CHAPTER 3
Belle
It’s warm when I wake up. My fingers and toes can wiggle, my skin doesn’t sting, my n*****s aren’t hard beads of pain. My heart’s beating, and the air around me is faintly stuffy and smells of wood smoke.
I’m alive.
Someone came and pulled me out.
Tears of relief pool in my eyes and spill out; I gulp and sniffle and finally open an eye to take a look around. I’m not in a hotel or a hospital. I’m in a small, rustic space with heavily plastered walls.
The surface beneath the thin mattress I’m on is hard, but deep warmth radiates through it. I’m lying on a sort of broad adobe bench attached to a very odd-looking wood stove. It’s topped with something that looks like an oil drum, and a teakettle is steaming away on top of it.
A chair creaks. "You're awake," rumbles a dee
