They say that stress can make your mind play tricks on you, and Alex certainly was under stress. Protective custody was a cruel joke that had banished her to Queens, of all places, so it was only a matter of time before she started seeing things. But this was beyond.

"Piper. What the fuck."

Alex stood frozen in the doorway, not able to make sense of Piper's actual presence a few feet away. She looked amazing, adorned with a smoky eye and a lacy black dress that meant she was going or coming from someplace fancy.

"Are you going to invite me in?"

"Like a vampire." Alex swept her inside.

They stared at each other over mugs of instant coffee, a far cry from what they'd had in Brussels or Jakarta. But it was better than anything available at the Litch.

"I got furlough," Piper started, choosing her words carefully.

"Nobody gets furlough."

"I know."

"How the hell did you - ?"

"Listen. I'm sure that everyone's standing around at my grandmother's wake wondering where I am. I was in a car headed there, but then I remembered what she always used to say to me. She said, 'Eat the world, Piper.'"

Piper inched her coffee cup closer, slightly grazing Alex's fingers with hers. For the briefest of moments her lips curled into a smile.

"But I can't," she continued. "I can't eat the world, because you took the world away from me."

Alex glanced again at Piper's fingers, gripping the cup so tight her knuckles had turned stark white.


11-year-old Norma gripped the jar tightly and held it to her chest. She loved to watch the olive oil flow from one side of the glass to the other. It was soothing, but she knew better than to drop it.

"What's the matter with you?" her mother asked as she hunted through the market aisles for a deal. "You used to be such a good student, best in class. What happened?"

"Nothing," Norma sputtered as she slunk behind.

Her mother turned to catch her eye.

"Not according to the school. They say you're a problem, that you refuse to participate. Norma, what's with this silence?"

Norma's eyes dropped to the ground. Nowadays she was lucky to manage a one-word reply, but this was too much. Staring down at her mother's boxy shoes, she fixed her eyes on a tiny tear in the sole, which she knew would wear clean through to the bottom before her mother would be able to replace the pair.

She felt a lump forming in her throat, rising up and reaching the tip of her tongue as she struggled for a response.

"Speak up," her mother demanded.

Just as Norma lifted her head to meet her mother's gaze, and miracle of miracles, made breath push past her lips to almost form a syllable, she caught the cadence of that old chilling voice. Saw his dusky frame move in on them.

It was him.

"Ms. Romano! Funny running into you here," he sang.

"We're only neighbors, baccalà," Norma's mother teased, instantly the most charming woman in the entire borough of Brooklyn.

"It's been too long…"

Their voices faded to white noise in Norma's head. She was cloudy, watching the world bend like a scrap of sheet metal or a reflection in a funhouse mirror.

"I certainly appreciate you looking after little Norma…"

Worse, Norma was overcome by his smell. Not smelling him, but smelling him on her. She couldn't wash him away.

And then he looked at her.

Suddenly struck by the feeling that she would surely die, Norma willed the world to stop spinning and free her from his gaze. It seemed to work as everything fell silent.

Then they heard the persistent pat of liquid lapping the floor. Norma looked down to see it streaming down her leg, dampening her dress and forming a sickening puddle. But she didn't dare look away from it to find everyone in the crowded market now staring at her, their faces twisted in horror.

She was too old to wet herself. It had never happened before and it might never happen again, but the damage was done. Her mother's voice cut the air like a siren projecting all her shame.

"Norma Romano. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Everything was wrong.

Norma's hands quivered and dropped the jar, and it shattered. As olive oil slowly seeped through the shards of glass, no longer soothing, Norma made herself a promise. She couldn't let him get away with taking so much from her. She would make him pay.