I was still brooding over the phone call from Piety when the pizza was delivered. Spending the extra money probably wasn’t a good idea since things at the clinic were up in the air. How could they not be, with everybody there thinking I’d broken in?

According to Piety, my job was just fine.

I brooded over how she could know as I nibbled on pizza and wished for a beer, but it didn’t take me long to realize that Piety would be one of the first people to know, and not just because of her position in the clinic. Her best friend was married to the man who owned the clinic.

I knew Dash well enough, and he was a nice, fair guy, but if the cops had been looking at me, to most people, it would make sense that they had a reason. Especially with my past.

“I can always tell them that my brother can vouch for my whereabouts, thanks to the handy dandy GPS tracker app he put on my phone.”

As soon as I said the words out loud, I got up and grabbed the phone, wondering what else he’d done with it. Was he able to monitor my calls? Not that I made many, but could he? I had no doubt he could find someone technologically savvy enough to do it if it was possible. The number I called the most was a hotline for addicts.

I’m sure he’d find lots of scintillating data there.

“Stop it, Camry,” I muttered, shaking my head. Tossing the phone back down, I returned to my pizza and brood fest.

The way the night was going, nothing was going to shake me out of it.

Two hours later, I was proven wrong.

“Daytin!”

Clutching the phone to my ear, I demanded, “Tell me where in the hell you are.”

“I…I dunno. I don’t know this f–fucking city,” Daytin said, her voice shrill and slurred.

Shit. She was high as a kite, and possibly drunk too. I tried to get her to tell me what she’d taken, but all she’d say was that she was at a crack house.

She was flopping at a fucking crack house because she didn’t have any place else to go. At least no place she wanted to go.

“You should come…” Her voice slurred off.

“Where are you?” I asked, forcing my voice to be calmer than I felt.

I had to get what I needed from her so I could help her. She’d called, crying. No prompting from me. Maybe that meant she was ready.

And maybe I was fooling myself all over again, but I couldn’t help but think that if I refused to help her, no one else would.

“I don’t…” She heaved a hiccuping sob, her voice shaking. “I don’t know, Camry. And if I don’t help out, I can’t stay. I got nowhere else to go!”

“It’s okay, Daytin.” I didn’t need her to tell me what they wanted her to do to ‘help out.’ How could I when I’d gotten that lecture from Stefano more than once? “Listen, do me a favor. Take a picture and post it to Instagram, okay?”

She sniffed. “I look like shit.”

“You never look like shit,” I countered. “Do it for me.”

Hopefully, she hadn’t turned location services off.

* * *

If there was a part of LA where a girl on probation shouldn’t be, this was it.

If there was a part of LA where nobody should be, this was it too.

But here I was, nervously parking my car and stowing the key deep in my pocket as I started down the block. I’d left my purse, money, everything at home except my driver’s license which I had tucked inside my bra. I hadn’t worn any jewelry, and I’d deliberately worn the sloppiest clothes I could find. Attracting attention was the last thing I wanted.

Just looking at the house made me think I might need a strong course of antibiotics before the night was out. I knew that I’d spent time in places like this before, but that didn’t make me feel any better about going inside.

I’d ignore any and all temptations and I’d stay clean.

I’d get Daytin out and we’d get her to the hospital where she could undergo all the tests and checks and blood draws to make sure she hadn’t picked up any diseases. I’d been lucky, I knew.

Daytin had almost always preferred pills, but it only took one dirty needle to end up with hepatitis or HIV. I just hoped she was still as rigorous about using condoms as the two of us had been when we’d trolled for tricks together, because that increased the likelihood of being infected with something.

The stink of the place assaulted my nose, and for a moment, I hesitated. Had the smell been that bad before? My brain whispered that it had, but I didn’t want to believe that. I didn’t want to think that I could have ignored or just put up with a place that smelled like a mix between a boy’s locker room and a broken sewer, but logic told me that it wasn’t simply possible, but also likely.

Just inside, I was met by a tall, skinny man who had pale, pocked skin and a scarred face that immediately made me think of meth. The scars were healing so he had likely moved on to a different drug of choice, but that poison had left its mark.

He ghosted past me, hardly even seeming to touch the ground. That was, right until he crashed into the wall, then slid down, not to move from that spot again. I would have asked him if he was okay, but his eyes told me the answer. He was so high, I doubted he felt a thing.

Fits of giggles came from another room and I glanced in. No Daytin.

I couldn’t see the front door anymore, and for some reason, that freaked me out. Tempted to leave, I put my back to the wall as I edged deeper inside. I’d worn a solid pair of boots despite the heat, not wanting to step on any needles that might have been laying around, but right now, those boots felt like they weighed a thousand pounds each, and just getting my feet to move took too much effort.

I couldn’t keep doing this.

My heart rabbited inside my chest, and a panic I couldn’t understand was fluttering away inside me. If I didn’t find her in five minutes, I’d leave and tomorrow, I’d call, or send her a text, something. If she wanted to come to me and get help, then I’d help her, but beyond that…

Was this how Kaleb had always felt, I wondered.

Frustrated, scared, mad and desperate?

A part of me almost understood, then, the decisions he’d made lately. Almost.

Moans came from inside the next room, but they weren’t pleasant ones. A look inside showed a woman on her hands and knees, puking her guts up. There was a man lying on a thin, filthy mattress, snoring.

Four minutes, I told myself. And if I didn’t find her, then it was up to her. It has to be her, Jacen had told me. I knew that was the truth but if this was her way of reaching out, shouldn’t I try?

The scent of mildew, body odor, and waste was so strong now, I could barely breathe around it. Mouth open, I breathed shallowly to avoid taking in any more of the foul air than necessary. A door opened and somebody came stumbling out.

He stopped, looked at me up and down. “You got any blow?”

“Get the hell away from me,” I snapped, putting more force in my voice than needed considering how wasted he looked, but I didn’t want to mess with him or anybody else.

He flinched and shrank away, backing into the room he’d just left. “You ain’t gotta be so mean,” he whined.

It might have been funny if I’d been in the mood to laugh.

My revulsion was now at an all-time high, far outmatching my need to find myself some blow, or anything else. It was pathetic, but I was a little proud of that. Proud to be repulsed by the idea of wandering around a place like this.

But I took my victories where I could find them.

I heard moans coming from the next room too, but these were moans of pleasure—or at least not misery. I glanced inside and the two men were most definitely not Daytin, so I kept going.

The lights were dimmer now, but my eyes were adjusting and it was easier to see inside the next two rooms.

I didn’t bother asking anybody if they had seen her. There was no point. The few people who might have been straight enough to answer weren’t the kind to talk to strangers. Nor were they the kind to welcome questions.

Questions in a place like this led to bad things.

The next room had three couples inside, all engaged in various stages of intercourse...with each other. I ignored them, and the twist of discomfort in my belly. This wasn’t the first time I had seen people having sex but still, it bothered me.

Stupid, maybe, but since when did the brain make sense?

Part of the problem now though was that nothing happening here had any sort of intimacy. They had about as much animation and life to them as dolls, eyes, wide and vacant, mouths moving in time with their bodies, but there was just no life. Just the mindless pursuit of physical gratification.

They were like dolls.

I’d always found dolls vaguely creepy, so the thought was even more disturbing. Hurrying past that room and the next where the couple inside started giggling when they saw me, I paused at the last open door and looked inside.

The girl on the mattress just laid there, arms and legs sprawled, skirt rucked up around her waist, shirt pushed up so I could see the side of one bare breast. She wasn’t moving, and I couldn’t tell if she was even breathing.

What was even more disturbing was that the man on top of her was plowing away like there was no tomorrow, dirty jeans pushed down his skinny knees while his pale butt bobbed up and down on top of her.

Then, she turned her head, eyes glazed and unfocused, and I realized it was Daytin.

Rage blistered inside me as she lay there unaffected and uninterested. The asshole banged away at her like she was a fucking sex toy, and she didn’t even care.

I was so sick and tired of being used, of the people I loved being used. And that’s all this guy was doing, using her. Probably offered her money for food or drugs if she just let him do what he wanted. She was better than that.

I didn’t even think as I ran in, grabbing one handful of greasy hair and hauling him off her. He let out a wordless bellow as he realized something was going on, but it took him a few seconds to figure out just what it was.

By that time, I had him on the ground and was kicking him in the side.

“Stay the hell away from her,” I shouted. “You got it? Just stay the hell away from her.”

He surged to his feet, roaring. As he hauled back his hand, the saner part of my mind thought, shit, but it was too late now.