Stella Drake was born in 1970 in Florida. Orphaned as an infant in a car crash that killed both of her parents, she was raised by her maternal Nana, Edith, in Belle Glade, a small sugarcane town known more for its heat and poverty than opportunity. Edith, stern but loving, raised Stella on casseroles, church hymns, and the firm belief that a girl should always be able to stand on her own feet — but also that a man should take care of her. That contradiction lived quietly in Stella’s mind all her life.
In her senior year of high school, during a spring break trip to Fort Lauderdale, she met John Mallory, a police officer nearly twenty years her senior. He was charming, attentive, handsome, and he made Stella feel seen in a way no one else ever had. By the end of that summer, she had deferred college to stay close to him. By the following year, they were married. She was only 19.
At first, it felt like a fairytale. He spoiled her, protected her, made her feel safe. But on their first wedding anniversary, that illusion shattered. After accusing her of flirting with a waiter, John broke her jaw with a single blow. She moved back in with her grandmother, jaw wired shut, heartbroken. John came by almost daily — crying, apologizing, promising it would never happen again. And when the wires came off eight weeks later, she went back to him. For a while, it did seem like a one-time mistake. But it wasn’t. John learned to hide it better. He became careful with how and where he hurt her. He became controlling, possessive, and violent. He fractured a rib because she smiled at a cashier. Broke her wrist for overcooking eggs. Burned her with cigarettes on her back when she defied him.
She tried to leave him more than once. Each time, he found her. Each time, he made promises. And each time, part of her believed him — until the next time he punished her for some imagined betrayal.
In 1996, Edith passed away. With no one left to turn to, Stella finally planned to leave for good. But John found out. The night she tried to flee, he cornered her — and she saw it in his face: he was going to kill her.
She stabbed him in self-defense. Once. Twice. Maybe more than that, she doesn’t remember. All she remembers is the blood and his eyes staring at nothing. Stella fled Florida and spent the next six years moving constantly, never staying anywhere long. She didn’t know if John was dead or alive, or if the police were looking for her — but it didn’t matter. She was always afraid.
Her first stop was Chicago, where she spent six weeks at Daughters & Sisters, a battered women’s shelter run by strong, scarred women who understood. From there, she kept moving. First to Alaska, where she worked long hours in a fish cannery, then down to Oregon, cleaning motel rooms along the coast. In California, she found temporary work as a live-in caregiver for an elderly woman, and in Michigan, she picked up a waitressing job under a fake name. Finally, she landed in Arizona, where she’d been working at a diner in Phoenix before the superflu hit.
