As I grew into adolescence, the couples who picked me from the home changed.
It was no longer the wife who chose me but the husband, picking up on my childish beauty and my fear.
I became the favored choice of male predators who were looking for a very special kind of child.Ironically, it was through these monsters that I first found my strength.
As I grew older, I began to see them for what they were, not all-powerful bogeymen who slipped into my room at night, but weak creatures terrified of rejection and exposure. With that realization, the fear slipped away.
They could touch me, but they couldn't touch me, not the me who lay beyond my body. As the fear subsided, so did the rage.
I despised them and their equally weak, blind wives, but they weren't worthy of my anger. I wouldn't let myself be angry at them, wouldn't let myself waste time and effort better spent elsewhere.
If I wanted to escape this life, I had to do it myself. That didn't mean running away. It meant staying and surviving. It meant studying hard and making the honors list even if I rarely went a full year without switching schools.
Succeeding at school would mean acceptance into university, which would mean a degree, which would mean a career, which would mean the kind of life my social workers and foster families assumed was beyond me.
At the same time, I discovered another source of power—the strength of my own body. I grew tall and rangy.
A teacher signed me up for track-and-field, hoping it would help me get close to other children. Instead I learned to run, discovering the absolute bliss, the unparalleled pleasure of the physical, feeling my strength and my speed for the first time.
By the time I was midway through high school I was lifting weights and working out daily.
My foster father wasn't touching me by then. I wasn't anyone's idea of a victim by then.
"Is this it, miss?" the driver asked.
I hadn't felt the car stop, but when I looked out the window I could see we were at the front gates of Stone-haven.
A figure sat on the grass, ankles crossed as he leaned against the stone wall. Clayton.
The driver squinted, trying to make out the house in the dark, as blind to the brass nameplate as to the man waiting by the gate.
The moon had gone behind a cloud and the coach lamps at the end of the drive were unlit.
"I'll get out here," I said.
"Uh-uh. No can do, miss. It's not safe. There's something out there."
I thought he was referring to Clay.
"Something" was an apt description. I was about to say, unfortunately, that I knew that "something" when the driver continued.
"We've been having ourselves some trouble in these woods, miss. Wild dogs by the looks of it. One of our girls from town was found not too far from here. Butchered by these dogs. Buddy of mine found her and he said—well, it wasn't nice, miss. You just sit back and I'll unlatch that gate and drive you up."
"Wild dogs?" I repeated, certain I'd heard wrong.
"That's right. My buddy found tracks. Huge ones. Some guy from some college said all the tracks came from one animal, but that can't be right. It's gotta be a pack. You don't see—"
The driver's eyes went to the side window and he jumped in his seat. "Jesus!"
Clay had left his post at the gate and materialized at my window. He stood there, watching me, a slow grin lighting his eyes. He reached for the door handle. The driver put the car in gear.
"It's okay," I said, with deep regret. "He's with me." The door opened. Clay ducked his head inside.
"You getting out or just thinking about it?" he asked.
"She's not getting out here," the driver said, twisting back to look over the seat. "If you're fool enough to be wandering around these woods at night, that's your problem, but I'm not letting this young lady walk god-knows- how-far to that house back there. If you want a ride up, unlock the gate for me and get in. Otherwise, close my door."
Clay turned to the driver, as if noticing him for the first time. His lip curled and his mouth opened. Whatever he planned to say, it wasn't going to be nice.
Before Clay could cause a scene, I opened the opposite door and slid out. As the cab driver rolled down his window to stop me, I dropped a fifty on his lap and skirted around the back of the cab.
Clay slammed the other door and headed for the front walk. The driver hesitated, then sped off, kicking up a hail of gravel as a parting shot of disgust at our youthful foolishness.
As I approached, Clay stepped back to watch me.
Despite the cold night air, he wore only faded jeans and a black T-shirt, displaying slim hips, a broad chest, and sculpted biceps.
In the decade I'd known him, he hadn't changed. I was always hoping for a difference—a few wrinkles, a star, anything that would mar his model-perfect looks and bring him down to mortality with the rest of us, but I was always disappointed.
As I walked toward him, he tilted his head, his eyes never leaving mine. White teeth flashed as he grinned.
"Welcome home, darling." His Deep South drawl mangled the endearment into a "dah-lin" straight out of a country-and-western song. I hated country music.
"Are you the welcoming committee? Or has Jeremy finally chained you up to the front gate where you belong?"
"I missed you, too."
He reached out for me, but I sidestepped back onto the road, then started down the quarter-mile lane to the house. Clay followed.
A breeze of cool, dry night air lifted a tendril of hair from my neck, and with it came a dusting of scents—the sharp tang of cedar, the faint perfume of apple blossoms, and the teasing smell of long-devoured dinner. Each smell loosened my tense muscles.
I shook myself, throwing off the feeling and forced myself to keep my eyes on the road, concentrating on doing nothing, not talking to Clay, not smelling anything, not looking left or right.
I didn't dare ask Clay what was going on. That would mean engaging him in conversation, which would imply that I wanted to talk to him.
With Clay, even the simplest overtures were dangerous. As much as I wanted to know what was happening, I'd have to hear it from Jeremy.