Vega- Lindsey Meadows- Kis- | -runaway Love - Alexis Love- Veronique

The rain was a thin, cold curtain over the Greyhound station. Alexis Love clutched the strap of her duffel bag, her knuckles white. Beside her, Veronique Vega adjusted the brim of her stolen baseball cap, scanning the flickering neon signs of the all-night diner across the street.

Veronique knew. She’d been there a year longer than Alexis. That’s why she had the plan.

“Found a guy,” Kis said, her voice a low rasp. “Works at a ranch. Needs help with horses. Room, board, cash under the table.” The rain was a thin, cold curtain over the Greyhound station

Alexis dug into her duffel bag and pulled out a crumpled photograph. It was of a woman who looked like her, but older, sadder. Her mother, before the drugs, before the disappearances. Alexis kissed the photo and tucked it back.

She wasn’t being dramatic. The group home on Mulholland Drive had been a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. Alexis had aged out of the foster system six months ago, only to find herself shuffled into a “transitional living” facility run by a woman named Meadows. Lindsey Meadows had the smile of a televangelist and the cold, calculating eyes of a loan shark. She took their government checks, skimmed their meager paychecks from the warehouse jobs she forced them to take, and called it “life skills training.” Veronique knew

“Last chance to back out,” Veronique murmured, her breath a ghost in the air.

The Nevada sunrise painted the mountains in shades of orange and pink. The bus crested a hill, and below them lay a valley with a rambling, honest-to-goodness ranch. A sign read: Second Chance Stables – Help Wanted. “Found a guy,” Kis said, her voice a low rasp

Through the rain-streaked window, Alexis watched Lindsey Meadows shrink into a furious, pink speck. The bus pulled out of the station, past the strip malls and the pawn shops, toward the dark, open highway.