I went straight to the showers and took an inordinately long time under the hot water. No matter how I scrubbed, I couldn’t seem to get clean, so I ended up sitting on the tile floor, letting the water cascade down on me as I hugged my knees.

“You okay?” Mess peeked through the door, then tiptoed over when I didn’t answer. I realized she was wearing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt. We were being fed, and now had clothes. It was the little things that counted right now, and I got the uneasy feeling that was step one of accepting that this was our lot in life.

“I’m fine. Go back to sleep.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness from my voice. I’d been the one taken, beaten, raped. And as that was happening to me, they’d put on clothes, ate their dinner, and slept.

“I wasn’t sleeping, and neither were half those girls out there. The others finally dozed off after they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer.” She padded barefoot into the shower area. “I saw the demon woman bring you back, but you needed a few moments by yourself before we jumped all over you. I know. I’ve been there.”

Tears stung my eyes. When I’d been tied to the bed, I’d been glad it was me and not the other girls. I still felt that way, but to come back and find them sleeping, seemingly indifferent to my plight…it hurt far worse than anything Onions had done to me.

“Hey, hey,” her voice was soft. She came close enough that the water was splashing up on her sweatpants, making little dots of dark fabric in the light gray. “We were all scared—scared of what they were doing to you, scared that you might not come back at all, scared that we’d be next. We were worried they’d take us one at a time, separate us. Because every girl in that room knows that separate, we’re weak. It’s only together that we’ll get through this, that we’ll survive and get back to whatever shitty lives we had before.”

I’d been scared too. An extra girl. And although Pockmarks seemed annoyed that Catcalls had killed a girl before, he didn’t seem all that bothered other than the loss of profit.

Mess knelt down, peering at my face, her dark eyes full of concern. “We need you, Red. If they’d killed you, if they’d broken you, we’d all be lost. We’re family now, and you’re our salvation.”

“No, you’re the leader. You’re the one who takes care of the girls. You’re our salvation,” I told her.

“I take care of them, soothe them, try my best to protect them, but I’m not like you, Red. They see you as someone strong and darn near invincible, as someone who can stand up to these guys, who can take what they dish out, give as good as she gets, and survive. Maybe even win. Pistol told us about you slapping that demon woman. We could hear you fighting even through the closed door when that man dragged you out of here. But you came back. And you’re not bruised or cut up with your arm broken like Tasha either. You walked in with your head high, defiant, like you didn’t have a scratch on you. I know what they did to you out there, but they didn’t break you. Damn girl, I don’t even think they touched you, at least not inside where it counts. You are our salvation. You.”

I’m not your salvation. It was what the demon had told me. It was what I felt like saying to Mess. How could I be anyone’s salvation? I was weak. When it came time to be brave, I crumbled and fell back on what everyone else expected of me, I hid behind rules while those I loved—the truly brave ones—risked their lives and died for what they believed in.

No. I wasn’t weak. Not anymore. I was willing to suffer, to die so that these girls could be saved. And that meant I needed to get up out of this shower, dry off, and be the strong leader they needed.

But first, I needed to stop crying.

Mess sat down next to me, her butt just out of reach of the water. “I was eight the first time. The neighbor kids took turns while one held me down. Wasn’t like I could tell my mom about it. Wasn’t like she, or anyone else, would have cared. Happened every week or so for six months until we got evicted. Never thought homelessness would be such a blessing.”

I felt the water beat against my skin as traces of her memories lit up inside my mind, making me realize that there were girls every day going through what had just happened to me, and worse.

“You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not. Every time some john climbs on top of me, I have to pretend I’m someone else, that I’m acting in a movie or something. It’s easier when I’m on top, but the corners my pimp used to put me on didn’t bring the sort of guys who want a woman on top.”

We sat in silence for a moment before she spoke up again. “Wanna hear something funny? I’m not a runaway. It’s my mom that ran away, not me. She’s crazy—not crazy enough to get locked up, but crazy enough that she can’t seem to keep a job. We’d been living on the streets for about a year when I came back one day to find her gone. She’d picked up all of our stuff and left. Guess she forgot about me.”

My head came up. “You were nine?”

Mess nodded. “There was a group of us living under the bridge there. The others took care of me for a while, but they had their own problems and taking on a little girl full-time wasn’t something any of them could do, you know? I stole some. Begged some. Wound up being a lookout for a corner dealer for a while. At ten I was turning tricks, because it was good, reliable money, and at least I had a roof over my head. That first pimp wasn’t so bad. People pay a lot to screw a ten-year-old girl.”

I felt a sudden urge to kill people who would pay to have sex with a ten-year-old-girl, as well as the pimp that would profit from such a horrible thing. There was some satisfaction in imagining myself shooting them, slicing their throats, hitting them repeatedly with something large and hard.

“Sugar ran away from home at thirteen, but in a way she’s had it worse. A couple close calls with some sickos, a few pimps that would rather beat on her than put her on a corner. She had a boyfriend a few years back that was supposed to take her away from all this, but he ended up just wanting her regular-like for free. Expected her to keep working and giving him a share of her percentage.” Mess shrugged. “One good thing out of this whole situation? Had a bunch of burn scars on my leg where mom used to put her cigarettes out on me when she was off her rocker. That demon woman fixed ’em. Hurt like hell, but they’re gone now.” She pulled up a pants leg and showed me a shapely leg with smooth, unmarked, mocha skin.

Too bad the demon woman couldn’t take away the other scars, the ones below the skin. But maybe we needed those scars. We couldn’t undo the horrible experiences of our pasts, but perhaps they allowed us to have compassion for others.

“He’s dead,” I told Mess. It felt like I was lancing an infected wound. “The guy that smelled like onions all the time? He beat me, then tied me to the bed and raped me. Then he died.”

She stared. “Like stroked out or had a heart attack while screwing you?”

“No. It was like spontaneous human combustion. He was finishing off, all hot and smelly and gross on top of me, then bam. Blood all over me, and black smoking craters where his eyes used to be.”

Mess recoiled in shock, staring at me wide-eyed. Then suddenly the pair of us began to laugh. It started light, like a tickle, like we were barely able to process the amusement of it all, then cascaded into deep belly laughs that took our breath away and had us rolling on the floor in tears.

“Oh, the times I wanted some guy to spontaneously combust on top of me,” Mess said, wiping her eyes with the edge of her T-shirt. “How’d you do that? Let me know your secret, so I can kill off a few of these assholes myself. You got Jedi mind tricks, or something?”

The amusement faded and I frowned. “It wasn’t me. He had me tied to the bed. I had my eyes closed, was trying not to think about what he was doing, and suddenly he was dead on top of me. Pockmarks thought it was the demon woman, but there was no one else in the room with us. The demon woman believes it was one of her buddies come to get her, but when she snuck back in and called to them, no one came.”

“It was you.” Mess reached out and touched my wet shoulder. “I think you’ve got a guardian angel looking over you. Can you let me borrow him? Sure could use one of my own.”

I got to my feet and turned off the water, feeling so much better. It helped to know I wasn’t in this alone. We’d stick together. We’d help each other. We’d survive as long as we didn’t turn our backs on one another. And I’d be strong for these girls. I’d never be weak again. They needed me, and I’d do everything in my power not to let them down. As for a guardian angel…

“I’m not sure you want to borrow him.” I took the towel Mess handed me and started to dry myself off, noting again with surprise that I’d come through the evening’s activities without a single bruise on my skin. “I mean, what kind of guardian angel shows up after you’ve been raped? And then leaves you tied spread-eagle to a bed with a dead guy on top of you?”

Mess chuckled, putting her arm around me as we headed for our cots. “Hey, at least he showed up. Better late than never, huh?”

* * *

The others were awake and sitting on their cots when we came out. Everyone eyed me silently, not sure what to say to someone who’d been dragged across the warehouse floor, beaten and raped.

“I’m okay.” I told them.

Pistol reached under her bed and pulled out a napkin, handing it to me. Inside was half of a sandwich and some chips. “I saved this for you. And there’s some clothes over there for you to put on.”

Pillow hopped off her cot and hugged me. “You sure you’re okay? I mean, of course you’re not okay. I know what those guys did to you. But…”

“The arm is not broken,” Tasha added with a wry smile. “That is a good thing.”

“More than that, one of the guards is dead,” Mess announced triumphantly. “Wrath of God stuff too. Blood everywhere. Eyes burned out of his skull. Red slaps demons in the face and makes rapists explode on the inside.”

There was a moment of shocked silence, then Sugar laughed. “No way. So I’m assuming only the one guy raped you or we’d all be strolling out the door right now. Wonder if they’ll put a warning label on you for the sale. ‘Caution. Girl slaps demons and explodes anyone who fucks her.’ No one is gonna mess with you, Red.”

Okay, it was kind of funny. Not when I’d just been raped and had a bloody dead guy on top of me with his dick still inside, but here, freshly showered and surrounded by my girls, it was funny. And it made me seem far more badass than I really was.

“I didn’t kill him,” I told the girls as I wiggled into the clothing at the end of my cot. “He had me tied to a bed. He was…you know. And then suddenly he was dead.”

“Sounds like you killed him to me.” Sugar’s grin was downright maniacal. “Wasn’t there some creepy-ass story about a woman who had knives or sharp teeth or something in her vajayjay, and when a guy would screw her, she’d shred his dick to bits. Red’s like that only on steroids. She doesn’t just shred a guy’s dick, she blows him up inside.”

“And how would I have done that tied to a bed?” I didn’t want these girls thinking I had magical powers. I was going to do all I could to get us out of here, to ensure their safety, but I couldn’t go exploding guards to do it.

“Then who did it?” Kitten curled up on the edge of her cot, hugging her knees. “Someone killed him. People don’t just spontaneously combust, you know.”

“Maybe one of the other guards poisoned him,” Pistol volunteered. “Maybe the demon woman poisoned him.”

That was a whole lot more believable than the other theories.

“The demon woman didn’t do it,” I told them. “She thought maybe it was one of her demon friends come to rescue her.”

“I think Red has a guardian angel,” Mess announced. “She hit that demon woman and didn’t get killed. The guy raping her dies a gruesome death. He beat her, but she doesn’t have a mark on her.”

I opened my mouth to tell them the demon woman had healed me, only to snap it shut. Had she healed me? It hadn’t hurt like it had when she’d healed the others. And my track marks… They’d vanished within hours of waking up in that truck. Maybe the healing was me. Maybe I’d acquired superpowers somehow—been bitten by a radioactive spider or something. Or maybe I did have a guardian angel, one who wasn’t smart enough to get us the heck out of here, one who left me in a room, tied and naked with a dead body on top of me. What sort of lousy guardian angel would do that?

“Well, if it’s a guardian angel, he needs to get with the program and help us escape,” I told the girls. “Now, let’s all try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we’re going to get out of here, and we need to be well rested.”

I slept fitfully, hearing the other women as they turned on their cots, hearing their soft moans of discomfort as they tried to find a position that wouldn’t put weight on wherever they’d had ‘work’ done. I should have been doing that too. With the beating I’d taken, with my arms and legs tied to bed posts for hours, I should have been aching and sore. But I felt fine. It was as if nothing had happened, as if my body had been healed of all wounds. Too bad my soul hadn’t the same abilities.

It wasn’t just the discomfort of the others that kept me awake, it was the film reel of the night’s events that kept looping through my mind. His smell. His feel. The heaviness of his body on mine. His hand bruising my flesh. The way he’d shoved himself inside me. How he’d slipped wet and limp from me as his body slid off to the side. The shock of seeing the black smoking holes where his eyes had been. The sticky feel of blood and semen on my skin, between my legs, dripping down my thighs once the demon woman had untied me and I’d tried to stand.

But he was dead, and I wasn’t. And out of all the girls here, better me to go through that than any of them. I closed my eyes, feeling them on either side of me. My girls. Mine. Every last one of them. We were a family, just like Mess had said. A family.