Elena
I sit in the back row, my hands folded in my lap, and I watch her.
My daughter.
Samantha.
She doesn't know me. How could she? I've been gone for so many years. Years of hiding, running, becoming someone else entirely. I changed my name—Elena Martinez now, not the woman I used to be. I cut my hair short and dyed it dark. I wear glasses I don't need. I've learned to walk differently, talk differently, be different.
I've spent over a decade erasing myself so that Carl Brennan couldn't find me.
So that he couldn't use me to hurt the people I loved.
And now I'm sitting in a room full of survivors, watching my daughter—my baby—facilitate a support group for girls who've been through the same hell I barely escaped.
She's seventeen.
Seventeen.
The last time I saw her, she was five
