Debra R. Borys

"Run, Bella, run." Joy at seeing her disappear in the darkness. Joy and loss that they would never see each other ever again. "Lily, go." Zara's bound hands pushing her forward. "Run. Now. Be brave for the baby." Then bloody fingers spreading across white cotton.These are the last memories of Lily May Beckett as she escapes her father's domination, but she can never be free from the trauma of what he has done to her. Lily tried to be a good girl and change her ways, but when the path to forgiveness leads to hell on earth, sin feels like the only option.Even if gender identity was a choice, no one has a right to force you to choose. Now, if only reporter Jo Sullivan can teach Lily's father that lesson before someone dies. Haunted by the memory of her failure to save a murdered girl, Jo Sullivan risks her life to rescue Lily from a reality that only a twisted mind could believe was part of God's plan for humankind.

Cousins Shorty Davis and Booker T Brooks grew up in pretty much the same circumstances: single mother, too many siblings crowded into a small ghetto apartment. So what makes one kid choose violence as his method to survive living on the streets and the other choose education? Chicago reporter Jo Sullivan doesn't know or have time to worry about it. She's dealing with her own issues when her estranged father comes to Chicago to participate in a cancer clinical trial. When a severed head turns up in an alley dumpster, however, she's thankful for an excuse to shift priorities and find out why all the evidence seems to point to the one kid least likely to have committed the crime.

Snow Ramirez hasn't trusted anyone in a very long time, not even herself. Memories of her childhood on Washington's Yakama Reservation haunt her even on the streets of Chicago. When her squat mate Blitz slits his own throat in front of her, she knows it's time to convince someone to trust her instincts. Blitz may have been diagnosed bi-polar, like Snow herself, but no way would he have offed himself like that if the shrink he'd been seeing hadn't bent his mind completely out of shape.Normally she wouldn't care. Who wasn't crazy in one way or another in this messed up world? After all, she'd gotten out from under the doctor's thumb weeks ago and it was too late for Blitz now, wasn't it? Snow's little brother Alley, though, there might still be time to save him. If only she can get reporter Jo Sullivan to believe her story before Snow loses her own mind.