Was she too scared to notice how I was dressed? Or maybe just too damned perceptive. “I don’t work the street.”
“Oh.”
I cast her a sideways glance. She stared at the ground, clutching the dirty concrete wall behind her.
“You don’t want to be out here,” I said.
“No?” she said on an exhale.
“The men here—they’re rough. You know what I mean?”
Her mouth tightened. She could only be all of fifteen or so, but she knew what I meant.
She licked her lips. “Wh-where should I go?”
“I know a place.” She wouldn’t like it, not at first, but it was where she needed to go. “I can show you.”
She examined me, trying to see beneath the surface, but I could have told her it was a futile occupation. There wasn’t anything there.
“Maybe we’ll pick up a burger on the way,” I said.
A low-pitched grumble emanated from her stomach. She clasped her arms around her waist.
“I’m not going with you.”
A hint of scorn entered her voice. Where she’d gotten that lick of spirit from, I didn’t know—not when she looked about to keel over from hunger and fear.
“Sweetheart, do you think I’m going to hurt you worse than a guy you find out here?”
She shook her head, more in denial at what I was suggesting. Better she hear it from me than suffer it at their hands. “They won’t just fuck you, honey. They’ll make it hurt. In your cunt, in your mouth. You ever take it in the ass?”
Her eyes widened. Her upper body canted forward, bent over at her arms. I might have worried she would throw up if I thought she’d had anything to eat today.
If I told her I wasn’t going to do anything to her, she wouldn’t believe me. Hell, I wouldn’t have. “Some of them don’t even care about the fuck. They just want someone to wail on. Beat you up, leave you for dead. Whatever I’m going to do to you, it’s gotta be better than that, right?”
“P-p-please,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
She looked so pitiful, so desperate for comfort as she stood there hugging herself. I wouldn’t touch her, but I could take her to someone who could. They would take care of her, and I would be absolved once again.
“Come on,” I said, then turned and walked back toward my place.
The pitter-patter of her feet on the pavement followed me.
I’d parked in a secure garage, and I waved at the guard as we passed. When we reached my car, I opened the door and gestured inside. She stared at the passenger seat like it was a torture chamber.
I sighed. “What’s your name?”
“Laura,” came out on a whoosh.
Breathing was good. I didn’t want her passing out on me. The last thing I needed was to deliver a limp body.
“All right, Laura. I see you’re stressing, but there’s no need to worry. I’m not going to hurt you. We’re going to grab a bite to eat, you and me, okay? Maybe get some rest. No one’s going to hurt you.” Ah, empty promises. I’d do my best to make sure they came true, but she was still a broken girl in an indifferent world. That rarely worked out well.
I steeled myself and touched her back, her arm, to steer her into the car. She didn’t resist, at least, and sat in the passenger’s seat.
“You’re okay, Laura. My name’s Shelly, and you’re going to be okay, got it?”
Without waiting for an answer, I shut the door and hurried around to the other side. I drove her to a drive-through and ordered enough to feed a football team before driving to the brick building on Wicklow Street.
I stopped the car and looked over at her. Laura stared blankly at the unmarked building, though I didn’t know if she was still in her stupor or just confused about where we were. This place could never have a sign, though. It was removed from the maps. It didn’t exist.
With some coaxing and a bit more nudging, she got out of the car. I fished an envelope from the glove box, thick and unmarked on the outside. There weren’t many of these envelopes left. But if I was really going to work a party, they would soon be replenished.
The glass of the door was bulletproof and tinted dark against peeping eyes. I pressed the cracked button tucked into a brick. A few minutes later, Marguerite opened the door.
Her hair was such a pale, glossy blonde it was almost white, curled into a neat coif. Dressed in a slimming black suit, she looked more like a high-powered executive than the hands-on manager for a small shelter. She had run this place since its inception at, oh, the beginning of time. This place or one like it had always existed, always been needed, and always would be so long as men took what they wanted and women let them.