Prologue.

It was so cold.

I remember the cold most of all, it was bitter and numbing. It snuck under the jeans and flannel shirt I wore. It was all I wore on that cold Christmas Eve in Vermont.

Snow had been shoveled off the cement walk, it was close to three feet high on either side of the salted ground. The salt crunched under my boots, the snow had soaked them long ago.

My feet were so cold they burnt.

It was a sign of frostbite but I remained silent; Gordon walked in front of me with bare feet.

The boots were his as was the flannel shirt. All Gordon wore was a pair of jeans and t-shirt from the fishing boat he had left. His hands were red from the cold but strong. His hands were always strong no matter what happened to us.

The snow came down heavily around us, a blizzard. The cold icy wind slid under the flannel shirt and chilled me. But, I would not complain, we were safe.

I followed him up the marble steps of the church.

Unable to help myself, I looked around at the small sleeping town. It was past midnight, so there was no one on the street.

"Angela, it's ok, we're safe."

I looked back to Gordon and smiled, unable to even find the words to thank him.

"Come on. It's warm in here. We'll hide out here until the buses start up again."

That sounded wonderful, the sooner we could leave the better.

I followed him to the wooden doors of the old Catholic Church.

A breeze of warm air came out when he opened the door for me. I quickly ran into the church, greedy for the heat that immediately burnt my skin. It made my nose run even more.

Gordon closed the door behind us and shone his flashlight around. A statue of the Virgin Mary watched us from the corner.

He swung the light into the empty church and then around the front area.

"Are we allowed to just stay here?"

Gordon aimed the dim light at my face, "Don't worry. This is a church, it's always open for a reason. We'll just find a nice warm room and camp out tonight."

I smiled and wiped my nose with the sleeve of his worn green shirt.

With a gentle hand he took the bottom tail of the shirt, "Come on. There are usually offices and bathrooms in the back."

Gordon walked slowly, shining his light all over as we explored the church. We walked past marble statues and framed pictures of saints and popes. Past a confessional and office. Down a hall we found a bathroom. Across from the bathroom was a nursery.

Gordon pushed the decorated door open and peered in the dark room.

I reached past him and felt around the wall, the flipped the light switch.

What looked like a kindergarten classroom was the nursery. There were cubbies

against the wall, small round tables, boxes of toys and a chalkboard, even a nap

area.

Both Gordon and I spotted the pile of foam napping mats and blankets.

"Perfect," he muttered with a look around the room. The walls were covered with hand painted nativity scenes and glittery angels.

I patted his warm arm, "I'm going to go clean up."

"All right, I'll make a bed and then see if I can find some food for us."

He turned and paused at the sight of me.

I knew without a mirror, that I looked as if I had been through a war. My face throbbed with a vengeance, where it did not throb it stung.

"Why don't you see if the bathroom has some Tylenol? I'll get some ice for your eye."

With a painful smile, I walked to the bathroom and turned the light on. Pain radiated through my hand. Not from the cold but the bones that were likely broken. I had no desire to look at my hand. It always hurt more when I looked at my bruises and cuts.

The smell of cinnamon filled the small room and made me sneeze. I wiped my nose on my arm, not my hand.

My hand had begun to throb from the warmth of the church.

I went to the mirror above the sink and looked for a hinge. Not one hinge on either side of the mirror, it indeed was a mirror not a medicine cabinet. Inwardly I was heartbroken; my hand would likely throb painfully all night long.

When I looked at my face in the mirror I almost cried. I understood why Gordon thought of Tylenol when he looked at me. My black eye was bloodshot and the first thing I noticed. Then my gaze traveled, on my other cheek was a bruise from earlier in the day. My top lip was swollen, while the bottom had a scab across it lengthways from my teeth. There was a cut on the opposite cheek with blood smeared over the reddened skin.

The aftertaste of blood lingered in my mouth, my blood. And then there were handprints on my neck , which looked worse of all the bruises. My thick hair hung down and managed to hide some of them.

My appearance alone almost brought tears to my eyes. I could not cry, I would not cry. I closed my eyes to stop the tears and I could remember everything. Every last curse, slap, and kick. But most of all I remembered the fear I felt when they came through the apartment door. The fear was so strong I never felt one of the blows.

A soft noise caught my attention.

I turned and saw Gordon with a glass of water in one hand and two pills in the other.

"I found some Advil. I don't know if two will be enough between your face, neck, and hand."

I refused to look at my hand, I did not want to see what damage had been done to it again. My poor hand had been broken so many times there was not a unbroken bone, in either one of my hands.

I held out my good hand and looked at the two round pills. I dropped them in my mouth then took the glass of cool water. The water helped wash the blood taste from my mouth.

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital? I think there are a couple of broken bones in your hand. Especially those two fingers."

Finally, I looked at my left hand. Not only was it red from the cold and bloody from a cut on the palm. My middle and index fingers were so darkly bruised they had to be broken. Not to mention they hurt too much to move. But, they were straight, not bent out of shape.

"If we go to the hospital, they will want to know what happened. They'll probably think you did this and will call the police. Gordon, I don't want you in any trouble. I just want to get away from here. Far far away."

I could see the anger and exhaustion in his face.

Gordon was truly concerned about me, "If you can't move your hand in the morning. You're going to the hospital."

"Ok," I agreed.

Then he sighed and sat down on the toilet seat, "Angela…we have to do something. We can't keep this up. I don't like leaving you in a cheap apartment for weeks at a time. I don't like having you too terrified to leave because of him. We just can't live like this."

His words were truer then I liked to admit. For weeks at a time he would be out on a Lobster Fleet, while I was alone, too terrified to even leave the apartment or hotel. "What do you want to do? I can't get a job without graduating. And no one will hire a runaway fifteen year old."

Gordon shook his head, "No. I was thinking. I'm eighteen so I can join the

military. I can change my name, legally. Then, when you're old enough in a few years we can get married."

A stunned stupor overcame me, "Married?"

His bright blue eyes held my own, "Look, we're both way too screwed up to even have a normal relationship with a guy or girl. I am not going to let you become some homeless prostitute. You're my best friend…you are the only thing that has kept me sane and out of jail. If I change my last name, then I join the military and we get married…you'll get benefits."

"Benefits?"

Gordon nodded, "Yeah. One of the guys who was on the boat with me was a Ranger and."

I interrupted him, "A Ranger? Like a park ranger?"

"He was in the Army. He owned the fleet. But anyway, we get insurance. A salary and housing on a military base, which means no one but military people get in and out. You'd be in a protected gated area."

That idea appealed to me.

Gordon could see it in my eyes, he ran a hand over his short dark hair. "You would also get to finish school and go to college. And…you would have a different last name. No one would find us. The Captain told me that we'd get shipped all over the United States and the World, that's if I joined for life."

I could have cared less about the benefits and college, even a new last name for me, which sounded like freedom to me. I asked him, "Would you be happy in the military?"

Gordon laughed and smiled at me, "I think so. I've been thinking about it for a while…I don't care what branch I go in at this point. It has to be better then this."

I took a breath and looked at my battered hand. "What about being married?"

"Angela…I am in absolutely no shape to date. You are the only person I care about. I am nothing without you. I want to make your life better. This is the only way I can foresee that we make something of ourselves. I don't want to go back. I don't want to be a fisherman my whole life. And I know you want something more. If we do this…I can give you a new life. I can save us both."

Gordon's plan sounded wonderful, anything was wonderful anything was better then what we had left. So I asked, "What will our new last name be?"