Amazons were seminomadic. Here in the U.S., they traveled from one “safe camp” to another, much like gypsies. Also, like gypsies, Amazons tended to skirt the edges of the law-thinking nothing of conning the humans they encountered out of property and money-my grandmother was a prime example of that way of thinking.

And because of these tendencies, Amazons, even those still fully immersed in the tribe, might not see each other for months. A mother could easily not hear from her barely adult child for that long and think little of it…have no idea her daughter had been left, dead, on my doorstep. Their mothers could still be sitting at some safe camp, waiting, expecting…

My hands formed claws at my sides, my fingernails scraping against the concrete steps.

And what about the others-those not missing yet? Could my silence be endangering other young women? What if the Amazons had no idea they were being preyed upon-that there was a killer in their midst?

Two, then three fingernails broke down to the quick. I breathed out through my nose, ignoring the pain-forcing it and the nagging guilt building in the back of my brain out of my consciousness.

Flattening my fingers against the concrete until my knuckles glowed white, I forced myself to continue weighing my options. Choices-there had to be choices…something better than just ignoring all of this and praying it wouldn’t happen again.

I focused, away from the current situation and the dead girl by my side, and toward the bigger picture: how to stop more girls from dying.

The next logical step, if anything about my life was logical, would be going directly to the police, but there were problems with that solution too.

I was an over-one-hundred-year-old Amazon. Something I hid, not only from society, but my own daughter. I’d spent ten years pretending, and so far I’d succeeded. But my mother and grandmother, who also lived with me, already raised eyebrows.