Content Warning: detailed depiction of physical abuse/assault.  *** Prologue Caroline Martin stared up at the ceiling tiles, small and square with tiny black holes that evoked an image of pepper jack cheese. Some were stained from leaky pipes that created ghostly formations of gray outlined in black above her head. The room was cold, and she began to shiver. One of the OR nurses noticed and covered her with another preheated hospital blanket, tucking it in under her chin and over her shoulders. “Thank you,” Caroline said through clenched teeth. She couldn’t move because they had already strapped her down to the operating table at her arms and just below her breasts. They left her legs free, covered with socks and leg warmers, as they would soon be placing her calves in stirrups. At least they had the decency to wait until she was completely under first. But after that, she was certain there would be no concern for her modesty. The pill they had given her fifteen minutes earlier began to take effect. Background noises blended together in a smothered cacophony, and only when someone got up close in her face was she able to focus. Even so, it…

Story is in everything, and I have often found myself most drawn to those that ask the big questions and explore the human condition. Those questions with a splash of imagination in finding ways to answer them, or even to ask them, are what provide the most inspiration for me when it comes to writing. As a mental health therapist, I have a front-row seat to the human condition, the common struggles, insecurities, pain, traumas, fears, and transitions so many of us face. I am constantly working with people through their anxieties, secret shames, failures, and rejections, and I find that at the root of so many of these struggles is the human need for belonging. For love. For acceptance. One day I was brainstorming story concepts and a question came to mind for me: Is there a love out there that is so big and unconditional that it could redeem even the most heinous of acts? From there I reimagined the concept of the Fountain of Youth. What if there was a Fountain out there that healed of all ailments and granted immortality. Would we drink? But what if there was a cost? You get to live forever, be…