LITMIR.BIZ

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explodes—fire licking and climbing, spitting at the world. There’s another sound, too, mixed with the whooshing sound of the inferno. Wood, metal, bodies—all crumbling, cracking, hissing and screaming in the flames. It is a symphony of loss.

      The men, who are boys really, they yell incomprehensibly, but Leda knows their intentions.

      They rip the buttons on her shirt.

      They yank the hem of her skirt.

      A cloud of reddish dust rises from their feet, as though trying to hide her. But the dust dashes away when Leda is flung to the ground.

      For a moment nothing happens.

      Then it’s like vampires at the sight of a wound. The men converge—kicking, poking, laughing. They tug at all her protruding parts. Leda’s a centipede in the dust, trying to fold in one hundred legs. Trying to protect the things that matter, things that cannot be undone.

      Maybe they will just beat me and go away. This is not my fight. I came to help. Leda wants to shout in their faces. I came to help.

      But then she hears it, jumbled with the clatter of their words. Ita. Another one says it. Ita.

      So they know who she is.

      She is a fish flopping, a tree fallen. A spider in the wind.

      She is Ita’s love.

      For an instant, Leda thinks it will save her. But as their voices rise, she knows it has doomed her instead.

      When the boy drops down on top of her, the force of it is like a metal roof pinning her in a hurricane.

      Instantly, all Leda smells is him—sweat and dirt, but rancid, like musk and cheese rusted over with blood. He uses his trunk to flatten her into the ground, his rib bones stabbing into her sternum, her bare skin grinding into the rocks and trash. His legs and hands scramble for Leda’s flailing limbs. The man-boys above laugh and holler.

      All she can do is flail and scream.

      Leda calls out for the man she loves, the only person who’s ever really loved her.

      But it’s the devil who arrives instead.

      Ita’s beloved monster, Chege.

      Chege’s voice arrives first—a low growl, a familiar snarl. It is the battle cry of an unchained wolf, at home in the darkest of times.

      Chege is above her. His dreads close over Leda and her attacker, a curtain of night.

      “Help me,” Leda says. Did Ita send him?

      As Leda tries to decipher Chege’s spitting words, he yanks the man off and her body takes a breath. The rancid smell, his clawing zipper, the pain in her lungs—it all disappears into the racket above and for one second Leda feels light as a sparrow in the sky. She allows herself to breathe. There is mercy in Chege’s heart after all. He will save her. At least for Ita’s sake.

      But then Chege’s eyes flicker, a flap of emotion like blinds shuttering daylight. His hand shoots down and wraps around her throat, a coiling python, and Leda’s breath is lost. His other hand snaps the necklace from her neck. The gold necklace Ita gave her, the sacred chain that is everything to him.

      This, Chege knows better than anyone.

      He stares at the necklace in his fingers, his eyes bulging, and Leda knows the truth. Chege’s heart isn’t merciful, it’s a furnace of coal that burns only with rage. When both his hands pull Leda up by the throat, the glint of the gold chain taunts her, the shiny sparrow charm a spark in her peripheral vision as the necklace drops to the dirt.

      Up, up through the dust, Chege brandishes her like a chunk of meat.

      He’s claimed her. Head wolf gets the kill.

      His eyes dart about. Leda sees it when he does—a door ajar. He smiles, baring his brown teeth.

      Faster than she can scream, Chege kicks her feet to knock her off balance, then drags her across the alley, to the open door. The boys lap at their heels, eyes ravenous. Behind them, the fire rolls atop the mud shacks like a river of exploding stars.

      Maybe they will burn for this. Maybe we all will.

      Chege yanks her into the dark room, kicks the door shut, and all light goes out in the world.

      Chapter 1

      November 14, 2007, Topanga, CA—Leda

      LEDA SAT IN the sun, feeling judged by the mountains.

      Nearby trees wriggled their pom-poms of leaves, but Leda stared far off in the distance, where the scrubby canyon peaks took their turns in the sun and the rain, under the stars and the moon.

      Everything in its place.

      Except me.

      A multicolored mutt entered the patio through a doggie door and hopped onto Leda’s lap. He curled into a furry ball to be petted.

      “I quit, Amadeus,” Leda whispered.

      The little dog looked up and sniffed.

      “I know. Again.” Leda nuzzled the dog’s Mohawk. “Sorry, buddy, no more leftover filet mignon. I told François Vasseur to shove it.”

      Amadeus whined.

      “Oh please, you won’t starve.” They wouldn’t lose their cozy home in the canyon, either. Leda didn’t have to be a chef, she didn’t have to be anything. Not for money, anyway. But she’d really thought she’d finally found her calling.

      Maybe I just don’t have one. A calling. A purpose.

      Leda sighed. On a table to her left sat her laptop, waiting smugly for her to start the process again, an all-too-familiar sequence of searching.

      Maybe some more iced tea first. Leda went inside, past her bookshelf of cookbooks (culinary school), past the corner display case of cameras (photography school). She bumped the stack of Discover magazines atop the stack of the New Yorkers (double undergraduate majors in science and literature).

      When Leda returned with tea, she battled the urge to procrastinate further and pulled the computer into her lap. Mentally, she ran through the various paths she’d tried, weighing them. The thought of starting school again was both exciting and exhausting, but if necessary, so be it. She didn’t want a job, she wanted a career, something she cared about deeply. Something she could throw herself into.

      Her fingers hovered, ready to fill the Google search box. She typed in career. Then she added meaningful.

      When the search results loaded, she clicked on one after another. Social worker. Counselor. Teacher. An article about a nun in Canada.

      The next one was a website listing volunteer opportunities.

      Leda inhaled. Why not? She didn’t need the salary, but she felt awful when she wasn’t working. She should leave the paid positions open for people who needed them and help people for free.

      Leda sat up straighter in her chair. She scrolled down the listings, each one a short link next to a picture. Teach English as a second language. Tutor troubled teens. Read to senior citizens...

      On the third page, Leda saw a link titled Triumph Orphanage, with the tagline We Need Your Help. Next to it was a photograph of a man with a wide, strong, clear face, rich brown skin, and a smile written across like a welcome banner in a crowded airport. Leda leaned forward to stare into the picture. She clicked on the link and it opened a new page, with the picture enlarged within. The man’s smile held no trace of mental chatter or self-consciousness behind it. It was free and complete, open. Leda felt a surging desire to touch it, the smile, an entirely unfamiliar urge.

      Below the handsome man’s picture was a snapshot of seven schoolchildren in an orphanage, smiling ear to ear. Leda looked closer at the photo, at the background. She scrolled down to the text. The man who ran the orphanage funded it by guiding safari tours—

      Whoa.

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