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“No. The other man said he was dead.”

“He lied.”

Her backpack slips from her hands and lands on the floor.

“I didn’t kill him?”

“No.”

“I didn’t kill anybody?”

“You defended yourself, Sage. But no, you didn’t kill him.”

She covers her mouth with both hands.

A broken sob escapes between her fingers.

I reach her as her knees give way.

She clings to me, crying so hard her entire body shakes. I lower us both to the floor and hold her against my chest.

“I thought I killed him,” she gasps. “Every night, I see him falling. I see the blood.”

“He’s alive.”

“I thought I was a murderer.”

“You’re not.”

“I was afraid the police would put me in jail.”

“No one is putting you in jail.”

She cries against me until the terror and guilt she has carried for more than a year begin to loosen their hold.

When she finally lifts her head, her glasses sit crooked on her face.

“Did they say why they still want me?”

I could lie.

I could tell her we didn’t have time to ask.

But everyone else in her life has hidden the truth from her. Her grandparents concealed her birth. Mae and Addy kept her father’s name from her. Greg pretended to love her while arranging to sell her.

I won’t become another person who decides she can’t handle the truth.

“The man who bought you is named Navarro.”

Her face turns white.

“He claims you belong to him because he paid Greg five thousand dollars.”

“I don’t belong to him.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t belong to anyone.”