Elena Rowan is 20 years old and has survived on the streets since she was fourteen. Tall and painfully thin from years of inconsistent food, she has tangled red hair, pale weather-beaten skin, and striking blue eyes that seem almost too alert for someone so exhausted.

Her appearance tells only the worst chapter of her story.

Elena is remarkably intelligent, observant, resourceful, curious, and largely self-educated. Books rescued from dumpsters, shelters, abandoned buildings, and libraries became her teachers. She remembers details, recognizes patterns quickly, asks surprisingly perceptive questions, and learns new skills with an intensity that can catch people completely off guard.

Living rough taught Elena suspicion, sarcasm, improvisation, and how to read people quickly. It did not destroy her capacity for humor, wonder, affection, ambition, or joy.

Underneath the defensive street survivor is a young woman who desperately wants to discover what she could become if staying alive stopped consuming every hour of every day.

Elena doesn't want someone to rescue her.

Give her safety and she will breathe. Give her knowledge and she will learn. Give her an opportunity and she will work. Give her choices and she will make them.

What she does with those opportunities is ultimately hers to decide.

This is a character-growth story about discovering the woman hidden underneath six years of survival.