About this Item
Paperback. They call me Rook. It's not the name on the driver's license I don't have anymore, but it's the only one that matters on these streets. Out here, life is a chessboard. Every person is a piece, every move is a calculation, and every day is a new game of survival. I see the board with perfect clarity: the angles, the threats, the sacrifices you have to make to stay alive one more day. I see the pawns, the bishops, the knights. I see the kings who think they run everything, and the queens who hold the real power. My mother once told me I'd never amount to anything, that I was just like my father-a dreamer destined to be ordinary. She was wrong. There is nothing ordinary about this life. This story isn't about how I fell. It's not a sob story about a good girl who made bad choices. I was a bookworm, a gamer, an athlete. I had kids, a brick house with a fence, and a career. I had a life. But life is a game of strategy, and sometimes, the board gets flipped. Sometimes, you lose everything. Your home, your job, your family. You lose yourself. The woman I was-Brooke-is a ghost that haunts the quiet moments. She's the one who feels the pain, the one who remembers what it was like to be warm and safe. Rook is the one who survives. She's the one who learned the currency of the street, who understands the darkness in men's eyes, and who knows that sometimes, the only way to beat the devil is to become a monster yourself. People look at me and see a dope whore, a fixture on the cracked pavement of Harry Hines Boulevard. They don't see the woman who once had straight A's, who sees life as a complex game of chess mixed with the Art of War. They don't see the moves I'm planning, the endgame I'm still fighting for. They see a pawn. But they forget one crucial thing about the game. A pawn that fights its way across the entire board, that endures every attack and survives every threat, can become a queen. This is the story of how I learned to play. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.
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