Looking at her, a warmth bloomed in my chest. She was so small and innocent and beautiful. And brave. What other kid her age would cope with all the shit going on as well as she had? I certainly wouldn’t have at her age. I wasn’t really doing such a good job now at twenty-eight.

Her strength made her inexplicable affection for me all the more endearing. She’d even stood up for me, telling Jesus, “He’ll beat you up!” I smiled to myself, but it was a smile of sadness. She shouldn’t be here, going through this. She should be at home, in her bed, waking to her family and a warm breakfast, perhaps attending Sunday church, and later, playing jump rope and other games with her neighborhood friends.

Stroking her head affectionately with the back of my fingers, I vowed right then not to let her down, not to let any harm come to her. I would get her home safe and sound.

Even as I told myself this, however, I wondered whether it was true.

After all, how could I make such a promise when I didn’t know for certain who or what was out there stalking us, hunting us, plotting our demise?

Who, Jack. Not what—who. No crazy Pita thinking, okay?

Okay.

Rosa’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. Her brown eyes looked up at me. “Is it morning?”

“Not yet,” I said.

She began to sit up.

“Go back to sleep,” I told her.

“I can’t. The floor’s too hard.”

“Come,” Elizaveta said. As I’d suspected, she wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were open now, alert, and she held out her hand. “I’ll take you to bed.”

“I don’t want to leave Jack.”

“He’ll be okay.”

“He’s hurt.”

“I’m fine,” I told her. “Go with Eliza.”

Elizaveta and Rosa stood and crossed the room quietly, wraithlike in the candlelight and layered shadows.

Jesus, I noticed, raised his head and watched them until they disappeared into Pepper’s room. Pita remained motionless on her side, sleeping.

“How does it feel, Jack?” Jesus asked me, speaking for the first time in a while.

“How does what feel?” I said, suspecting I was rising to some bait.

“Knowing Pita was fucking Nitro behind your back?”

I almost told him not so bad after I fucked Elizaveta behind his back. Instead I said, “How does it feel knowing you’re going to be fucked six ways from Sunday in prison?”

“I’m not going to prison.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I’m not. You know that. I know that.”

“We’ll see.”

“Jack, Jack, Jack.”

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

“I don’t like you, Jack. I never have. I think maybe it’s time I make that perfectly clear.”

“Oh, it’s been clear for a while.”

“I don’t know what my father ever saw in you. But he was grossly mistaken.”