I back myself into the corner, terrified. The man in front of me, he isn’t very nice, not at all. Father warned me that he might not be very nice. He warned me this job was a big one and I had to get it right or I’d suffer. But I don’t want to be here anymore with all these people at this party. Father knew there was a party going on, so he sent me to the house to ask for a phone.

But this man isn’t as nice as all the others.

He’s scary.

With cold blue eyes.

I don’t like him, not at all.

“So you’re lost, are you little girl?”

I push my fingers into the wall behind me, as if it’ll magically move. It doesn’t. But I really really want it to.

“Y-y-y-yes. I can’t find my mommy.”

“This late at night,” he murmurs, stepping closer.

He’s got silver hair. With some black in it. And he’s really tall. So tall I have to tilt my head right back to see him. When he smiles and talks, his teeth are so shiny they hurt my eyes. They’re so white. I’ve never seen someone with teeth so white.

“I don’t have a home, sir,” I whisper, just like I was told to if I was ever questioned. “Mommy and I live on the street, but I went for a walk, and now I can’t find the street.”

“What a shame,” he says, staring at me, his eyes moving up and down my body. “Is it just you and your mother, then?”

“Yes, sir,” I stammer.

“And is she looking for you?”

“Yes, sir. She will be.”

“Did you tell her where you went for a walk?”

I don’t like how he’s asking me these kinds of questions. Father said if they ask too many questions to leave, because they’re onto me, or worse, they want to take me for their own. I didn’t understand what that meant. Do they want a child of their own, so they’d steal me? Is that what he meant when he said that? Or did he mean they want to hurt me and do bad things to me?

“I just wanted to look at a map,” I try, changing the subject. “To find my way home.”

“And I’ll show you a map, as soon as you tell me more about your situation.”

“But ...”

He steps forward, so close I can smell him. He smells like those awful things father smokes. I don’t know what they’re called, but I don’t like them. I clench my eyes shut, scared, so scared I can’t move.

“You’re going to do as you’re told, are we clear?”

His hand is around my arm now, and I want him to go away. I want him to move. To let me go.

“I n-n-n-n-need to use the bathroom, please.”

“Soon,” he says, and his fingers stroke down my hair.

I’m scared.

This doesn’t feel right.

“Why don’t you come over here and tell me more about yourself?”

He doesn’t give me a choice. He lifts my tiny frame up and carries me over to the sofa where he places me down on his lap. My stomach turns, and I keep my eyes clenched shut. He pats my leg, for far too long, and I know that this is a bad man and that I need to get out of here, but I don’t know how.

“This is a pretty dress, for a homeless girl,” he says, taking the material of my dress into his hands and curling it up. I try to cross my legs; I don’t like him looking at my skin.

“Please don’t hurt me,” I whisper, eyes still clenched.

“Oh,” he says, and I don’t like that his breath is touching my ear. “I won’t hurt you.”

I don’t really know what happens next, well, I do, but I close my eyes and go to a different place, the place Mommy taught me to go to when I was a little girl, a really little girl, and I was scared. It’s the place I still go to when I’m scared. Or when Father is being cruel.

I go there.

Even though I’m shaking and crying.

And I don’t like the monster holding me.

I go there.

Until the door bursts open and voices fill the room. There is yelling and cursing, and women dressed in pretty dresses. One of them has pretty hair, like Mommy used to, and she’s waving her hands around screaming so loudly her face is bright red. I don’t know what she’s saying, but she steps forward and pulls me off the monster’s lap, putting me by her side. She pulls out her phone and starts dialing something. The man stands, and he’s really angry. He pulls out a gun.

I run.

I run so fast.

Tears run down my cheeks. I can’t hear properly; my ears feel like they have lots of bees in them. I’m scared. And my dress is ripped. And I want my mommy.

But I keep running.

I run out of the big house and past all the people who look shocked to see me.

And I just keep on running.

I don’t know where I’m running to.

But I keep going, because I know as soon as I get home, Father is going to be so angry at me.

He’s going to be so angry because I failed. Because I let that bad man hurt me, and I didn’t get what he wanted.

He told me this job was the most important.

The biggest one yet.

And I’ve failed him.

I know what’s going to happen when I get home.

So, for now, I just run.