Fighting Conviction by Greer Rivers
Chapter One
Present day
We’ve got another survivor. Get here when you can.
Ellie tucked her phone into a backpack side pocket and glanced around the half-empty classroom. Everyone was facing forward, listening to their professor drone on, so she slid her Russian textbook off the desk before stuffing it into her bag.
“What’re you doin’?” Virginia hissed, making her platinum curls shake around her furrowed brow.
Ellie caught herself before she rolled her eyes. Barely. On move-in day, Ellie had been gifted a life-sized Barbie, Platinum Busybody Roommate edition. Ever since, Virginia Lowell had been butting her nose into Ellie’s business. For some reason the peppy socialite never realized Ellie had neither the time, energy, nor desire to become friends.
“Gotta go to work,” Ellie whispered before checking to make sure she’d gathered everything.
Satisfied, she silently stood and crept up the steps to the exit. Shuffling movements behind her and the feeling she was being watched made her turn around. All eyes were fixed on her. Turns out, every student was paying as much attention to the Russian 102 lecture as usual. Meaning nyet at all.
Language credits were a requirement at Ashland State University, but because it was a small, local college, the other more popular language options filled within the first hour registration was open. Ellie was probably the only student who’d voluntarily signed up for the dang class.
Despite the fact Ellie was the most interesting thing in the room, Professor Novikov droned on about determining Russian grammatical gender. Why a bed is considered “female” wasn’t ever something she wanted to analyze too deeply. Her prior interaction with Russians made her shudder to imagine that particular word’s origins.
She turned back around and continued her trek up the stairs until she heard a throat clear.
“Miss Stone, do you have somewhere else you’d rather be?”
As usual, the harsh consonants grated on Ellie’s nerves. At least hearing the language didn’t give her panic attacks anymore.
She slowly pivoted, her hand still on her backpack strap. While studying Russian as a form of immersion therapy eventually took, anxiety still flooded through her under the heat of Professor Novikov’s scowl.
Ellie tried to ignore the stress sweat already prickling at her forehead and avoided the blatant stares from her fellow classmates. The classroom had stadium seating, and with Ellie at the top of the room, inches away from the exit, Professor Novikov had the ability to glare up while simultaneously looking down on her.
“Erm… no, ma’am,” Ellie began in English. While the class had taught her how to handle certain triggers, she still hadn’t learned the language well enough to comfortably speak it, especially not on the fly or in front of an audience. “I-I have to go. I have a family emer—”
“—Emergency,” Professor Novikov interrupted in English, also evidently lacking confidence in Ellie’s grasp of Russian. “Yes, yes, I know, Miss Stone. You have explained this to me before, but I have to point out this is the fourth family ‘emergency’ in as many weeks.” Professor Novikov peered over her rectangular glasses and frowned.
Ellie sagged in relief. Good. Professor Novikov hadn’t noticed the many other times she’d snuck out, even though Ellie had never suffered through a class in its entirety. She must’ve gotten lax after the first few times, and the woman had finally caught on.
“The word ‘emergency’ is beginning to lose its meaning where your excuses are concerned, but putting that fact aside, this is a college lecture. You can’t keep interrupting those of your peers who are interested in learning. I think your classmates and I need some sort of explanation.”
“Um… I-I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain. I really gotta go.” Ellie hedged her way toward the door as she spoke, but never let her eyes stray from the older woman pursing her lips and tapping her foot at the front of the tiered classroom. As Ellie’s heel breached the exit threshold, Professor Novikov sighed and threw up her hands.
“Alright, but when midterms come, don’t blame the mirror for your face, Miss Stone. It will not be my fault if you fail. Then again, maybe you are more punctual than I give you credit for. Maybe you are planning ahead to make up your absences in this course next semester.”
Heat rose from Ellie’s chest into her cheeks and she tried not to notice the depth of the silence around her as humiliation weighed her down. She nodded but Professor Novikov had already turned her attention back to her lecture. Ellie turned on her heel to leave and power walked, zigzagging around students moseying through the halls.
Bursting through the double doors, she was slapped in the face by unseasonably warm winter air, making her skin, already hot with embarrassment, feel cool in comparison.
She hopped down the stone steps of the Humanities Building two at a time and jogged to unlock her bike from the rack. When her foot met the pedal, Ellie tightened her grip on the handlebars and cycled hard to relieve her frustration. She tried to forget the guilt pricking at her conscience for disappointing Professor Novikov, and focused on riding through the campus pathways to get onto the street.
Why she cared so much, she didn’t know. The few classes she actually gave a flip about were for her psychology major. And nothing else was a higher priority than her job. But if Professor Novikov had finally noticed that Ellie had been leaving early, then her other professors were likely noticing as well. That was definitely not good.
It would be such a hassle if she was placed on academic probation for skipping class. Not to mention the fact her brother, Jason, would rip her a new one if she failed out of college in her first year. She’d survived her first semester. Second semester wasn’t looking as good, grade-wise at least.
Shaking her head to get free of the negativity, Ellie brought her concentration back to her destination. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if she walked into work tense and aggravated. The least she could do was have a level head and sympathetic heart. Lord knows the survivor had suffered through a nightmare way more traumatic than a freaking classroom scolding.
It was almost a shame her teachers couldn’t know about her job. If they did, maybe they would understand how hard it is to be concerned about conjugating verbs or memorizing music history in a required elective course when there were much bigger problems in the world.
How could she care about anything else aside from the nation’s 20,000 daily domestic violence hotline callers? Or the 1.2 million children who were predicted to be trafficked in the next year, joining the six million who were already suffering? Or the ten million men and women who will endure intimate partner violence?
The numbers were staggering and some days she felt crushed by the weight of responsibility for the missing and broken people in the world. It was only eleven months ago Ellie had been one of them.
At her last turn, a white Corolla passed her. Ellie kept her eyes on the road while confirming the tag with her periphery: ERT 675. Raised spoiler on the back. Ellie couldn’t see it from the corner of her eye, but she’d bet a week’s worth of iced Frappuccinos the driver’s side had a medium-sized dent in it.
She sped up and her heart began to race, but it had nothing to do with her bike ride. The past few days, Ellie had hoped she’d imagined seeing the car around town. But despite the fact she’d changed up her bike route and her schedule was never the same, she’d still noticed it every day on her way to work.
Maybe she was losing it. In this small college town, if the Corolla driver was also a student at ASU, of course she’d see it everywhere.
Ellie groaned at the thought of having to tell her brother. Jason had calmed down with the seen-but-not-heard bodyguard crap in the past few weeks and Ellie had thrived with the breathing room. It was probably nothing but her paranoia, but telling him was part of the deal she’d cut for her freedom.
For almost a year, he’d insisted on one member from the BlackStone Security team watching her at all hours. It was freaking creepy. When she’d accomplished a whole semester of college and eleven extremely uneventful months while a watchdog hid in the shadows, she’d put her foot down. She’d even enlisted Jason’s fiancée, Jules, to help convince him to let her live a normal life without a babysitter, and that was only after Ellie had promised to inform him any time she felt nervous.
A pale brick building on the edge of the block came into view and the familiar plain black lettering of Sasha’s Thrift and Save Store sign set her at ease. She hoped other people who came to the store felt the same, since it was a front for Sasha Saves, a nonprofit crisis center for survivors of abuse and human trafficking.
Ellie and the other founders quickly discovered that some survivors who entered the building were stalked and monitored by their abusers. That’s why Sasha Saves was a secret to everyone until it was needed. Word of the clinic was passed on from survivor to survivor, through their hotline, or from vaguely worded flyers they’d strategically posted in local bar bathrooms, and baby and intimate aisles of stores.
Hidden in plain sight.
And by turning the entrance to the clinic into a storefront, it prevented abusers from finding out their victims were getting help. Victims would call the survivor hotline, be given the address, and be instructed to say they were going to the store. Jason’s private security firm even installed strong safety measures to further protect survivors, helping them seek relief and escape without getting damned for being their own hero.
Ellie hopped her bike up the sidewalk and skidded to a halt in front of the looping bike rack. Her fine, sun-bleached blonde hair tickled her cheek in the wind and she tossed her ponytail back over her shoulder as she locked her bike up to the metal. She glanced around, not surprised to find the Corolla had disappeared.
Yep. Losing it.
Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. Ellie pulled her phone from her backpack side pocket and sent off a quick text to Jason. He was probably getting as sick of her anxiety as she was.
Jason: I’ll get Snake on it. Be safe. Stay near Devil. Text me if anything changes.
Ellie rolled her eyes. Jason was always trying to persuade her to agree to bodyguards again, but she was ready to move on. Sure, she might have to deal with her lingering PTSD, but she’d never shake her jitters until she started to live life like a normal college student.
After reading Jason’s text, Ellie turned back to the nondescript, pale building. She rolled her shoulders back to gear up for what she was about to walk into. How bad would it be this time? Would she be able to help save this one? Would this one even want to be saved?
Ellie closed her eyes and lifted her face to the sun. The heat from its rays warmed her skin and a cool breeze soothed her nerves. A slow, deep inhale of the fresh air calmed her, thanks to the faint scent of the lavender she’d planted in the store window boxes. She whispered into the wind, knowing without a doubt her best friend was listening somewhere up there.
“It’s all for you, Sash. All for you.”
