Ash glanced at her. She had his gun tucked down her pant leg, held snug by her sock. It was the only place he could be sure no one would look for it. Guards weren’t allowed to inspect the new girls before Mac did, after all. It was a flaw in the system that Ash was happy to exploit.

“After he brings Dorothy out,” Ash said. “Then you can shoot his balls off for all I care.”

Chandra favored him with a slow blink, perhaps imagining this exact scenario. She said, grinning, “Goody.”

Fifteen minutes passed before Ash heard the approach of footsteps outside the motel room. The skin behind his ears prickled. He shifted his body between Chandra and the door.

“Now you’re feeling protective,” Chandra muttered, bristling.

Ash swallowed the sudden tightness in his throat. “Quiet.”

“I’m just saying, you could’ve played the hero before, back when he was sexually assaulting me with his eyes.”

Ash shot her a look, and Chandra mimed zipping her mouth shut.

Mac walked past the window first. The curtains were drawn, but Ash recognized his fat head through the yellowing fabric. A smaller shadow shuffled close behind him. A girl, her body slight and bent over.

Ash felt his breath catch.

Mac walked back into the room. “Behold,” he said, lip curling in what he must’ve thought was a smile. “The prettiest whore in all of New Seattle!”

The girl appeared at the door. She was staring at her feet, dark hair covering her face.

“Well?” Mac looked from the girl to Ash expectantly. “What do you think?”

His voice lifted the girl’s head, and her dark hair parted like a curtain, revealing skin pale as china, bow-shaped lips, and eyes like a doll’s. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old, Ash realized, the hope draining out of him. She wasn’t Dorothy.

A bruise colored the skin around her left eye. He wondered if that had been her punishment for biting the last man who’d stood where he was standing now.

Mac said something else, but Ash couldn’t have said what it was. His blood was pumping in his ears, so loud that he couldn’t hear anything over it.

“Chandra,” he said, trying and failing to keep the emotion from his voice. “Now.”

Chandra lurched forward, faking a sudden coughing fit. She was faster than Ash had expected her to be, so fast that he wondered if she’d been practicing in her room back at the schoolhouse. Mac barely had time to frown at her and mutter something about bringing him sick girls before her hand was at her ankle, fingers curling around the gun tucked in her sock.

She stood, one eye closing as she took aim.

“Whoa.” Mac raised his hands, backing away. He looked at Ash. “What’s this? I thought we were dealing in good faith, here.”

“Hey, toad face,” Chandra said. “Why are you looking at him? I’m the one with the gun.”

Ash shrugged. “Sounds like you should be dealing with her.”