Which meant she hadn't been able to do all the inward work, hadn't learned to exorcise those demons.

Her opening up to me about it--even a little bit--was pretty huge for her.

"For me, it's the clinging moments after waking up. Where things are spacey and it is hard to tell past from present, real from make-believe," I told her.

"I am going to reconnect with my old best friend from, you know, before the basement. I haven't told her I'm back yet."

Hence the anxiety level.

She'd changed.

We all had.

And there would always be a part of her that was a sixteen-year-old girl with a best friend who sincerely hoped friendships could span the ages, could be accepting of even the most unacceptable character changes.

"Life has changed a lot for all of us. She won't be expecting the little girl you used to be. And you can't expect that from her either. But... she's your best friend."

"Did you have a best friend? You know... before?"

"I had close friends before my mom died. But once I went into the system, there was just no way to keep in touch with them anymore."

"Do you wonder if they knew that you went missing?"

"No."

Because, as terrible as it was to think, most missing children didn't get any news coverage. Especially those from foster care. That was why girls in the foster system were much more likely to be victims of trafficking than other children in average families.

"Maybe I would have made the news when I was young and cherub-faced. But most people don't care that much about sixteen-year-olds who don't have any family to miss them."

"We care," Ferryn insisted, tone fierce.

"Yes," I agreed, nodding. "We do."

Because someone had to.

Because no one had missed me.

Because no one had been looking for me.

Because, had Ferryn not mustered her fighting spirit to get us out, had her family and friends not been working night and day to find us and help us get away, I likely would have died in that basement. Or been thrown on a ship and trafficked overseas until my body gave up.

I wouldn't have gotten away.

I wouldn't have gone to therapy.

I wouldn't have found a family--Ferryn's aunt and uncle--to adopt me, to give a damn, to help me heal, to show me love, to give me all the resources I needed to come out with my sanity mostly intact.

That was a thought that kept me up at night.

That there were girls--and boys--sitting in basements, in warehouses, in abandoned buildings, on ships, in the backs of businesses; that they were being abused like I had been; that no one was looking for them. Or, even if they were looking, likely would never find them.

That was where we came in.

Because Ferryn had the skills to get them out.

I had the ones to find those bastards, so I could sic her on them.

"Is Aunt Lo getting more on-board with the mission?" she asked, clearly just wanting someone to sit awake with her for a little while. And since she had Vance, I figured she was coming to me because she knew I was one of the very few people in her life that understood what she was feeling, that wouldn't pity her for it.

Lo, Ferryn's aunt, my adoptive mother, also happened to technically be my boss.

Were she not still pretty pissed at me for keeping it a secret where Ferryn had been all those years, she would have been gung-ho to do some good in the world. That was what she did. Mom was a do-gooder at her core.

Building her empire--a self-sustaining outlaw paramilitary camp by the name of Hailstorm--had been partially about building financial security, and making herself into someone who could never be doubted, would always be respected, if not a bit feared. But, mostly, it had been a place where she planned to collect people. Lost causes, the world might call them. But, all she saw was potential. Much like she saw in me, even battered and bruised and emotionally eviscerated. She didn't see that damage. She saw who could be forged through and around it.

Hailstorm had been a second home to me. And there had always been an unspoken understanding that, someday, it would be mine to run. An idea I was worried she might be reconsidering now that she learned I had been working behind her back for several years with Ferryn.

"Somewhat," I said, shrugging.

"She'll come around. She might be bitter now, but that has to do with me, with my running away, with my staying away for so long. She's not really mad at you. And once she realizes that, she will see what a power move it was for you to start an operation like that. Without any backup. Without any help from all the other experts at Hailstorm. That's some boss bitch shit. She will respect it once she analyzes it."

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