Prologue

It was as if the curtains suddenly had been closed on the bedroom window. The full moon was blacked out, as was the clear night of stars. The room was in pitch darkness, or rather, I was blindfolded, and all I could hear was the sound of my own heavy breathing, along with the clicking of heels.

A breeze crossed my face, and then I felt a familiar caress to my skin, soft and gentle. It was how he always started, taking his time to memorize every curve and angle of my teenage body, before advancing to my lips.

"Otou-san?" I whispered, and waited, feeling the soft, moist warmth of his lips leave my own. There was no response, just the heavy silence careening through my ears and the rapid beating of my heart.

"You were always so beautiful, my cherry blossom," he whispered "even more beautiful than your mother."

I felt him remove my blindfold before my glassy pools of emerald were staring directly into his light, brown ones, tears leaking out of my eyes. "Please…" I said "don't do this…" my lips trembled, and he traced the pattern with the pad of his thumb smiling, before something cold and metallic pierced the centre of my chest.

And then…

I woke up.

My body was so tight I felt as if I were wrapped in a straightjacket around my breasts and stomach. I looked down and realised it was my own arms embracing me. I was hugging myself very tightly to keep from falling apart in sobs. I was so closed up inside myself that my heavy breathing sounded as if it were coming from someone near me.

Outside the motel room, the fingers of the wind scratched at the windowpane. The cloud that had covered the moon slid off like a thin slice of melting silvery ice and floated toward the horizon. When I relaxed my arms, I had still very much clutched my hands together so hard that I sent pain up to my wrists.

"Get a hold of yourself, Sakura Kinomoto," I whispered at the image of myself in the mirror. Under the now radiant moonlight, my creamed skin took on a brassy glow, and my eyes, gems of emerald my mother had called them, which had flamed with fear, gradually cooled into frosted orbs, glittering and flickering out until they darkened.

I took another deep breath and then, still trembling, returned to bed. I could hear the sound of whispering in the walls, probably from the people in the other room, but I couldn't make out any words. Gradually, it stopped, and I closed my eyes, willing sleep to return to me.

This wasn't the first time I've had this nightmare since running away from home, and I knew it wouldn't be the last.

But this was the sort of nightmare that would shadow my days and turn every face that looked my way into a possible mask of deception.

Why?

Because I could trust no one who would come across my path to a desperate escape, for there was that part of me who feared I'd be found and returned home to his loving arms.

That part of me that vowed to keep running and never turn back.