As soon as Emma was safely back in the apartment, I went out onto the streets. I probably needed to rest and heal up, but I didn’t have fucking time for that.

What the hell was she thinking? As I cruised down the street in my car, I couldn’t imagine why she would risk her life for a fucking photo album. It just seemed like such a high risk for such a little reward. The damn thing must have been pretty fucking important to her if she was willingly exposing herself just to get it back.

She was so damn willful and impulsive. I had to admit that I was impressed with her strength, but she needed to think before she went running off. This wasn’t some damn game we were playing. This was some real shit.

I pulled my car over in the parking lot of a seedy-looking gas station at the edge of a very bad neighborhood. It was only ten blocks away from the club where everything had gone down the night before, and I happened to know the owner. He was a small-time hustler and often had his hands in a bunch of different illegal places.

I climbed out of my car and couldn’t shake the strange feeling I had. It was like someone was watching me, but when I looked around, I couldn’t spot a thing. I walked carefully, keeping my eye out for a tail, but I didn’t see a thing. Either someone skilled was on me or I was getting more and more paranoid.

I went into the gas station, pushing in the door. It was empty, and John the Rat was standing behind the counter. He looked up as I entered, and a look of fear crossed his face before being replaced by his normal sleazy smile.

“Brooks!” he exclaimed. “So good to see you.”

“No, it’s not,” I grunted. I leaned against the counter and let my jacket fall open so he could get a glance at the piece I had tucked into my pants.

“What can I do for you?” John asked after eyeing my piece.

“Got some questions for you, Rat.”

He made a face. “You know I hate that name.”

“It suits you, though. You’re a fucking rat, aren’t you?”

“You come here just to insult me?”

“Nah. I need information.”

“I don’t know nothin’, Brooks, so just leave me be and fuck off.”

I sighed. “Come on now, Rat, I haven’t even asked yet.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“You heard all those gunshots last night, yeah?”

“I didn’t hear shit.”

I laughed. “The whole fucking city heard, Rat. I’m not some fucking cop.”

“Okay, fuck. Fine. I heard.”

“Did you see some girls come around here since then? Young, pretty, and thin. Clothes probably pretty dirty. Most of them wouldn’t speak English, just their leader.”

“I didn’t see no girls.”

“Rat, don’t make this fucking difficult,” I said, leaning toward him. “I know you have your little rat paws in everything around here. I know you heard something.”

He frowned. “I heard a rumor. That’s all.”

“What’s the rumor?”

“Bunch of half-naked chicks were running around all wild last night, knocking on doors, asking for help. But some guys in black masks ended up grabbing them and dragging them off.”

That wasn’t good. It sounded as though the Spiders had gotten to them already, and that was going to piss off Dante and Gian. Not that I had any control over it, though it was my fault they got away. Still, they didn’t know that.

“Who’d you hear this from?”

“That asshole beggar, what’s-his-face. Roger or something.”

“Ryan Green. I know the guy.”

“Panhandles down the street sometimes. Go ask him.”

“Thanks, Rat,” I said.

“What, no fucking reward?”

“Your reward is me not beating your fucking ass down, you dumb shit twat.”

He flipped me off as I walked away, smiling to myself.

Ryan Green set up shop down at the corner of the street where a major road crossed through. I spotted him perched up on a wall, holding his cardboard sign and looking out across traffic.

“Green,” I called out.

He looked down at me. “Brooks. I know you.”

“Yeah, you do. Can I ask you something?”

He shrugged. His sign said that he was a Vietnam vet, but unless he was ten years older than he looked, there was no way he had served in that war.

“I’ll make it worth your time,” I said.

He hopped down off the way. “What you need?”

“I heard you saw some girls last night.”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Pretty girls. It was recycling night, you know, so the good cans and bottles were out. I was walkin’ around, diggin’ like usual, gettin’ the good stuff. Those girls came outta nowhere, runnin’ around like crazy, screamin’ and shit. Then some guys in big black vans came and hauled them off. I swear it.”

“Okay, Green,” I said. I handed him a twenty. “Anything else you remember?”

“Girls didn’t talk English good,” he said.

Damn. So it really was them.

“Thanks,” I said and walked off.

So the fucking girls got snatched by the Spiders after all, despite trying to let them get away. Fucking dumb girls should have run faster and sooner. They fucked themselves when they tried to get help in this damn neighborhood, but how could they have known? They weren’t from around here, and they had no clue that people didn’t fucking help other people and that they mind their own business.

I got back into my car and headed back downtown, crossing the city. I got a glance of Green sitting on his wall, looking like he was falling asleep in the bright afternoon light.

Emma’s place was a fifteen minute drive. I pulled up onto her block and parked at the opposite end, sitting in the car and waiting.

The place looked silent again, but I couldn’t be sure. There was no reason for the mafia to watch it, but that didn’t mean they weren’t. Dante was suspicious of me, and it would look pretty damn bad if he caught me coming back to this house.

But there was no movement, and I didn’t have much time to waste. I had to make this fast, and there was no reason to sit around all day wondering about it.

So I got my ass out of the car and hustled down the block. The neighborhood was quiet as usual, and I was able to get into the backyard without any issues.

As I moved across the yard, I suddenly had that feeling again. Someone was watching me, someone close. I stopped and crouched down, listening and watching, but there was nothing. I could hear only cars and birds and nothing else.

I was losing it.

I stood up and shook it off, heading toward the house. The back door was still open, so I slipped inside.

It smelled like fucking shit. It had smelled bad when we first went in, and again when I went back for her stuff, but now the smell had ripened. It was musty and dank, and I guessed there was a leaking pipe or the roof had a hole in it.

I needed to find a fucking photo album. I skipped digging through the piles of shit downstairs and went right up into her room. I pushed open the door and looked around.

Before this room had been just another room, but now it felt like something more. I felt like I was trespassing on her life. I moved slowly through her dresser, looking for a photo album. I found old receipts, loose pictures, books, socks, underwear, and the usual detritus of a person’s life.

She had lived in this room for so long. It was her only place, and I bet she had locked that door every night against her father. Probably didn’t stop him more often than not, and I felt good that I had put a fucking bullet in the bastard.

I went through her other dresser and found nothing. More underwear and clothes, but no album. I went into her closet and began to dig through the back.

Tucked into the back, underneath a stack of shoes, was a single box. I grabbed it and pulled it out, flipping the lid open.

Inside were small trinkets: a lighter, a notebook, and a photo album buried at the very bottom.

I dug it up and flipped it open.

The pictures were of people I didn’t recognize, but one woman appeared again and again. It must have been her mother when she was younger; I recognized some shared features.

I couldn’t help but flip through the whole thing, fascinated. It was Emma, but it wasn’t Emma. This woman seemed happy and normal, not at all the kind of person who would end up in a house like this. She had friends and was smiling in every picture, her teeth white and straight. She was beautiful, though not as beautiful as her daughter.

As I looked through it, I understood. If I’d had something like this of my mother when she was young and happy, I would have done anything to keep it. I understood why she was willing to risk herself for it, and probably why she wanted to do it herself.

She wasn’t the type of woman to rely on others for things. But she was going to have to rely on me if she was getting through this alive.

I tucked the album into my jacket and stood up. I felt like I understood her a little bit better, like I had a glimpse into her private self. Yeah, this was a risk, but it was a good risk. It was an important risk.

She didn’t want to forget who she was.

I left her room and her past stuck back in that place, all the horror and sadness lingering in the corners. I hoped the album would bring a little light back into her days.