prologue

Bailey’s eyelids fluttered in the thin veil between sleep and awake. The room was purple from her Snoopy nightlight, and shadows played across the walls where no shadows were supposed to be.

A voice inside her head whispered to her—her secret voice. The one she never told anyone about except for Teddy, her stuffed protector who sat on the corner of her bed, one arm on her pillow, keeping watch for monsters and bad dreams.

Her secret voice whispered, Don’t wake up. Keep your eyes closed. Be very still and quiet.

Bailey listened to the voice. It was clever. It understood things before she did. And though she knew it was really her voice, her thoughts, she had come to trust it.

When the voice told her to curl into a ball, she curled and absorbed the blows on her back and head. When it said to cry, she spilled tears. When it said not to cry, she didn’t make a sound. And when it told her to hide, she disappeared like a ghost.

Tonight it said, Don’t open your eyes. And she wouldn’t. But closing her eyes made her nose and ears open up.

There was a stranger in her room: a man with a strong, doggy smell that wasn’t covered up by his man-scented cologne and deodorant. She smelled cigarettes, but not regular cigarettes; it was too sweet. The alcohol on his breath and in his sweat wasn’t whiskey, beer, or wine—she knew those scents by heart. Like the tobacco, it had an unfamiliar sweetness, and for a reason she couldn’t explain, she thought it was expensive.

There was another smell, too. One that always scared her, because it meant her mom and dad would argue before he stormed off into the night. When he returned—sometimes within hours, more often after several days—his mood could never be predicted. Bailey had seen him arrive with flowers and sweet bubbly stuff in bottles for her mom, and they would dance and kiss and drink the bubbly stuff and everyone would be smiling. Other times the voice would tell her to hide when her dad came home. If she didn’t hide fast enough, the voice would tell her to curl into a ball and protect her head.

That smell, she had learned, was gun oil.

“I don’t want you in here.” It was her father’s voice.

The stranger answered, “If I was you, I wouldn’t want it either.”

The floor creaked as the stranger moved closer to her bed. Bailey wanted to squeeze her eyes tighter, but the secret voice whispered again, Don’t move. Pretend you’re dead. A mummy wrapped in bandages. Safe.

“How old is she now?” asked the stranger.

He had an accent, but Bailey didn’t know much about other countries. She had met a brown-skinned boy who once lived in a warm place called “chilly,” which sounded backward to her. And her best friend, Shreya, said her family was from India, where they had a farm with goats and grew mangos. Shreya’s parents had musical voices, almost like they were singing rather than talking.

This man was from neither of those places.

“She’s five,” answered her father.

He didn’t mention the half! Bailey really liked the half because it meant she was closer to six than five, and that was better because it meant later bedtimes and full days at school. A six-year-old was practically a grown-up.

“A valuable age,” said the stranger.

“She’s not for sale.”

Bailey didn’t understand. How could the stranger think she was for sale? That didn’t make sense. She wasn’t milk or eggs or a doll in the store. You can’t buy a person.

“Everything’s for sale.”

“No.”

The smelly stranger moved so close to the bed that he was leaning over her. Bailey could feel his eyes on her face and blanketed body. There was heat coming from him and everywhere his gaze touched, her skin tingled. She kept breathing and remained still, but it was so hard not to scream and run and hide. She didn’t like this man being in her room, or the way she knew he was looking at her.

“You have another on the way,” said the stranger.

“I said no.”

Another on the way, thought Bailey. What does that mean?

“You make it sound like you have an option.”

“But you said—”

The stranger laughed softly. “Yes, Joseph, I did. I just want to make sure you understand the consequences if you let me down.”

Joseph? The only time she heard her father called anything but Joe was when her mother was either really angry or really happy. If she was angry, the words that came with her father’s full name were the ugly ones. Bailey didn’t like those words.

“I understand,” said her father, but his voice sounded small. It was the same voice he had when he was drinking, before he had too much—before he changed into the man she hated. “Can we leave now?”

“Aren’t you going to kiss your daughter goodbye?”

“No.”

The stranger laughed, but it wasn’t a nice sound; it was sharp, like a knife. “Then allow me.”

Bailey tensed but tried not to let it show as the stranger bent down and kissed her forehead. His lips were soft, but instead of heat there was coldness. It seeped through her skin and bones and deep into her brain, like when she drank lemonade too fast.

The stranger whispered, “Obedient child. I have plans for you.”

Bailey might have screamed if her secret voice hadn’t shown her a picture of Teddy clad in shining armor, stabbing a sword into the stranger’s eye so that it stuck into his brain.

Bailey lay still, pretending to be asleep as the stranger and her father left the room and closed the door behind them.