She looked so thin. When she swaggered around, dressed provocatively and with that half smile, she looked every inch the femme fatale. But lying there, she seemed almost childlike. I reached for her, my hand hovering in the air as if she might break if I touched her. Except she’d already been broken. I gingerly pulled up her shirt to reveal angry, red welts that streaked the length of her back and down under her jeans. I’d seen them before, back when Shelly had first started in the life, before she had regulars to keep her safe.

“He did this,” I said, my voice detached from my head as if I had a cold. I meant the one who liked to rough her up. I told her not to see him, and usually she didn’t take on clients like him, but there was something about him that kept her going back.

“It wasn’t him. I took on a new client.”

“Why? Why would you do that?”

She gestured toward the nightstand, and I opened the drawer. On top of the mess of beauty products and a few books was a single white envelope. A thick one.

I looked inside. Money, and lots of it.

“Shit,” came out on my exhale.

“Five thousand.” Pride colored her voice—I didn’t know whether that was a good sign or bad. Five thousand fucking dollars. That was ten times her regular nightly rate, as much money as she made in a month. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to work now for the next couple of weeks, with her back all torn up.

“But why? We agreed you wouldn’t do shit like this. Christ, Shelly. You could have been really hurt. You are really hurt.”

“It’s for the lawyer,” she said. “A retainer or some shit.”

Oh, fuck. No.

I threw the envelope into the open drawer, hundred dollar bills spilling out in a vulgar array.

“We need a lawyer. You know that. You can’t run from this. Where would you go? A lawyer will figure this out. Make it right.”

I couldn’t even think about that, not in the face of her gory sacrifice. “You did not do that for me. Tell me you didn’t do that.”

She sighed like I was the irresponsible one. I wanted to rail at her, except she’d already been beaten, hadn’t she? And for me.

I thought I’d known what my own stupidity would cost the people I loved, but I’d been wrong. My father had been doubtful of my future, but I’d cinched the deal when I’d ended up pregnant and alone. Parenting was a laughable term for the desperation with which I kept Bailey in generic-brand baby food.