HAZEL
After twenty minutes, the car turns off the main road and onto a long, gated driveway. The kind that says money lives here. Security guards in black suits stand at the entrance, checking names on a list. Nico rolls down the window, flashes something, a card or a look, and we’re waved through.
My heart starts thumping, not from fear this time, but from the smallest flicker of something I haven’t felt in a while.... Hope
If there are governors and senators inside, superintendents of the police… maybe, just maybe, someone will see me. Maybe someone will help me.
The mansion we pull up to looks like it was carved out of marble and ego. It’s all glowing windows and tall white columns, valet attendants running back and forth, music humming faintly from inside. Women in gowns. Men in tu
