“Elizabeth, thank God.”

Pike gets out of the car and has me in his arms fast. The comfort is overwhelming, and it doesn’t take long before I’m weeping into his shirt.

“Fuck, I’ve missed you,” he breathes in my hair, and I nod against his chest. “Are you okay?”

I pull back and look up at him, ignoring his question, asking, “Where have you been?”

“I didn’t know how to find you. I tried sneaking by the house a few times this summer, but you were never there.”

“I was there,” I tell him. “He kept me locked up for most of the summer. He knew about us . . . that we were . . . you know. It pissed him off and he said that’s why he got rid of you.”

“Shit.”

And then the crying starts as I deflate and say, “I thought you gave up on me.”

“Never.”

He then turns to the car, and when I peek around him, I see the driver. He’s older, maybe in his twenties, with tattoos down his arms.

“Come with me. We can talk,” Pike says as he looks back at me.

“Can’t be gone long. Carl normally gets home around five.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have you back in time,” he tells me and then opens the door to crawl into the back seat before holding his hand out for me. “This is Matt, by the way,” Pike introduces, “He’s a good buddy of mine.”

“Hey,” Matt says, giving me a nod in the rearview mirror before pulling back out onto the street.

“Hey.” My voice, barely a whisper when Pike pulls me into his arms.

“Talk to me.”

I keep my eyes on Matt, not wanting to speak in front of this stranger.

“Don’t worry about him,” Pike tells me. “He’s cool.”

“I was scared I would never see you again,” I admit quietly.

“I told you to believe in me. I’m not leaving you. The place I’m staying has strict rules. Basically school and then back by eight o’clock curfew.”

“What’s it like?” I ask. “The group home, I mean.”

“It’s okay. You’re not there, so I spend most of my time worrying about you.”

“This cool, man?” Matt says when he pulls into the back lot of a rundown strip mall.

“Yeah. Just give us an hour,” Pike tells him as he parks the car and then gets out.

“Where’s he going?”

“Just giving us some alone time. I want to talk to you. I wanna know if you’re okay.”

I shake my head and a few tears slip out. “It’s awful, Pike. It’s so bad.”

“You’re gonna be okay.”

I shake my head again.

“I know you don’t see it, but you’re a strong girl. You will be okay.”

“He does horrible things to me. Things he never did before,” I reveal. He cradles me to his chest and kisses the top of my head as I hold on to him, adding, “And now you’re not there to take it away.”

Moving my head up to him, he kisses me, resting his lips on mine and I go soft in his hold. He shifts and moves over me, lying me down on my back against the cold leather seat.

“What are you doing?” I mumble against his kisses.

“Taking it away.”

“But your friend . . .”

With his hand on the button of my pants, he says, “He won’t be back for a while.” He pops the button, looking down at me, and then asks, “Is this okay?”

I nod as I murmur, “Yes. Just take it away.”

And he does, right there in the back seat of his friend’s car. Pike cleans me of the past three months, fading away all the filth Carl left behind and covers it with the goodness of himself.

PIKE HAS CONTINUED to pick me up after school for the past seven months, but only once or twice a week. He’s mostly with Matt, but every now and then, Matt loans him his car and Pike and I can be alone. I love those times. I found out that Pike and Matt work together, running drugs on the street. After I met him, it didn’t take long for Matt to question Pike about fucking a fourteen-year-old in the back of his car every week. I had never seen Pike so pissed and defensive, threatening Matt that he’d knock the shit out of him if he ever questioned him again.

Matt is slime and gives me the creeps. He eyes me constantly, like he’s waiting for his chance to get into my pants as well. I don’t say anything to Pike about it, but I don’t trust the guy.

Every time I see Pike, he has a new tattoo. I hate that he’s marking himself up so much. Kinda like, with each tattoo, he’s taking away a piece of the Pike I know and replacing it with a new Pike—a Pike I only get to see once a week in the back seat of that Mustang while we have sex. We don’t have a lot of time to talk, so it feels as if I pretty much use him to escape. It’s overwhelming now, the emotions afterward. I’ve started crying a lot when we’re done. It worries Pike. He tries to talk to me, and I’ve tried explaining how it’s starting to make me feel guilty, but he assures me it’s okay. So after sex, I cry and Pike holds me, doing what he can to make me feel better.

But Pike hasn’t come around in two weeks. He told me to give him time to sort out his plans for when he turns eighteen, and I’ve been trying to be patient. His birthday was last week, and I’ve been on pins and needles, anxious to get the hell away from Carl and Bobbi. Carl has been getting more violent with me lately, punching me during sex and spitting in my face. He fisted me across my face last night, giving me a black eye before tossing me on my stomach and taking me from behind. He doesn’t do that all too often, only when he’s really pissed about something. But last night got really bad, and he lost control. I kept my mouth shut and let my mind drift as far away as it could, waiting for it all to be over. He still has that same mattress. It’s now stained in blood, vomit, sweat, and Carl’s urine.

This is why I’m so anxious for Pike to come get me.

So after I apply more ointment to the split skin of my black eye, I sit on my bed and stare out the window, looking for Matt’s black Mustang. Soon I grow tired as I peer into the darkness outside. Disappointed, I sulk down under my covers and stare at the purple walls for a few minutes before turning out the light and drifting off to sleep.

A weight on my arm causes my eyes to pop open. Startled in the blackness, my heart pounding, I hear a soothing, “Shh.”

“Pike?” I whisper as I sit up and reach out for him.

His hand runs down my cheek as he softly breathes, “You still believe in me?”

“Yes.”

Pike tosses the sheets off of me, and the adrenaline kicks in. Like a million bees swarming in my chest, my heart pumps as Pike and I move fast, tossing my clothes and few belongings into a bag. Everything blurs in a speedy haze, and I almost feel like I’m going to be sick. My stomach is in knots with fear and excitement that I’m seconds away from being free from the hell I have been living for the past six years.

When Pike zips the bag and throws it over his shoulder, he takes my hand in his. I can see his smile grow in the shadows of the moonlight, and I can’t help myself when I lean in and kiss him, giving him every piece of my heart for this gift he’s giving me. My fairytale, rescuing me from the evil monster that lurks in the dungeon.

“I love you so much, Pike.”

“I love you too,” he quietly murmurs. “You ready?”

“Yeah.”

With my hand in his, he walks me over to the window he’d crawled in and slips out before helping me out. We teeter along the roof to the edge where Pike tosses the bag down to Matt who is waiting on the front lawn. He quickly runs to the car, tossing the bag in while Pike jumps off the roof and into the grass below. You’d think I’d be scared to jump, but I would jump ten stories down into a pile of varmints if it meant escaping from here. So when Pike holds his arms out, I jump, leaping into whatever life awaits me on the other side.

Once in the car, Matt drives us away as I stare back at that shitty, white house that has kept me caged since I was eight. I’ve spent nearly half my life locked in that tiny closet and forced down into that basement. The car finally turns, and when the house vanishes, I fall into Pike’s chest and begin sobbing like a baby.