into my skin like a blade.

The streets were packed with cars and neon, and the whole city looked bright enough to be somebody's dream.

But not a single light was meant for me.

I wandered aimlessly, like a ghost.

My phone was in my pocket, but I didn't feel like reaching out to anyone.

My world had gone quiet, and there was nobody in it but me.

I had no idea how long I walked. I stopped only when my legs refused to take another step.

Looking up, I saw a shabby motel. Half the letters on the sign were broken, casting weird shadows in the darkness.

I walked in.

At the front desk, a woman who looked half-asleep lifted her head and gave me a bored, almost dismissive glance.

"You want a room? Got any ID?" she muttered.

I dug through my bag and handed over my ID.

She took it, barely glanced at it, then looked up at me with a look that said she didn't think much of me.

"Sixty dollars a night, sixty-five for the deposit. Cash only," she said.

I hesitated, caught off guard.

I dug through my bag, then checked my coat pockets.

Every card I had was useless now.

I emptied out every bill I had and counted it.

A hundred and thirty dollars and fifty cents.

I put a hundred and thirty dollars on the counter.

"Keep the change," I said.

That was all the dignity I had left.

The woman curled her lip and handed me a key with a plastic tag that read 302.

I took the key, dragged my suitcase, and climbed the stairs that groaned under my weight.

The hallway was dark, thick with damp and the stench of mold.

I found room 302 and unlocked the door.

The room held a bed, a table, and a wardrobe with peeling paint, and that was all of it.

The wallpaper was curling at the edges, exposing the yellowed wall beneath.

I dropped my suitcase on the floor and flopped onto the bed.

The mattress was rock hard, and the blanket still carried that damp, moldy smell.

I stared up at the dim, yellow bulb on the ceiling, my eyes dry and burning.

So that was what it felt like to fall out of the sky.

It was a thousand times worse than I had imagined.

My phone buzzed.

It was a text from an unknown number.

There was a photo attached.

In the photo, Emily was in my robe at my vanity, holding my most expensive face cream and smiling at the camera.

There was a caption under the photo.

Emily: [Sophia, your things are lovely. James says they suit me.]

I stared at the photo, at Emily's innocent and taunting face.

I felt sick with rage, the nausea rising straight from my gut to my throat.

I rushed into the bathroom and threw up into the toilet, everything spinning.

I hadn't eaten anything, so nothing came up but sour water.

Tears and vomit ran together, and I was a mess.

By the time I finished, I was completely spent.

I leaned against the wall, staring at the mirror, at the pale, messy-haired woman staring back at me.

That wasn't me.

That wasn't Sophia Quinn.

I went back to the bed, picked up my phone, and looked at the photo one more time.

I deleted the message.

Crying did nothing.

Anger did nothing.

James and Emily wanted nothing more than to see me fall apart.

They wanted to watch me crawl at their feet like a dog.

I wasn't about to give them the satisfaction.

I lay back down, closed my eyes, and forced myself to calm down.

I kept replaying the last six years in my head.

Every word James ever said, every move he ever made.

Every small thing I had taken for love turned out to be one more step in a plan.

He'd compliment my looks so I'd get caught up in my own appearance and never notice anything else.

He let me spend without limits and turned me into someone who only knew how to spend.

He'd put me on a pedestal, just so I'd crash even harder when I fell.

He knew everything about me, what I liked, and where I was soft.

And me? All I ever knew about him was that he was rich and that he loved me.

What a joke.

I opened my eyes in the darkness.

The tears had run out, and something was pushing up through the scorched ground inside me.

It was hate.

It was cold and hard and built to destroy.

I sat up on the bed and opened my suitcase.

At the very bottom, I found the brown envelope.

The trust documents my dad left me.

I opened it, reading every word under the dim, yellow light.

The papers were a mess of legal and financial jargon.

I couldn't make sense of any of it.

But slipped between the last page was a small note.

It was my father's handwriting, big and slanted.

There was just a name and an address.

[Kyle Carter. Integrity Law Offices, 47 Heritage Avenue.]

There was a line of tiny writing underneath.

[Sophia, if you're reading this, you have run out of options. Go see him. Remember that you are Richard Quinn's daughter. You can lose, but you cannot give up.]

Richard Quinn.

It was my dad's name.

The name I'd almost forgotten.

I clutched that thin note like it was my last lifeline.

Dawn was breaking.