"You like it, don't you?"
"What?" I managed to breathe.
"The fear, Miss Night," he mused, "you crave it."
_______________________________________
Sabina Night owes Antonio Marafi her life.
But when he asks her to spy on the Russo crime family, Sabin...
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•Ten Years Ago•
"An allegory," I lowered my hand as my English teacher nodded.
I hadn't learned her name yet, and I wasn't sure if I really saw the point in filing it away in my memory. Audrey and I already spent three weeks in this home which was our usual length before we were moved. Sometimes it was because we wanted to leave. Sometimes it wasn't.
This one wasn't so bad. Gerald and Kamala Neale had three other foster kids— all younger than Audrey and I— so they generally left us alone. We preferred it that way. At least, I thought we did.
Up until one Wednesday morning when I was sitting in the very same English class and one of the office workers poked their head in the door asking for me. My teacher, whose name I still didn't remember and who still hadn't learned mine, looked around the classroom searching for god knows who.
Audrey was in the hospital.
They couldn't reach Gerald or Kamala. Our social worker, Lacey, was already on her way to pick me up. Every word that they said sounded like it was coming straight through water. Audrey was in the hospital again. Audrey was in the hospital.
The state sent extra money to help pay for her insulin, but with five foster children... sometimes the money ran out. The Neales at least tried to cover the costs. Some of the other families we stayed with, well, let's just say Audrey never saw a dime of the money that was supposed to go to her medication.
I've never liked hospitals, and I've especially never liked the way my little sister looked in a hospital. She always seemed swallowed up by the big white hospital beds and her red hair seemed duller next to gray-painted walls. She was pale now but the smell of antiseptic seemed to turn her skin a little green.
Still, she would smile at me. Even when Lacey would discuss the importance of taking her meds on time. As if it were Audrey's fault that she couldn't remember and not the fact that money for the drug didn't appear in our pockets every month. Audrey only ever nodded, apologized, and promised she would do better.
Then Lacey would turn to me and I was forced to make the same promise through gritted teeth. That day, walking out of the hospital, I promised myself that my sister would not rely on the state or random foster parents to make sure she got the drug she needed to live. I didn't know how I was going to keep that promise, but I didn't care how— just that I meant it.
That was also the day I stole my first wallet.
Pick-pocketing, I came to learn in the coming months, was all about timing rather than stealth. There were two boys at school— Ryan and Oliver— who walked me through the best streets and the best times of day to do it. Always when people were on the way to and from work because they were always in a rush and usually focused on getting where they needed to go.
