Knox:
The floorboards creaked beneath my boots, old oak groaning as I stepped down into the basement. It was always damp down here, the scent of concrete and soil sharp in the air. The girls didn’t come down here much, and that was part of the point.
I carried the safe under my arm—small, steel, but heavy with the weight of what we were leaving behind. I hide it under a rickety old floor board down there. All the money we still had minus about twenty-five thousand. Ten thousand dollars, sealed up in bills wrapped in rubber bands sat in the cabinet about the fridge. It wasn’t just money. It was a beginning. A little breathing room for when rent came due or the fridge ran hot. For someone to finally apply to school or buy a goddamn couch they actually liked.
Viv had written a note to go w
