Prologue

Carmen Shapiro was twelve years old the night a car crash took her parents and younger brother.  Her Dad and Jaime, riding in the passenger side, were killed on impact.  Her Mother, driving, lasted long enough to reach the hospital.  Paramedics said she fought hard, before the shock drove her to unconsciousness.
Carmen had been staying with a friend.  The phone call came and Nicky's parents walked tentatively into the room with worried faces.  They rushed Carmen to Brindleton Bay Mercy Hospital.  There she was able to say a goodbye of sorts, but her Mother was unresponsive.  Twelve hours later, she followed her husband and son.

The next days became a blur of intense grief.  A social worker and others were involved.  An uncle was located, in Oasis Springs.  He would take his orphaned niece.


And for several years all was well, enough.


Then one night when Carmen was barely seventeen, her Uncle came into her bedroom.  His hand, almost casually, slipped a little too far up her leg and under the hem of her nightshirt.  He made some comment about how she was becoming "Such a young woman."
Frozen, Carmen gathered what courage she could before replying "Goodnight Uncle."  A dismissal in her tone, without too much unfriendliness to put him on guard.  Rebuffed, her Uncle left, turning the light out behind him.
In the dark, Carmen's mind raced.  What was she to do?  Her instincts were screaming that this could get bad, very fast.  She had not merely imagined the way her skin crawled at the touch of that hand.  Nor the all-wrong smile on her Uncle face.  Options?  She could tell a teacher.  But nothing truly illegal had happened.  Carmen was sure her teachers' hands would be fairly tied; if she could make them believe.  Carmen had no other family.  Also, weren't the adults likely to chalk this up to some sort of adolescent confusion or rebellion?  On the surface, her Uncle provided for her, loved her.  Wasn't rejecting parental figures part of growing up?  In cases such as hers, with unconventional family structures, rebellion, issues of identity and growing pains could take many forms -some extreme.  Carmen could just imagine the grown-ups offering these reassuring (to them) explanations and sending her right back to this house alone.

No, Carmen could not be certain help would come from adults in time.  She was unsafe now.
So, a new plan began to form.  The next morning, Carmen packed her schoolbag with an extra change or two of underwear, a pair of shorts, a singlet.  She kept it small and essential, so as to not alert anyone.  There was a, currently unused, one man tent in the garage.  This, Carmen carefully loaded onto the back of her bicycle at the last moment.  She went to school as normal, though she was distracted.  But, that afternoon, she did not go home.