by Tricia Barr
“Done,” the leader said quickly. “We’ll pack up first thing in the morning.”
“And leave the girls,” I insisted, aware of Luca’s and Smooth’s questioning eyes on me as I kept my unwavering gaze on the leader.
“What? I paid hundreds of thousands for them,” he said. “You expect me to just hand them over to you? With nothing in return?”
“What you’ll get in return is your life,” I said, trying to sound as dangerous as I could; Luca had taught me well.
The leader deliberated this for a long moment, looking from me to his dead men to his storage containers and back. “Is this how you created your business, Mr. del Veccio? By stealing from your competitors?”
“We’re not stealing them for our business,” I said before Luca could answer. “We’re freeing them.”
“You mean to tell me that you’re just going to release three hundred bought-and-paid-for sex slaves?” the man asked dubiously.
“Like I said before,” Luca said, giving me a knowing glance. “We don’t deal in slavery here in Vegas.”
Outrage contorted the man’s face, and I could feel the swollen pride radiating off him. He turned tail and bolted for the stairs, sliding down the railing in his urgency to escape. Smooth instinctively ran after him, disappearing into the shadows of the warehouse.
The last remaining thug dropped his weapon and put his hands in the air submissively, silently asking for mercy. I nodded at him, and he scurried away in the other direction. His soul wasn’t quite as tainted as most of the others. Maybe this episode would encourage him to turn his life around. And I was happy to kill one less person.
I turned to Luca, not quite certain what to expect after my insistence to free the girls.
He gave me a fond smile and put his hand on my shoulder. “That was very brave of you. I’m glad you spoke up. Otherwise, I would have just let him take these girls somewhere else. Being a business man, I don’t always have the best ethics.”
“You have ethics?” I asked teasingly, hiding my appreciation for his agreeable reaction. Luca wasn’t exactly the ideal father figure, but he did pretty good sometimes, and he was the only father I had.
He chuckled and shrugged. “Now come on, help me get these containers open.”
He found a pair of bolt cutters, and together we went around opening the containers one by one. I had to turn my emotion switch completely off when I saw the condition these girls were in. Dirty, under-clothed, malnourished and sickly. If I allowed myself to feel right now, I would break down in tears and be useless.
The girls in their cages regarded us with fear when we first entered, then confusion as we let them out of their cages, and finally overwhelming gratitude when they realized we were setting them free. Soon the warehouse was flooded with girls, and the place looked like an all-girls boarding school gone terribly wrong. A few of them fled immediately without hesitation, but most them were so stuck they couldn’t move. They had nowhere to go, and few of them spoke English.
“We have to help them,” I said to Luca.
He frowned and sighed. “There’s not much we can do. After we leave, we can make an anonymous call to the police and they can see to the safety and shelter of these girls.”
“We have to at least get them some food,” I said, unable to ignore the striking boniness of their forms. When Smooth returned from chasing down the escaped slave-trader—I didn’t ask what became of the man—I sent him to buy out the nearest Little Caesar’s Pizza, which he did and came back in forty minutes with a limo-full. We handed out the pizzas all around and the girls eagerly dug in.
“We’ve done all we can,” Luca said, ushering me toward the limo. “Let’s go home and leave the rest to the cops.”
I nodded and followed him out reluctantly. I wanted to see to it that every one of these girls was taken care of, but I was just one person. At least I had done the most important thing of all. I had given them their freedom. Did saving three hundred lives make up for the dozens I had taken?
By the time we got home, I was completely beat.
Luca owned a sizeable two-story condo just off the strip. Ever since I came to live with him, he had tried to make it homier, and after much subtle manipulation on my part, it was now fit for teenage girl. I had everything I could possibly want: a big-screen internet TV, a laptop, a big bedroom with a huge canopy bed and a closet full of more clothes than I could ever wear. He had agreed years ago to stop conducting business here, so it truly felt like a sanctuary these days, a place where I could feel safe.
No one had ever died in this building, so there were no ghosts to pester me. Of course, there was the occasion that a ghost would follow me off the street like a lost puppy, having discovered that I can see and hear them and beg me to give a message to a loved one or just to provide them some form of interaction.
Thankfully, that was not the case tonight. I was very much looking forward to crashing on the couch and zombifying in front of the TV.
“Luca, I told you not to keep her out past dinner time anymore,” Carmella, our beautiful Hispanic housekeeper/nanny/out-of-this-world cook scolded as we walked in the front door. “It’s not healthy for her to eat so late, because then she won’t get to bed at a good time, and her brain will be mush for her studies in the morning.” All the while, she had her hands on her wide luscious hips, her gorgeous dark eyes narrowed vehemently at him.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Luca said defensively. “This time, it was her fault. She’s the reason we stayed out so late.”
“Hey, don’t pass the buck,” I said with a frown. “I was only encouraging you to do what you should have done from the get go. And if you hadn’t dragged me out in the first place, I wouldn’t have had to force you to make the correct moral decision.”
“But aren’t you glad we went?” he asked. “Or would you rather those girls still be locked up?”
“Alright, you two. Aye, you bicker like school children,” Carmella said, shaking her head and stealthily guiding us toward the kitchen table.
“Well, technically, one of us is,” I pointed out.
“Enough,” Carmella said. “Now sit down, both of you. It’s time to eat.”
I did as I was told, deciding against provoking either of them further for the time being. The couch was calling my name, but the grumbling in my empty stomach demanded satisfaction first. The less I drew out this meal, the sooner I could zonk out to a sitcom.
As Carmella dished out bowls of still steaming chicken tortilla soup—one of my favorite things she made—I couldn’t help but admire the grace with which she moved. She was such a beautiful woman. She stood five-eight in high heels and had a figure like a pear, full breasts, slim waist and hips that sashay when she walks. Her hair was a mane of dark brown curls, cascading over caramel skin that was smooth as alabaster. And those lashes! I hated her for those thick lashes that fanned like palm trees in the wind with each blink.
I always hoped that I would somehow inherit some of her beauty one day. Not through DNA, as we shared absolutely no relation, but through osmosis or something. Like spending enough time with her would make her desirable physical traits rub off on me.
Alas, such a thing never happened. I still had long raven black hair that was so stubbornly straight it refused to curl to a curling iron on high, cobalt gray eyes from my mom, and the tall, lengthy athletic figure from my dad. Not that I was complaining, I wasn’t ugly by any means, but one can always aspire to be better than they are.
“Here you go, mijita,” she said as she placed the bowl on the table in front of me. The savory, slightly spicy aromas of cilantro, cumin and chipotle fumed up my nostrils, eliciting an involuntary sigh before I dug in.
“Thank you,” I said with a mouthful of sogging tortilla chips. As surely as Luca was my adopted dad, Carmella was my adopted mom, and I loved her for that.
“Did you get a chance to work on your homework before you left this afternoon?” Carmella asked after I had gulpe
d a few heaping spoonfuls of soup.
I swallowed and nodded.
“Good, because I don’t want you to fall behind on your studies this close to the end,” she lectured like a real mom. “Your finals are coming up.”
“I’m way ahead,” I argued. “Even if I fall behind, I’ll still be way ahead of kids in traditional high school.” I was enrolled in an online high school, and Luca had private tutors come a few days a week to facilitate my studies. Because I was a target for his enemies, he didn’t want me in a regular school—it wasn’t safe. And I hadn’t minded at first, because it kept me home and out of the reach of ghosts, and also kept me away from innocent people I might hurt by accident.
But over the past few years, I had become more in control of my powers. I still couldn’t entirely repel ghosts, but I was confident in the fact that I wouldn’t hurt anyone unless I actually meant to, and I missed the social interaction. I longed to feel like a typical teen girl, because nothing about my life was typical. I was entirely over the whole homeschooled thing.
“In fact, I wanted to talk to you about that, Luca,” I said, turning to him as he leisurely ate his soup. “You said that once I finished high school, you would pay my college tuition. Well, like Carmella said, I have finals in a few days. The final finals. That means I’ll be a high school graduate. And I’ve already been accepted to a few universities.”
“Wow,” Luca said. “I didn’t realize you were so far along. Of course, I’d be happy to pay your tuition. Which school have you decided on?”
He was being agreeable so far, but here was the hurdle. “Well, that’s the thing. As you know, I’ll be seventeen tomorrow—”
“Oh yes, and I have such a wonderful party planned!” Carmella added with excited applause.
“—and I think I’ve proven that I can take care of myself,” I continued, needing to get this out. “What I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to enroll in an online program. I want to attend a real college physically. In person.”
“When did you decide this?” Luca asked, caught by surprise.
“It’s what I’ve wanted for a few years now,” I admitted. “I need more human interaction. I need to get out. I’ve been cooped up in this house for too long.”
“See, I told you it wasn’t healthy for a teenage girl to be inside the house so much,” Carmella said, lightly slapping his shoulder.
Luca ignored Carmella and kept his focus on me. “You get out plenty. You go out on the town with me all the time. And you get tons of interaction with the guys.”
“Neither of those things count,” I refuted, shaking my head. “Going out with you to a casino or out on a job is not really getting out, and talking to a bunch of men in their mid twenties and upward is not the kind of interaction I’m talking about. I need girls my own age. I need friends.”
“Well, I’m sure we have a few call girls that are your age,” he said with a shrug.
I rolled my eyes. “Again, not really the same thing. I want to feel normal. And it’s not just about that. In person schooling will give me the kind of hands-on skills that you just can’t get from the internet.”
Luca chewed his food for a moment as he looked at me. After he swallowed, he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Honestly, I don’t see why you want to go to college at all. You have unlimited resources here. And as far as a career goes, you know there will always be a place for you here—”
“You know that’s not what I want to do with my life, Luca,” I interrupted. “I want to be a—”
“I know, a doctor,” he interrupted right back. “But I just don’t see the point. The point of a job is to make money. We have money. We have power. We have everything you could ever want.”
“We don’t have a purpose,” I corrected. “I need a bigger purpose than killing off your enemies. I want to help people.”
“You did help people,” he said, the volume of his voice rising. “You saved three hundred girls just tonight. And they aren’t just my enemies, Lorelei. Did you forget they also killed your parents? We still haven’t found the people responsible for their death.”
I sighed. “I know. But I can’t spend my whole life chasing their killer. I know that you’re just trying to protect me. You think that if I go out into the real world, one of our enemies will take me from you. But you don’t have to worry about that anymore. I’m not ten years old anymore.”
“No, you’re only seventeen,” Luca said, voice softening. “You want to be normal. Do you know what happens to normal seventeen-year-old girls on the streets? Trust me, you’re not safe out there.”
“But I will be, because I’m not going to be in Vegas,” I said. “I’m thinking about the University of Washington. They have a great medical program there.”
“Ah, so you don’t even want to go to a college around here, so that you can be close by where I can protect you, or at least see you from time to time,” Luca said, escalating again. “You want to go to a whole other state?”
“Luca, birds leave the nest all the time—” I began with a raised voice as he continued to grow more disgruntled.
“That’s enough, you two,” Carmella snapped, silencing us. “Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow? It’s late, and you both need your rest. Besides, tomorrow is Lorelei’s big day, and we don’t want to start it on a sour note, do we?”
Luca and I shook our heads, both frowning at the fact that neither of us got to have the last word or make the other surrender to our will.
“Thank you for dinner, Carmella,” Luca said, pushing his bowl away and scooting back from the table. “I have some business to attend to. Goodnight.” And then he stood up and walked out, leaving me alone at the table to finish my soup.
Carmella came around behind me and rubbed my shoulders. “It’s okay, mijita. He will come around. Don’t let it spoil your birthday tomorrow, okay?”
Still amped up, I nodded and tried to calm myself down. I had known he wouldn’t be too open to the idea, but that knowledge hadn’t made me any less susceptible to the resulting teen angst and rebelliousness.
I finished my bowl of soup, and then out of spite finished off Luca’s too, even though I knew he wouldn’t care if he came home to find it empty.
“Night,” I said to Carmella as I headed up the stairs to my room. My earlier plans of TV viewing just didn’t seem all that enticing now, and all I wanted was to crash in my bed. Tomorrow was another day. Tomorrow was my birthday. Maybe Luca would be more indulging of a request if it was a birthday wish.
And if not, then I would do it on my own. I would take out a loan if I had to. One way or another, I was going to college. I was going to get out of the snake pit my life had become and strive to be a better person. My soul depended on it.
It’s that dream again.
I was ten-years-old, crying in my bed with the sheets up over my face. I heard the doorknob turn, but I dared not peak. A weight landed on the bed beside me, and my heart pounded with fear.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Mom asked.
When I realized it was her sitting on my bed, I slowly pulled down the covers to look at her. I didn’t take my eyes off her, because I could see in my peripheral vision that the object of my terror was still hovering in the far corner of my room, staring at me.
“Did you have a nightmare again?” Mom asked, patting down my hair dotingly.
I nodded. It was a lie, but I couldn’t tell her the truth. I had hidden this ability from them ever since the day that Clarissa died, and they had all but forgotten about my so-called imaginary friends. I couldn’t tell Mom that the specter of an old woman had been tormenting me all night, demanding that I give her back her cat or she would spank me with a ruler. I didn’t understand what the heck the old woman was talking about. I could only surmise that she had died of dementia and the confusion had followed her into death, and I was too frightened of her ghastly appearance to try to reason with her, to tell her that she had died, and her cat had probably passed away too.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” I begged Mom, clinging to her arms and pulling myself closer to her.
“Of course, you can, sweetie,” Mom cooed. She took my hand and guided me down the hall to her and Dad’s room.
The apparition evaporated as I left the room, and I let out a heavy sigh of relief that she would not bother me again tonight. I had been afraid that she would haunt me all night long, threatening to hurt me. I had not yet met a ghost that could actually hurt me, or affect the physical world in any way, but there was always the fear that one would surprise me.
Mom lifted up the blankets of her bed to let me climb in, and then she got in after me, sandwiching me between her and Dad. I nestled into their pillows and felt blissfully comfortable and safe. My parents may not have been able to protect me from my own powers, but the shelter of their love would always be the one place that I felt the safest.
I had started drifting off to sleep when a loud bang from the kitchen woke me up. My body tensed into petrification, all the hairs on my body standing at attention. But again, I did not open my eyes. I didn’t want to see what the cause of the noise was. Even if ghosts couldn’t hurt me, many of their appearances were haggard and demonic enough to frighten me to death. I had learned that ghosts remain in the same state in which they died. If someone died from a car accident, they carried those horrible gaping wounds and limping limbs forever. And I knew better than any ten-year-old girl should, there were worse ways to die than in a car accident; I had seen hundreds of them. I didn’t want to see any more of it, so I squeezed my eyes shut and silently prayed for whatever it was to go away.
The sound of footsteps charging up the stairs, kicked my heart into overdrive. The ghost was coming closer.
Dad jumped in bed. I opened my eyes to see that he was now wide awake and looking intently toward the door. Could he hear it, too?
“Sarah, someone’s here,” Dad whispered to Mom, who was already stirring.
At his whispered warning, she shot up and looked at him. Dad slipped out of bed and pulled me out with him. He knelt in front of me, holding shoulders firmly. What’s going on?