With eyes darting around guiltily, Erik picked up the sign and tin cup, then hurried over to the spot where he stood most every day. As he stood huddled against the wind, Erik’s hair, now long and stringy, whipped around his once beautiful face. Feeling the cold asphalt through the thin leather of his shoes, Erik did a restless dance on the cracked, uneven sidewalk trying to keep warm. In hands covered with ragged gloves, he held a tin cup and a sign telling the passersby he’d been disabled in the war. If they’d stopped and asked him what war, he couldn’t have told them. The truth was Erik Claussen was on the run for murder.

He shuddered as memories of that night flooded him once again. He remembered veering off the highway, into the ditch. Headlights swirled like crazy, the sound of tearing metal almost deafening. The seatbelt tugged on his skin with every lurch, and the air bag had already deflated. When everything stopped there was only the sound of sirens. And then at the hospital, while his injuries were being treated, he’d heard them talking about a woman who’d been hit. He’d seen a woman—had he hit her? He couldn’t have—it didn’t make any sense.

Just as he was beginning to get his life back, he’d learned that the woman later died as a direct result of her injuries.

The news rolled over him like a Russian tank.

He knew what that meant—it meant years behind bars. Terror had gripped him.

Had the police waited to arrest him in the privacy of his own home? No. A flurry of dark uniforms and glittering badges had burst into an exclusive club, and in plain view of the escort service and aristocratic clientele, they’d surrounded him. He’d begun to slowly back away as they advanced on him. He felt trapped by the foreboding wall of uniforms and the glint of cold steel on their hips. All at once, he was brutally grabbed from behind and dark desperation spiraled within him.

He’d fought like a wild man. Risking a bullet in the back, he finally broke free of the arresting officer and ran at breakneck speed, knocking over carts of food while bullets whizzed over his head. Bottles of champagne flew out of the waiters’ hands, spewing and bursting as they shattered against a wall.

He knew in that moment he’d lost everything.

He’d lost his job at City Lights Escorts, his plush, high-rise apartment, and every cent that he had. All because some woman, probably high on drugs, decided to get her thrills by walking out into the traffic of a busy expressway.

Erik had managed to stay out of sight at a seedy motel, but it didn’t take him long to go through his savings and come up flat broke. At the time, he didn’t think it would last long, but one day stretched into two, then a week passed, and before he knew it—a month. Before long, he found himself living in an old jalopy he’d found in a wrecking yard or huddled with other stragglers beside a beggar’s campfire. They cooked bits of food they managed to scrounge from behind a supermarket where dented cans had been thrown, along with meat that had been on the rack too long and was going bad. Erik paired himself up with a wise old man who taught him the language of the street.

“They won’t believe you,” the man in a dark hood had said as he glanced around suspiciously. “They won’t buy a hard luck story like that. They’ll think you don’t work because you don’t want to.” He then leaned his hooded head close to Erik and spoke softly. “There are two kinds of poor. Respectable and... well, otherwise.”

“Otherwise?” Erik asked.

“Lazy, don’t wanna work, spend everything they get on wine or alcohol. Makes it hard for those of us who are truly down on our luck. But there are ways,” the old man rasped, looking around suspiciously as he took a bite of beef jerky.

“What ways?” Erik asked. “Tell me.”

“It’s like this, see. Respectable poor means... well, disabled in a war, that kind of thing.”

“But, how...”

By the time the night was over, Erik knew what he had to do. He immediately dug a piece of cardboard out of a trash bin and made himself a sign that said he was a disabled war veteran and couldn’t work. The ruse worked pretty well. He watched their faces as their change clinked down into his cup. He could almost see it in their eyes. They pictured him running through mud and rain, dodging bullets, and crawling under barbed wire until a stray bullet hit him in just the right place to keep him from working the rest of his life. He never had to worry about anyone taking time to talk to him. They didn’t want to get close enough to hear his tale of woe. Sure, they’d give him a few cents to help him along, but he had to stay at arm’s length. They didn’t want to find out it was a lie, or that a veteran of any war would spend their hard earned money on drugs or alcohol.

By day, Erik stood in front of a subway station entrance. Even though it wasn’t a good idea to stay in one place too long, Erik was reluctant to give this one up. He reveled in the warmth that drifted out with the people that poured out of the station, sometimes dropping a few cents into his cup. He knew he wouldn’t get rich, but he managed to do better here than at any other spot, so he stayed.

The days were long and cold.

Nothing in his future but more of the same.

And then he saw—her.