Chapter 1
MONROE
Five Months Prior to Present Day,
April of Junior Year,
Sigma
Five steps separate me from freedom.
Then I hear him.
The sound of a deranged man screaming my name echoes in the night. I wasn’t able to shut the window. I barely got my legs over the rusted metal bars of the fire escape, which for some incomprehensible reason was not built directly under the fucking window.
My legs are cumbersome as I try to run. I plead with my body, begging it to move faster. Days of confinement have robbed me of my agility. Days without food have stolen my strength. The pitch-black night impairs my vision, and I don’t know where the woods end and the drop begins.
Male voices descend around me, shouting, barking orders to search the perimeter of Sigma fraternity. Flashlight beams roam in my periphery. I’m moving slower than I think if they’re already upon me.
Distracted by the growing roar of water in the gorge below, the tip of my sneaker connects with a raised tree root, hurling me forward.
Twigs and small stones spear the flesh of my palms. A piercing pain in my kneecap rips through my resolve to keep running.
They’ll find me now; it’s only a matter of minutes.
I push myself onto all fours and manage a haggard, defeated crawl to what I believe is the edge. Two are already missing, and I’m next.
May twelfth.
My death day.
But I’ll be damned if I let him spill my blood.
I’ve survived this hellscape of a life for twenty-one fucking years, and the only one who gets to spill my blood is me.
Shouting male voices must be no more than fifty feet away. I swing my legs over the cliff ledge, thick with fallen leaves from past seasons. Slender tree stems jut out from the craggy rock. If it were daylight, I suspect I would see an inkling of baby leaves sprouting to life in the mist.
If it were daylight, I would lose my courage.
A memory of my childhood self jumping from a high diving board chooses this moment to resurface. Another scene redacted by my brain to protect me from my painful past is set free, and at the most curious of times. I take this as a sign of encouragement.
You’re right, I think. I’m out of time and out of options. Drawing in a breath I know will be my last, I decide it’s time, for once, to make myself proud.
And I jump.