“So fast. I did not think it would start to happen this fast,” Baba Yaga said softly to herself. “I think we will take a longer, slower, safer route to the airport.”

She took them in a tight U-turn that had other cars blaring their horns at them. A few more sudden turns took them away from the city center. Franny sat tensely erect, a pistol clutched tightly in his hand. Periodically he had to switch off hands so he could wipe the nervous sweat from his palms on the fabric of his pants. Stache was whistling tunelessly in the backseat. Baba Yaga’s lined face was expressionless, watching the road. Franny wondered what thoughts were whirling behind that wrinkled mask.

Michelle and Adesina dashed into the graffiti-covered subway car just as the doors were closing. Michelle grabbed two empty seats and they sat down. The car didn’t smell like urine today—an improvement from yesterday’s trip—and the hard blue molded seats were actually clean.

Michelle sighed with relief when she saw no one recognized her. Her baseball cap concealed her long platinum hair, and the oversized Ray•Bans had done the rest. Dressed down in jeans and a T, she looked like every other aspiring model in town.

“Mom,” Adesina said, plucking Michelle’s T-shirt with her claw. Adesina was the size of a Jack Russell terrier. Her body looked like a butterfly, complete with iridescent wings. Her face was that of a little girl.

“You said I could wear lip gloss to school.” She gave Michelle her very best big-brown-eyes momma-please look. Under normal circumstances, this ploy would have worked. But Michelle was working on setting boundaries.

“You’re eight,” Michelle replied, shifting her Prada hobo bag on her lap. “You can’t wear makeup until you’re thirteen.” That sounded very mom-like to Michelle.

“You wore makeup when you were my age,” Adesina said, using her trump card. Oh, you little stinker, Michelle thought.

“When I was your age I wore makeup because modeling was my job,” Michelle replied tersely. “And it still is. Stop using that as an argument. It’s not going to work.”

Adesina pouted. “You’re mean.”

Michelle couldn’t help but smile. Even pouty, her daughter was adorable.

They came to the next stop, and two men wearing Knicks T-shirts and jeans got into the car. Despite there being seats still open, they made a beeline to Michelle and Adesina. Great, Michelle thought. Just great.

“That your freak?” one of them said, gesturing with his thumb at Adesina as the car started moving. A wave of crappy, overbearing cologne flowed off of him.

Michelle didn’t have to look at Adesina to know she was tearing up. She reached over and touched Adesina’s hair to comfort her. They’d gone to the hairdresser and had it done up in cornrows. She looked beautiful. How could anyone look at Adesina and see anything other than a sweet little girl?

“Hey, do I know you?” the other man said. He didn’t give off quite the full-blown asshole vibe his friend did, but he was obviously in training. “You seem really familiar. Did I ever fuck you?”