Hanna’s bloody hands flew to her mouth. “Oh dear God, what did we do?”
I pushed the body off me and sat up. Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I said, “We had to. If he kept getting drunk, one day he’d forget us and we’d starve in here. Don’t think about it.”
She sat next to me, and I hugged her shaking body. “Forget about him. You have maybe fifteen minutes to get out of here before the others find him. Go.”
“Go where?”
“Anywhere but here.” I couldn’t leave Mike, even though I’d pay for this.
“I don’t have money, food, nothing.”
“I heard them say there’re cans in the broken-down truck, maybe a half a mile from here. Go north and it should be there.”
Bending, I searched Doug’s pockets, looked for money, but found nothing. Of course, the ugly bastard had gambled it all. “Shit,” I mumbled. “Nothing.”
Hanna handed me a brown sack, and I took it. She glanced at the nail. “I might need that.”
“Good idea.” I placed my foot on his shoulder and yanked out the nail. It dripped with blood, and I wiped it on my dirty black drape. It used to be a dress. Now it was a drape. I spat on his dead body. Men of Earth had come to our circus, promised us money in exchange for room and board. Now that I knew they intended to take some of us girls to Texas so they could breed us with whomever and by force if necessary, I knew better.
I should’ve run away with that one blonde girl when I had the chance. She’d picked up on their bad intentions when they’d killed the first performer. She’d taken off into the night. I stayed, staking my fate on Mike. Poor Mike. He couldn’t keep me safe from these monsters.
I turned to follow Hanna outside.
Then froze in mid step.
A man stood at the door. Behind him, three more observed us the way spiders watched trapped butterflies. The one in the front flipped the light switch. Doug’s dead body lay at my feet. Our hands, our dresses, our faces were bloody.
“Stay,” he ordered the other three men and closed the door behind him. He walked past us and sat on our bed. “Hm. What to do with murderers?”
“It was self-defense,” I said. “He attacked me.” I pointed at my swollen cheek.
The man observed me still, and then I saw what could only be described as a lightbulb light up in his eyes. He’d figured out what to do with me. “You’re a killer. You will kill again. Come with me, I have something for you to do.”
“And Hanna?”
“You will repent for your crime. If you’re good girl, nothing will happen to Hanna or the old man you care about.”
“I’m a good girl,” I mumbled. I really was. People around me wanted to hurt me, so I had to do what needed to be done. If that made me bad, so be it.