Prologue : How This Works




Brooke and her new boyfriend, Sam, were walking down the alleyway. Sam stumbled; he had drank to much at the bar. Someone had towed Brooke’s car, so they had to walk. It had taken two hours for the people to tell her that her car had been towed. By then, her mother had called, worried sick. Her mother didn’t know about Sam, who was twenty-one while Brooke was just seventeen.



There they were half an hour later, using the alleyway as a shortcut. The familiar, old bricks of the building walls that created the alleyway, whom in which had been built 1980’s, towered uneasily over Brooke, who in turn felt queasy to her stomach. These building has haunted her for the six years she remembered them.

She had lived in that little town in near Brooklyn for seventeen years.

When Brooke was just eleven, she had been kidnapped, though rescued, had no memory other than her identity and where she lived. Everything else was forgotten and deleted from her.




It had taken her family months to realize she was distant and attempt to get her to join them again. She avoided them and treated them like strangers. Even that dark Sunday night, she couldn’t quite remember what Jack’s favorite color was. Or what spices her mother used. Or what her father did for a career. Or even that she had a twenty-four-year-old sister who worked at a middle school.



When she met Sam a week earlier, she had been ecstatic. Someone new! No one to get at her about what their names are or how they liked their dinner.




So she clung to him happily, even though she hated people who drank, as he stumbled her home.



Suddenly, through the pressuring darkness that choked her and Sam, rustling and muttering echoed softly behind them. Through his drunken phase, Sam’s pace stuttered and lolled. Then his head lifted in some sort of recognition Brooke couldn’t place.Even though Sam had taken some shots, he grasped her hand tighter and did his best effort to run. She panicked. Not exactly sure what to do, she clasped her hand tighter in his and they ran as fast as Sam could go.



Brooke couldn’t see through the blinding shadows of the old, beat down, rained on, faded buildings, making her see all but the light that wouldn’t reach her eyes. So she didn’t see the fact that there was something in front of her. She slammed into what seemed to be a brick wall. Still clutching Sam in a dead-tight clasp, they fell together.




Brooke realized the whispering and debating voices had surrounded them. What little light that could be grasped hit the tall, lean men around them. Brooke could see their rippling muscles and their black hoods. They had chopped the sleeves off, as if to show off. They mainly focused their gaze on Brooke.

“This that blondie you were talkin’ about, Sammy-muh-booooi?” one slang voice laughed. Brooke felt something poke her.


“Dannnggg!!! She fiiiiiiiiiine!!!” shouted another. More laughing came out front, encouraging agreement.


“Shut up guys. Leave us alone, I gotta get ‘er home.” muttered Sam in a husked, slurred voice.


“Wha’ for, man? Wha’, she live whit her paren’s?” one retorted. More laughter, except this time more dark.


Silence. Dead silence.


Suddenly, it hit Brooke.


These men know Sam. She examined as best she could the men in front of her. She saw the tattoos through the hard-working street lamp’s light.



Sam’s a gang member. Oh no. Mom won’t-


On of the men kicked Brooke’s leg as hard as she’s ever felt.


Pain exploded memories of the white man who stole her away. She screamed, hallucinating that she was back in that abandoned house.


“Man, she younger than eighteen?! She ain’t a hooka?!” exclaimed another hidden man, most likely the one who kicked Brooke, as she herself speculated.


Sam murmured things as something was tied around Brooke’s mouth. It tasted funny, like the way her detergent smelled, the one her mother used to clean her clothes.


Dizziness blurred and slurred Brooke into a confusing void.


Though she was clinging easily, she was still slipping quickly. As she was floating away, she heard a deep voice say loudly:





“Izzal will be very displeased.”