Lynda signed the last line of the petition slowly, her hand steady even though her heart was not. The small desk in her rented room carried more than papers. It carried the first real step toward the freedom she had been dreaming about since childhood. The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that let every thought sound louder than it should. The ceiling fan spun in slow circles above her head, slicing the warm air without cooling the tension in her chest.

She had left Lukas’s house with ...