All Chapters of AFTER THE FALL : Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

The gate clanged shut behind her with a metallic finality that echoed across the empty concrete. After fourteen years inside, the silence beyond the prison walls felt just as heavy as the noise within. Freedom was supposed to feel like lightness—like breath—but to Meekey, it settled on her shoulders like another sentence.A CO handed her a plastic bag with her name scrawled in black marker. Inside: one pair of jeans, a faded hoodie, a bus pass, seventy-six dollars in cash, and a letter from her daughter—crumpled, worn, read too many times.She changed in the bathroom by the visitor entrance, staring into the scratched mirror. The woman who looked back wasn’t the same woman who walked in here at twenty-seven. Her eyes had hardened. Hair shot through with strands of gray. A scar on her wrist from a fight in the yard. She'd survived prison. But what was waiting for her out there?The sun hit her face for the first time without a schedule. She blinked against the light, shielding her eyes

It had been three days since Meekey walked out of prison, and already the walls of Vanessa’s place felt too tight. The silence between diaper changes and cartoon reruns was too loud in her head. She needed out—not just for space, but for control. She hadn't had any in fourteen years, and now, even breathing felt like an act of rebellion.She told Vanessa she was going for a walk. Vanessa just nodded, no questions asked. That was love—or maybe caution. Either way, Meekey did not press it.She walked with her hood up, hands in her pockets, head low. The city had changed, but the bones were the same. She still recognized the cracks in the sidewalks, the lean of certain streetlamps, the way the sun hit the pavement at that late-morning angle.She turned corners without thinking, until she found herself at Lexington and Porter—the heart of old territory. And there it was. Steele’s Gym, red sign still chipped and barely hanging, but alive. The sound of fists meeting canvas and bags thudding

Meekey had learned a lot behind bars. How to wait, how to watch and how to play dumb while plotting ten steps ahead. And how to pull a thread without the whole sweater unraveling around you. She spent the next two days building her plan. The van returned again Wednesday night—same alley, same crates, same rushed hand-off. Meekey stayed out of sight, perched in the shadows on the fire escape of the building next door. She watched every move: who drove, who opened the back door, where the crates went. She couldn’t risk getting too close yet. But she needed eyes on what was inside those boxes. That meant one thing: setting bait. Thursday morning, she slipped into the gym again. No one stopped her this time. She wore her hoodie low, her steps easy. A few of the guys nodded at her now. She was becoming familiar—and that made people careless. In the back hallway near the equipment closet, she found what she was looking for: a weak spot. An old security camera, slightly tilted, barel

The shelter on 9th and Crenshaw looked smaller than Meekey expected. Just a square of brick and peeling paint, wedged between an auto shop and a boarded-up deli. But when she stepped inside, warmth radiated from every corner—blankets stacked neatly in bins, laughter drifting from the kitchen, volunteers handing out hot bowls of soup to people who hadn’t eaten since yesterday.It was the kind of place Meekey never would’ve stepped foot in before prison. Back then, her pride was too sharp. She used to think places like this were for the weak.Now, she understood better.At the far end of the room, near the back door, stood Natalie.Meekey saw her before Natalie saw her.Her daughter was taller than she remembered. Thinner, hair pulled into a neat bun. No makeup, no frills—just a hoodie, jeans, and purpose. She moved with focus, her arms full of folded blankets, nodding to the others as she passed them out. She smiled too. The kind of smile Meekey had lost the right to claim.Meekey wait