Morning light pushed weakly through the drawn curtains of the apartment. Boris Tate lounged in the kitchen, stirring instant coffee that had already gone cold. In the distance, another siren started up.
Annie moved quietly down the hallway, trying not to draw attention. She was thirsty, but fear outweighed it. She paused by the kitchen door and watched him carefully.
Boris turned sharply and fixed her with a heavy stare. A contemptuous smirk spread across his face. He got up from the chair and walked toward her.
“Sneaking around again like some stray cat?” he said. Annie stepped back and folded her trembling hands against herself. She wanted to run, but her feet wouldn’t move.
At that same moment, Ellen was deep into another twenty-four-hour shift at the hospital. She spent her days helping surgeons save badly wounded service members. She had no idea what her daughter’s home life had become.
Boris had figured out quickly that Ellen’s absence gave him room to do as he pleased. He began setting rules in Mike’s apartment as if it belonged to him. One of the first was forbidding Annie to turn on lights in the evening, supposedly to save money.
So the girl sat in the dark for hours, listening to the city and waiting for sleep. Her only comfort came from the rare letters her father managed to send through volunteer channels.
That gray morning, there was a quiet but steady knock at the front door. Boris shuffled over in his slippers and opened the stubborn lock. On the other side stood a tired young volunteer in a jacket with a charity patch.
“Hi, I’ve got something for Annie Shaw from her dad,” the woman said kindly. In her cold hands was a white envelope covered in Mike’s familiar handwriting. Boris’s eyes narrowed at once. A mean idea came to him immediately.
“She’s asleep right now. I’ll make sure she gets it,” he lied smoothly. The volunteer handed over the envelope and hurried on. The moment the door shut, Boris turned the letter over in his thick fingers with open disgust.
Annie, hidden behind an old cabinet in the hallway, held her breath. She had heard every word. Her heart pounded at the sight of that envelope. She had already imagined reading it under her blanket.
But Boris had no intention of giving her the one thing she wanted most. He walked to the stove and flicked a lighter. Orange flame caught the edge of the envelope.
Annie ran from hiding, forgetting her fear. She screamed and reached for the burning paper. Boris shoved her aside and kept holding it over the flame.
“Your dad forgot all about you a long time ago,” he snapped. Ash drifted down onto the worn linoleum like black snow. In Annie’s eyes, the little light of hope she had been carrying for months dimmed badly.
From then on, Boris controlled nearly every step she took in that apartment. He made her clean up after him and wash dishes from his drinking nights. Any attempt to tell her mother was met with threats that he’d send her away to foster care.
