"Anyone ever tell you you're too pretty for a boy?" My tormentor chuckled, but he didn't seem like he'd discovered my secret. "Pretty boys can get themselves into trouble."

Girls even more so. It was just my ill luck to get caught stealing an apple from the costermonger's cart outside the cemetery and wind up in the overcrowded holding cell at Highgate Police Station. The irony wasn't lost on me, but it wasn't in the least amusing. As an eighteen year-old girl, I should be separated from the men, but I'd been passing myself off as a thirteen year-old boy for so long it hadn't even occurred to me to tell the policemen. With my half-starved body, and mop of hair covering most of my face, nobody had questioned my gender or age.

The big brute jerked me forward, slamming me against his body. My nose smacked into a particularly filthy patch of his shirt and I gagged at the combined stenches of sweat, vomit, excrement and gin. I wasn't too clean myself, but this fellow's odor was overpowering. Bile burned my throat but I swallowed it quickly. Showing weakness would only make it worse for me. I knew that from experience.

"Come here and keep old Badger warm."

Warm? It was summer, and the cell was hotter than a furnace with four adult men and myself crammed into a space designed for one.

"I'm next," said the bearded Dobby, closing in to get a better look at me.

"If there's anything left of him after old Badger's broken him in." Badger chuckled again and fumbled with the front of his trousers.

I closed my hands into fists and clamped down on my fear. Shouting for the constable wouldn't help. He'd told the other prisoners to "Enjoy," when he'd tossed me into the cell. It had only been a few minutes since he'd walked off, whistling. It felt like hours. I had to fight now. It was the only way left. Not that I stood a chance against the men, but they might beat me unconscious, with any luck. It was best not to be awake while they took their liberties.

I swung my fist, but Badger was faster than he looked. He caught my wrist and sneered. "That ain't going to help you." The sneer vanished and he shoved me into the wall.

I put my hands up and managed to stop myself smashing into the whitewashed bricks, but my wrists and arms jarred from the force. I gasped in pain, but smothered the cry that welled up my throat.

"Leave the boy alone." The voice wasn't one I'd heard yet. It didn't come from outside the cell but from another prisoner to my right.

"What'd you say?" Badger snarled.

"I said leave the boy alone. He's just a child."

I turned and pressed my back into the wall. My rescuer stood in a similar position, his arms crossed over his chest. He was perhaps late twenties, with fair hair and cloudy gray eyes circled by red-rimmed lids. He wasn't nearly as tall as Badger, nor as solid, and I doubted he could defeat either Badger or Dobby in a fight. My heart sank.