CHAPTER 24

          Cheryl stirred, content to leave behind another sleepless night. Lately, it was so hard to catch a few hours of good sleep. Usually, the street noises were easy to bear, but since Paxos, she wasn’t used to it anymore. Nor was she used to sleeping, living, and eating in a single room, where the ugly-patterned wallpaper was peeling off in the corners, the carpet needed to go on a rubbish tip, and the electricity ran on a meter.

“I lived like a spoiled brat for too long. Luxury ruined me forever…” she whispered and left the bed.

          The thought shamed her. Added itself to the mountain of shame she already felt. To the shame of what she had done, what she had been, that had burst from her like an infected wound that last hideous morning.

          It felt as though it had been lanced from the