Why do I have to hide again?
Oh yes, I'd forgotten this important detail of my life.
My name is Clarissa Ford, 20 years old, and I've been on the run for a few years.
I'm a fugitive. From one day to the next, I became the target of a local gang that exercised its rights in the big city where I was studying, a simple student who became a fugitive, wanted all over the world, and why exactly?
I'd also forgotten that I was the one and only witness to their shenanigans, to some of their acts. All because a guy threatened me, in a very direct and clear way, to spread false rumors about me because I didn't want to know anything about him; he wanted me in his bed in short. He introduced me to every one of their schemes, every one of their plans, but when I wanted to get out, I was forbidden.
To think that the police were afraid to get involved, and didn't have the courage to defy the ban and give me a hand. But by dint of rubbing shoulders with them, of being trained as one of them, I finally found my way out. I ran away as fast as I could.
I can't go home, I can't go back, I can't contact my people to say I'm alive, in one piece, because if I don't they'll find me again and they'll be happy to turn me into a toy or a freak show. That's not my intention.
My only consolation, my only light, were my friends from my very first establishment and the last of Clarissa Ford's life. I often checked up on them with disposable phones, the news had made the rounds in barely a day, I had to admit that my former classmates, former supervisors and so-called teachers didn't see it coming. Instead of stopping the flow of information, they just fed it, making the situation worse, and it's thanks to them that I've isolated myself from everyone I knew, everything I've ever known.
I'm mobile and I have to be, because my survival depends on it. Too often, I changed my identity and my establishment, depriving myself of a simple, normal, peaceful life without being up to my neck in shit.
I was standing outside my school on the last day these people would see me, but suddenly a classmate came up to me, supposedly to talk to me.
-- If you're in trouble, I can help you if you want, Lila. My father's the commissioner, my brother's a lieutenant and I'm next in line for the force. I know you're having problems, you're acting like one person running away from another...
-- I don't need your help, Yann. Go help someone else if you want to. Nobody can help me, least of all an ordinary civilian like you...
-- I really want to help you, so why don't you let me?
-- Hi, Yann. We've got nothing more to say to each other...
At least, that's what I thought because it's the right thing to do...
Claire
