I woke up to blinding light. The curtains. I had forgotten to close them last night, and now—at 6 a.m., 7 a.m., whatever—I was awake and wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep anytime soon.

I hopped out of bed and stared at myself in the dirty dresser mirror. Getting up early was good. It would give me time to think, assess, and decide. This job was turning out to be one hell of a mind-fuck.

Walking over to the top of the stairs, I looked down at her. At Alice, my little kidnapped princess. She was all curled up, her silky brown hair splayed every which way. The discontent on her face would have been adorable if I hadn’t known all too well what the cause of it probably was.

I needed to finish this job fast and stop myself from getting closer to her—no matter how inevitable it seemed. Not only my job, but even her life may have depended on it.

Even though I crept down the stairs as quietly and as slowly as I could, still they let out a creaking wail. Alice’s eyelashes fluttered, but her eyes didn’t open. Padding over the wooden floor was easier. My feet stuck a bit, but my progress was otherwise soundless.

I opened the fridge and sighed. Being away for two weeks had taken its toll on my food—the little that had been left, that was. My Granny Smith apple had turned into a twisted gray ball, while the blueberries resembled one white furry mass of disgustingness. The only thing that looked remotely edible was the eggs, whose expiry date was tomorrow, thank God.

So, taking out a pan and cracking the last six I had, I got to work.

I checked over my shoulder, but Alice was still fast asleep. She’d had a big day yesterday after all, in more ways than one. As I broke the yolks, stirred them into the egg whites, and watched it all cook, I thought about her: how her nose scrunched up when I said something funny or lewd; how her eyes were the deep blue color of the sky just before sunrise; how, after all of this, I was never going to be able to see her again.

The next time I checked over my shoulder, she was staring straight at me.

“Morning, princess,” I said. She rolled over to the other side of the couch so that her back was facing me.

“Want eggs?” I called.

A low murmur came as a reply.

“What’s that?”

She twisted her head around so she could deliver her “no” with a glare. Then turned back to face the couch.

“Suit yourself,” I said in the same easy tone, though I was pissed.

What was her problem? Couldn’t she see that I was doing my best, that last night I had spared her despite everything urging me to do the opposite?

When the eggs reached a pale yellow, clumpy consistency, I emptied the pan into a giant roasting dish. This I carried and set on my rickety-ass table, which tipped toward me under the weight of the dish. Sitting down, I shoved my fork in and started eating. The mild taste wasn’t much—clearly, I needed to invest in some ketchup or just some good old salt and pepper. But the food woke me up enough to remember to check my phone, which I did.

What I saw made me smile: four missed calls from Daddy Pryce. Getting him to pay was going to be a piece of cake. If I played my cards right, this job would be done in no time and that stuck-up bitch would be gone for good.

Another glance at the couch revealed that she was sitting up and watching me eat.

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“Eggs,” I replied with a hearty bite.

When she didn’t respond, I added, “You’re free to have whatever’s in the fridge.”

As I ate away, Alice rose slowly and cautiously before hurrying past me without taking her eyes off me, as if I were a lion that could lunge at any second.

No sooner had Alice opened the fridge door, however, she made a noise of disgust.

“Seriously? That’s it?”

I smiled sanguinely at her. “Haven’t been here in two weeks, princess.”

Alice’s glare flicked from me to my egg-filled roasting dish.

“So that’s it then?”

Taking an extra-big forkful, I nodded.

“That is it.”

With a sigh, she slumped onto the chair across from me.

“Fine.”

Folding her arms on the wooden tabletop caused the whole thing to tilt toward her, and a peal of nervous laughter to slip out of her lips.

“The table’s a piece of shit I found on the side of the road,” I said, and she giggled.

“Ever heard of IKEA?”

I handed her the fork.

“Princess, we discussed this. Not all of us grew up with Daddy to foot all the bills.”

At the mention of the previous night, her face darkened, although she accepted the fork.

After taking a small scoop and a tentative bite, she nodded.

“Hey, it’s not bad.”

“For a criminal,” I finished for her.

Taking another bite, she shook her head.

“Not what I was going to say.”

The fork was still in her mouth, and I clasped it and pulled it out.

Tapping it on her lips, I said, “No worries. Just admit that you expected us bad guys to eat rats and small children for our breakfast.”

As I dug my fork into the eggs, she snatched it away. Throwing the forkful of my eggs into her mouth with a cheeky smirk, she said, “No. That wasn’t it at all!”

Grabbing her hand and using it to shovel some eggs into my mouth, I asked her intent face, “Well, what was it then?”

She was speechless, her gaze locked on the eggs traveling toward my lips. It was easy to slip the fork out of her hand, easier still to lean in and do what her whole body was so clearly begging me too. But an inch away from her lips, Pip barked and I remembered.

Getting up and setting the utensil in the eggs, I said, “Looks like Pip’s in the mood for a little morning swim. Whaddya say?”

Alice’s gaze was on the fork atop the eggs.

“There’s a place to swim nearby?”

“Yeah, a little pond.”

Silence, then: “I don’t know…”

I went over and patted her head.

“Don’t you worry, princess. I won’t let you drown. You’re my money ticket after all.”

Alice scowled, and I backed away.

“Pip and I will be waiting outside when you’re ready.”

On my way to the door, I spotted the tank and peered in. The toad was sitting on top of my dirt mountain, regarding me expectantly.

“We can get some food for our toad friend while we’re at it,” I said, and as I headed out, Alice only murmured “his name is Gerald.”

Outside, Pip and I waited on the front steps. Pip spread herself out on her side, basking in the sun while I stroked her bristly white and gray fur. Every once in a while she would open one of her icy-blue eyes and peer over at me, as if inquiring whether I’d made up my mind on what to do about Alice, and if I had, why I was still dangerously close to breaking my resolution.

I closed my eyes and lost myself in the movement of my hand, the softness of Pip’s fur, and the lively symphony of the forest. I didn’t want to think about it, because truth be told, I had made up my mind, and yet somehow it wasn’t making any difference in what I was actually doing.

“You two look comfy,” a familiar voice said.

I opened my eyes to see Alice looking as amused as she had sounded.

“So you’re up for a swim then?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“No, but I am up for a walk.”

“Great. We’ll let Pip choose which way to get there. She always finds the best routes,” I said.

And so we did, following the far-off blur of gray and white as she rocketed into a patch of trees a little off to our left.

We didn’t say much; the air was filled enough with what we didn’t. When I glanced over, she wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t blame her. This was only to pass the time. There was no point in swapping more words, in getting into this deeper than we had already, making this harder than it had to be.

Besides, the forest was enjoyable enough. Something about how the trees threw speckles of light onto the ground, how every chipmunk and squirrel seemed to be running in pointless haste or loitering extravagantly, something about the never-repeated collaboration of rock and foliage made me smile.

Maybe that had been my dad’s problem: Tucked away on the 23^rd floor of a vomit-colored apartment building in the middle of New York City, trees were scarce. Sure, there was always Central Park, but I didn’t remember ever having gone there. I couldn’t even recall a single tree from the harried images of my childhood.

No, I remember harsh voices and hands raised, sneering mouths and staring eyes, but not a single tree or a kind smile. Nothing except…

“So, you’ve lived in Denver all your life?”

Alice glanced over, surprised by me breaking the silence.

“Yeah. Why?”

“No reason,” I said.

There was no point in getting into it. It hadn’t been her. There were thousands of brown-haired, blue-eyed girls; what were the odds?

Even as I walked on, Alice’s gaze wouldn’t shift.

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s stupid, all right?”

She said nothing, so, finally, I said, “What about trips then? You ever take a trip to New York when you were little?”

Alice stopped walking.

“Yeah, with my dad when I was ten. Why?”

“And the American Museum of Natural History—you didn’t go check that out, did you? Look at the big old dinosaur bones?”

Her face went white.

“What the hell, Jake?”

“Well, did you?”

Her eyebrows arched, her eyes flashed, and her lips pressed together.

“Screw you; I’m not telling you until you tell me why.”

“Okay. It’s just…I don’t know; it’s stupid. When I was a kid, must’ve been ten also, right before my dad died, we went there. It was a shitty trip; we spent the whole time arguing. But it had been the first time I’d been to a museum since I could remember.

“So, I was standing close to the dinosaur, way too close. Dad was a few feet off, on his phone I think. He told me to back up, but I didn’t. I wanted to see the dinosaur bones from below. I had never seen anything like it. I fell on the display and an alarm went off. As a big, tall, frowning security guard advanced from one side and my shouting dad from the other, as tears came to my eyes, I turned around and saw her: a little girl with the most beautiful blue eyes and brown pigtails with red ribbons. And as I looked at her, time seemed to freeze, and she—”

“Smiled at you,” Alice said softly. “Smiled at you and took your hand.”

As I gaped at Alice, she nodded and continued. “And then your yelling dad caught up with you, grabbed you by the arm, and ripped you away, while the security guard tailed you both.”

My eyes scanned her face, passing over the perfect ski-slope nose I could now see was faintly freckled, the upturned lower lip, the eyes in which I now saw the look I had seen then. It was the same impossible look, one that had seemed impossible then and still did now. It was a look of goodness, of kindness, of caring.

“It was you,” I whispered, and she nodded, taking my hand.

“It was you,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “That day…that was the day I decided I wanted to help people and work for a charity. That was the day I started sponsoring Saffie in Sierra Leone. That day changed my life.”

We stared at each other, her words as if I had said them myself. That day, the strange fleeting kindness of that little girl, had given me hope in my darkest of times. And yet I swallowed this admission down. I couldn’t say it aloud.

Instead, I released her hand, looked away, and started walking again. If I admitted it, if I let the feelings that were bubbling inside me break free, if I let myself embrace Alice the way I wanted to, then everything would be ruined.

“You coming?” I called, and the crunch of footsteps after me was my answer.

I kept a pace fast enough that she’d have to jog to catch up. I didn’t look back.

I couldn’t explain it to her, couldn’t make her see that I destroyed everything I touched.