Julie Dumbarton sat in the very last seat of the Greyhound Bus. She didn’t like sitting next to the chemical smelling toilet stall, but she needed the security of knowing no one was sitting behind her. She was impatient for the bus to depart, afraid that if they sat there too long the man that was hunting her would find her. She looked out of the window into the night but all she could see was her own reflection, her red hair creeping out from under her hat, blue eyes rimmed with dark circles from lack of sleep. Even her cheekbones seemed sharper than when she had left home months ago.

She thought back to the time before the city, when she’d stupidly driven the getaway car for her boyfriend Axel. She hadn’t known he was going to rob a bank, but that wouldn’t matter to the cops. The prosecutor would surely point out that she had known Axel was up to no good. She’d left him after that. Left him and moved to the city for a fresh start.

What a joke that had been; she’d had no marketable skills and couldn’t find a job. She should have known when the lovely Martin Richter had taken her in, that he was a con man. An unprincipled pimp. She’d actually thought he was in love with her until he had given her to another man. After that she’d stolen from his wallet time and time again, until she had the bus fare home. But he’d found her stash and given her a black eye so in the end she had to call her parents for a bus ticket home.

She’d spent the evening pretending to drink with Martin, refilling his glass time after time until he finally passed out on the couch. Then she’d snuck past the other rooms and down and out into the street, running barefoot to the bus station, her feet silent on the warm pavement, so the men wouldn’t hear her footfalls.

“I need to pick up my ticket,” she’d said panting with exertion and nerves at the ticket window.

“What?” asked the clerk behind the counter. “Say again.”

“I have a ticket here,” Julie spoke slower, tried to regulate her breathing.

“You must pay for ticket,” the clerk said.

“No,” Julie was starting to panic, she wasn’t sure how much time she had before the bus left. “My parents paid for the ticket, I just need to pick it up.”

The clerk had finally understood, found the ticket and handed it to Julie, after she’d produced her ID. Then she’d padded quietly onto the bus, still holding her shoes.

Shouting broke out in the station just as the bus engine roared to life and Julie slid down in her seat hoping to slip unnoticed out of Martin Richter’s life. He didn’t know where she was from and with a little luck he would never know where she had gone.

Julie woke when the bus pulled into her home town terminal. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, it wasn’t safe. The movement of the bus had lulled her and she’d slept deeply the last five hours of the trip. She rubbed her eyes and looked out into the familiar downtown. Her parents were standing on the sidewalk beside the bus; arms folded not talking to each other. There was nothing new about that, they hadn’t had a proper conversation in the last 10 years as far as Julie knew.

She grabbed her backpack and climbed down out of the bus. Her mother burst into tears and threw her arms around Julie.

“I’m okay mom,” Julie said into her shoulder. “I’m fine.” It wasn’t true of course but she would never tell her mother what she’d been through. Looking over her mother’s shoulder she thought she saw someone standing in the shadows on the other side of the street, but she couldn’t get a good look. Still, the figure reminded her of Axel and she realized she’d still have to be careful. She’d put that life behind her and that’s where she wanted it to stay.

“Why thank goodness,” her father said. “You’re safe. Let’s take you home.” He took her backpack and walked away.

“Mom. Mom!” Julie pulled away from her mother’s embrace. “Come on mom, dad already left.”

They followed her dad to the car and drove silently through the town toward their home. Once home, Julie made excuses to her parents and retreated to the sanctuary of her bedroom; the one place in the world she felt safe. She grabbed a towel from the linen closet and got gratefully into the shower. She let the water run and run, rinsing away the grime of the city life, the humiliation, the abuse. When the water ran cold she got out of the shower, returned to the privacy of her room and rummaged in her drawers for close she hadn’t worn in months.

When she pulled on her favorite jeans she discovered they were too big for her now. She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing for the first time that her hip bones jetted sharply and her lower ribs were visible. There had been no mirrors in the house in the city and she had no clue how emaciated she’d become. She dug around in a drawer for a belt and cinched her jeans tight on her hips. So she was thin, she thought, so what? All she had to do was eat ice cream every day for a week. She should get back to normal, at least normal looking. She might never feel like the same person again.

The jeans looked silly bunched around her waist, so she slipped into a dress instead. It was a flowy sleeveless shift with a scoop neck that dropped to just above her knees. Comfortable and homey. This dress was full of happy memories.

It was when she went to flop down on her bed that she noticed the envelope on her pillow. She smiled thinking one of her friends must be welcoming her home. She stuck her finger under the envelope flap and tore it open, pulling out not a card, but a single sheet of lined paper, the kind they use in elementary school. There were five words printed on it. You - will - never - be - free. A cold chill ran down her back.

Julie dug through her drawers for a clean pair of socks and grabbed her sneakers out of the closet. She dumped her backpack on the bed shaking out all the bits of detritus she collected in the corners during her stay in the city. Then she stuffed a change of clothes and a sweatshirt into the bag, dropped to her hands and knees beside the bed and felt for the slit she’d cut in the bottom of the box spring for the money she’d stashed there months ago.

Her fingers found the edges of the envelope and she slid it from the mattress, but when she opened it there was no money there. She dropped her head to the floor in despair. Who had taken her money? Well it didn’t matter she was just going to have to survive without it. She went to the window opened the lower sash and slid out onto the back porch roof. She inched down the metal as quietly as she could, rolled over onto her stomach and slid her legs out into the air until her hips could bend. As her legs dropped, she kicked around feeling with her toes for a gap in the lattice. When she found it she crept slowly down as quietly as she could and dropped into the bushes at the back of the house. The backyard was dark, but luckily she knew where everything was. Nothing had changed in the weeks she had been away.

She stepped out between the bushes and sat on the back door step to put her shoes on. The house was dark and she knew her parents were sleeping. She made her way quietly past the garage at the back of the yard, out through the gate and into the back alley. There she took a quick look to see that no one was skulking in the alley and she turned right and trotted toward town.

She walked through the small downtown and along the river until she reached the bridge. There she sat on the parapet watching the river flow and wondered what she should do. There were one or two people that might be willing to help her, but there were no guarantees. She’d left town without a word to her friends, hadn’t contacted them while she was away and couldn’t expect them to understand why she left.

She would not go back to Axel. She would not get dragged back into that life. People who ran with Axel’s gang didn’t survive long, and there were plenty of freshly seeded mounds in the graveyard that could attest to that.

Julie ducked down as a car approached the bridge hiding in the shadows. Her parents wouldn’t be looking for her yet, they wouldn’t even be awake, but the problem with living in a small town was that nothing stayed secret for long. If someone saw her sitting on the bridge her parents would be woken to a phone call telling them all about it. Julie had to remain unseen.

She slid down off the bridge onto the bank of the river and walked south. If she made it down to the marina she might be able to break into one of the boat houses the summer people kept there. Last summer Axel had shown her which boathouses had easy locks to pick, and which ones were hardly ever locked at all.

The sky began to fade and brighten as she approached the marina, but it was still very early. There was no one on the docks. She hurried down the farthest jetty and chose a house in a slip between two others where her movement might go unnoticed. She’d been here before, unlike last time the porch window slid easily open and she slipped inside.

She wondered if the people who owned the house boat even remembered it was theirs. No one had visited it in her memory and it was exactly the same as last time she’d been there. There were two cokes and a bottle of water in the fridge. She grabbed the water reasoning it could be refilled so it wasn’t really stealing. She made her way upstairs and out onto the roof deck, grabbing a wall blanket from the linen closet on the way. She curled into one of the reclining deck chairs, pulled the blanket over her swig to the water and then let herself drift into sleep.