Chapter 1

I spotted an older woman at the park climbing over the guardrail and trampling the red rock formations, and I hurried to warn her.

"These formations take hundreds of millions of years to form. They're incredibly rare. Please don't damage them."

But the woman refused to see any wrong in it.

"So I stepped on it a couple of times. What's it to you? You're just a lousy tour guide. Keep your mouth shut and do your job!"

"The customer is king. I'll step wherever I want!"

And with that, she carved was here into the rock.

I called for the site manager to handle it.

Except the site manager was her son, and he blamed me for sticking my nose where it didn't belong, and he fired me.

I reported the manager for breaking regulations, and he turned it around on me, claiming I was the one who damaged the site and slandered a tourist.

I was cyber-bullied across the entire internet, and the park demanded I pay three hundred thousand dollars in damages.

To raise the money, my mother borrowed from loan sharks and couldn't pay it back. They beat her until she was crippled, and she ended up in the hospital.

In my despair, I leapt from a high building. When I opened my eyes, I had been reborn.

And there she was again, that same woman, trampling and carving up the site.

.........

"So I stepped on it a couple of times. What's it to you? You're just a lousy tour guide. Shut your ugly mouth!"

Althea Chavez was cursing at me.

I froze for a moment, realizing I had been reborn.

Althea had already crossed the warning line and was standing there like it was nothing.

The seven-colored red rock, over a hundred million years in the making, sat right beneath her feet.

"The customer is king. I paid for my ticket, so I'll step wherever I want!"

Seeing that I didn't come forward to pull her back, Althea only grew smugger.

The hiking boots on her feet, studded with hard anti-slip spikes, ground down hard into the fragile red-brown rock and soil.

Fine grains crumbled and trickled off the edge.

"That's right, it's just a bit of scrubby red dirt. What's so precious about it?"

The other women in her tour group all chimed in, scolding me from every direction.

"You tour guides are always making a fuss. We came all this way. What's wrong with taking a few pictures?"

"You're young, girl. How do you have no sense at all? Push us too far and we'll go file a complaint about you with the tourism board."

"You talk it up like it's so precious. It's just some dirt. What's the harm in stepping on it?"

I drew in a deep breath and held down the anger in me.

"Ma'am, red rock formations are a nonrenewable resource. Any trampling can cause damage that can never be undone."

I stood outside the warning line, my voice steady.

"Causing serious damage carries legal liability. Please come out right now."

"Don't try to scare me with the law!"

Althea's face was full of contempt.

"My son is the general manager of this whole park. This entire mountain is under his charge. I'll step on it all I want, and who'd dare blame me? Who do you think you are!"

As she spoke, she pulled a key out of her canvas bag.

"I'm going to carve something too, to remember the trip by."

She crouched down and dragged the key across the most vivid stretch of the seven-colored rock.

The words was here appeared, stark on the rock face.

The other women beside her didn't stop her. Instead, they pulled out their phones to take pictures.

"Oh my, Althea, your writing looks so bold."

"Right, I'll go carve one in a minute too. Then the ticket money won't be wasted."

It truly ached in my heart. This was rock that took a hundred million years to form, and it was being ruined just like that.

"I'll say it one more time. What you're doing already amounts to intentional destruction of a protected landmark."

"Under the public safety penalty law, that means detention and a fine."

That line broke Althea completely.

She jerked to her feet. "What did you say, you dead-parents piece of trash? Getting a little full of yourself? You dare curse me into a jail cell?"

She came striding toward me, seething.

"Today I'm going to rip that ugly mouth of yours right off."

Althea stepped past the warning line and reached out to claw at my face.

I twisted nimbly to the right and slipped aside.

Althea's foot caught hard on the iron base of the warning-line post.

"Ow!"

She pitched forward onto the bluestone walkway.

Her front tooth struck the stone, and her mouth filled with blood in an instant.

"You dare to hit me! The tour guide's hitting people! Isn't anyone going to do something about this!"

Althea clutched her mouth with both hands, wailing through her sobs.

The women with her flew into a panic and swarmed forward all at once, surrounding me on every side.

"You black-hearted little slut, how dare you shove someone."

"Call the police. Have her arrested."