Lauren smiled as she watched her son Brayden splashing around the hotel’s pool. He was grinning from ear to ear and laughing as he tossed a ball with other children who were also brave enough to go swimming. She picked up the towel she’d brought down to the pool with her and draped it around her shoulders. With a top of seventy-five that day, it was warm enough that Brayden wasn’t going to freeze, but there was no way he was going to convince her to join him in the water. The slight breeze blowing through the courtyard was cooling enough.

Brayden giggled again, the heady laughter of a child without a care in the world. The sound warmed Lauren’s heart, chasing away the chills. That was exactly what a child of his age should sound like all the time. Unfortunately, she and Brayden hadn’t had much to smile about for a while.

She sat back, picking up her soda that she’d grabbed from a vending machine before walking a very excited ten-year-old out to the pool. Brayden had barely had the patience to wait for her to check in and dump their bags, let alone wait for his mom to find her book and order a snack at the hotel bar before they made their way out to the pool. He’d left his clothes dotted about the hotel room’s floor in his hurry to find his swimsuit, almost dragging her out the door of their room with his impatience. And yet, she couldn’t find it in herself to mind, not even a little bit. She’d sit there in the cool breeze, sipping her warm soda a million times over if it brought that kind of smile to her son’s face.

It had been a tough few years. They’d been happy, blissful even, a family—she, Brayden, and her husband, James. Brayden was her only child. Although she would have loved to have more, it hadn’t been in the cards. Still, Lauren had counted her blessings every day. She had a beautiful boy and a husband who loved her. He wasn’t the outwardly romantic type, but she’d often find little love notes left behind, or flowers would suddenly appear on the kitchen counter when she’d only been out of the room for a few minutes. James would deny everything, of course. Maybe the baby had taken a quick drive out to the gas station and picked up a bunch of flowers while she’d been taking the trash out. She’d laughed at the absurdity of the whole thing, but James would keep a straight face—for about a minute, before they’d both end up laughing together. He’d been perfect. Life had been perfect. Until one day, it wasn’t.

It had been a car crash. Nobody’s fault, just one of those freak things. She’d barely noticed when James’ blood alcohol test had come back negative. She hadn’t even questioned it. Somehow, life had taken a sudden, cruel turn, and Lauren didn’t know what to do with it. She didn’t eat; she barely slept. She hadn’t even organized James’ funeral, a fact she still hated herself for to that day. His father, Victor, had taken over, organizing everything from the clothes James would be buried in to where the service was held and what would happen to the family home after. She’d finally emerged from the fog of grief just in time to stop him from selling the home she and James had shared and moving her and Brayden in with him. “You should be with family, Lauren,” he’d said. “James’ boy needs to be raised with family.”

Funny how he’d been James’ boy. Not hers. She hadn’t seen it coming until it was too late. Victor had become involved in their lives almost to the point of suffocation. She’d managed to hang on to her own home, but that was about it. Victor paid for Brayden to attend an exclusive private school. How could she say no, she’d reasoned at the time. She couldn’t afford it on her own with James gone, and it would be such a good experience for Brayden. She’d said the same thing about the tennis and fencing lessons, even though she’d rather he’d have just joined the local scout troop. James’ family was entwined in every aspect of their lives, and eventually Lauren came out of the fog of grief and realized why. Brayden was being groomed for the family business. A business built on crime and violence, and one James had wanted no part of, for himself or his son. But then he was gone, and before she’d known what was happening, Lauren had been sucked right in.

The trip with Brayden was the first time she’d been out from Victor’s almost constant surveillance in months. She’d wanted to break free about five years before, but she’d hung on for her son. Without Victor’s help in the beginning, they could have ended up on the streets. But with every year that passed, the stress was beginning to show on Brayden, too. That, she couldn’t bear. Lauren would put up with anything for her son, but Victor would hurt Brayden over her dead body. So the week before, she’d picked Brayden up from school on Friday afternoon as if everything were normal, and then they’d driven past their house, onto the interstate, and hadn’t stopped until they’d gotten to Monroe, Georgia.

It had been a nearly twelve-hour drive, with Brayden napping in the seat behind her as she drove through the night. At first, every set of headlights behind her must have been Victor coming to stop them, every gas station a chance for him to grab Brayden from the car. It had taken until South Carolina for her nerves to finally settle, and it wasn’t until she’d sat down near the pool and heard Brayden’s happy giggles that the last of the stress had leached from her bones.

James had often talked of Monroe, a small town he’d visited on a road trip once in college. He’d already started pulling away from the family even then, fantasizing what life would be like to live somewhere like that. To James, used to living in the heart of Philadelphia, Monroe seemed like another world. In the quiet of the night, they’d often talked about really doing it one day—just pulling up and moving away, somewhere just like that, where Brayden could grow up safe and healthy, and they could finally live the life James had always dreamed of for himself and his family. A life away from his father.

The light breeze suddenly turned chilly, and Lauren felt a shiver go up the back of her neck. She was being silly, lost in memories of better times, and she was letting her imagination run away. There was no way Victor or his cronies had followed them all the way out there. She’d been careful and hadn’t seen a single sign of them since pulling out onto I-95. She’d considered taking a back route, avoiding the interstate in favor of local highways, but getting away from Victor fast was more important. Her car would blend in with all the others on the road, especially in the seething traffic of Friday rush hour. Or so she could hope. But that didn’t stop the feeling of being watched from slowly settling over her. The sensation sank into her bones, and she looked over to the pool, feeling an urgent need to check in on her son. She’d been lost in daydreams for way too long.

Lauren stood abruptly, the towel falling from her shoulders. Her gaze stalked over the view in front of her. Children still swam happily in the pool, some running along the edge despite their mother’s cautions, but Brayden wasn’t among them. Her legs trembled as her focus swung back and forth. Nothing. She took a step toward the pool, her breath catching in her lungs, when a loud noise rang in her ears. Parents looked up in alarm at the sound, and children scattered, leaving her standing alone by the pool as the fire alarm wailed.