The Things She Survived

THE GREY LINE
BOOK ONE: THE THINGS SHE SURVIVED

Zaylen learned how to survive long before she learned how to live.
A childhood marked by abuse, betrayal, and trauma forced her to become observant, guarded, and frighteningly good at reading people. Becoming a young mother gave her something even stronger—a reason to create the life she and her daughter deserved.
Now Special Agent Zaylen has quickly become one of the FBI's most gifted investigators. Brilliant with numbers, technology, human behavior, and patterns others overlook, she's becoming the agent people seek when a case stops making sense.
But behind the badge, her entire world is her daughter, Naryah.
Together with Mama Dee and Papa Ace, Zaylen has built something she never had growing up:
a safe family.
Then a complicated investigation begins pulling her deeper into a world where nothing is quite what it appears to be.
And when Naryah suddenly needs her mother, Zaylen's carefully separated worlds begin colliding.
That's when she meets Amaya.
One unexpected encounter.
Light-grey eyes Zaylen can't seem to forget.
And feelings she sure as hell didn't ask for.
But while Zaylen is trying to understand something unfamiliar happening inside herself, another presence is quietly taking notice.
Someone is watching.
Someone is becoming interested.
And the woman who built her career studying everyone else may not realize just how closely someone has begun studying her.
The Things She Survived begins Zaylen's journey through motherhood, chosen family, trauma, mystery, healing, and the complicated realization that surviving your past and actually allowing yourself to live are two very different things.