She'd been gone for two weeks on the tenth. The next day was stretching into evening as we sat around some previously frozen pizzas. I wasn't too picky about food, my past being as it was, but Digiorno did not compare to Reed's homemade delicious pies.

Dane had been texting all day with his sort-of-boyfriend, so when his phone buzzed yet again we paid no attention. Then he jumped to his feet, knocking over his beer and plate of pizza crusts. He held out his phone to Reed wordlessly, his eyes wide.

Reed also stood, taking it and reading. "Oh," he said. "Let's go then." He handed the phone to me and got his own phone and a couple of blankets off the chair where we stored clean laundry.

I looked at the screen. Several texts in blue reflected Dane's messages over the last two weeks asking where she was, begging her to call or text or answer somehow. A new one sat at the bottom.

come get her shes real sick

It was followed by a misspelled address not far from us, downtown.

I just got my purse and slipped on my boots without bothering with socks. I was the last one out the door and shrugged into my jacket as I got into the Jeep and pulled on my seat belt.

He turned onto the main road and glanced at me. "It'll probably be bad," he warned, not that he expected me to ask to stay behind or something.

I acknowledged his words with a nod and leaned over to tie my boots. It wasn't raining, which was nice, but the cold was chilling. The last of the light was draining from the day and the deep shadows appeared ominous as we drove through them.

"Fuck," Dane said from where he was hanging between our seats.

"She'll be okay," Reed assured him, his voice sounding calm. I could tell by the way he was white knuckling the steering wheel, though, that it was just for Dane's sake. "She'll be okay," he repeated.

It took us a little under ten minutes to get to the part of downtown the address was in. It was the worst part of the city, crawling with mangy dogs, filth and garbage everywhere, drug dealers blatant on the corners. 

I'd only been there once before, when I was lost, and had almost peed my pants in fear at one stop light when four or five skinheads with rotten teeth and swastika tattoos emerged from the shadows to surround my car. I'd gone through that red light and found a freeway entrance and stayed far away ever since.

Reed parked in front of a falling-down building. It had been a check cashing center at one point but had clearly been closed for a long time. There was no door, simply an open doorway where two people slept. A bedroll was discarded next to them on the sidewalk, guarded by a scrawny young pitbull.

It was dark now, and I looked to Reed for what to do next, anxiety tightening my chest.

"Okay," he said, turning off the Jeep and turning to both of us. "Okay. Let's make this quick." He looked at me, his eyes alert for the first time in days, it seemed. "Stay attached to me, chérie. This won't be pretty." He turned a little more to look at Dane. "At all costs, mon frère." He nodded at me, reached to get a flashlight from my feet, and opened his door.

"At all costs," Dane repeated, a vow. 

We got out and the dog was on his feet and growling low in its throat. Dane stepped in front of me as Reed came around the front of the car, clapping his hands sharply at the animal. It cowered back but its hackles didn't go down, and it continued to growl low in its throat. It was only as tall as my knees but that didn't make me feel better.

One of the sleeping figures lashed out a leg and connected with it. It yelped and backed away a few feet until it was stopped by a rope tied around its neck, at which point it lay back down and licked the ribs where it had received the boot.

Reed joined us and I held his hand and attached myself to his side, pretty much simultaneously wishing I'd never come and that he could pick me up somehow like a little kid and keep me safe. 

I had a terrible feeling as we stepped over the prone figures, neither of their faces showing though they were clearly men. An eye-watering stench rose. As I brought my left foot over them, a grimy hand reached up and grasped my ankle tightly. I screamed without meaning to and jerked my foot away, falling into Reed, who steadied me until I regained my balanced next to him.

"Keep your sodding 'ands to yourself!" Dane said angrily, kicking the guy before bypassing him too. "Bloody minger."

The area we were standing in was dark. He switched on the flashlight but held it against his pants so it shone the barest amount while we looked around. The old plexiglass window where the checks had been cashed was riddled with bullet holes and muck. A few patio chairs missing legs lay here and there amidst more trash, clothing, and bodies.

The bodies were breathing, and there were three of them, and they were likely the source of the terrible smell that was gagging me. I clung to Reed's hand so hard he tried to flex it a little to get me to ease up. I instead pressed against him in blatant fear and he let go of me so he could put his arm around my shoulders, too tightly, but it made me feel better. 

My heart was pounding and I was hyperalert, trying to take in everything at once. The ball of person nearest us was a woman, with stringy blond hair full of bare patches, sores all over her slack face and bare arms. A hypodermic syringe lay in her outstretched hand, and I saw her nails were bitten down to bloody stubs. Still, a dreamy smile was on her face even in sleep.

Understanding dawned on me. "Christ," I said under my breath. "It's a fucking opium den." None stirred at the sound of my voice.

Dane made a disgusted sound in his throat, but his voice shook when he spoke. "Of course it is." He moved past us, past the mess on the floor, examining the prone body in the middle of the room even as Reed and I went to the third one. 

This was also a woman. When Reed exposed her face with the flashlight's beam, we saw she was just a teen, maybe fifteen. Her hair was short and she had red lipstick, or possible blood, smeared across her face. A pile of obviously human feces was three inches from her head. She was clad only in a purple halter top and jean cut-offs, both items covered in stains. Her exposed skin was almost blue in the freezing air.

My stomach clenched and I took shallow breaths through my mouth, the air making clouds when I exhaled. I battled with terror for these people and pure confusion over how they were not dead. 

Reed tossed one of the blankets over her inert form and squeezed my shoulder with his hand. I reached up to clutch it. He kissed my temple and I forced myself to keep my panic inside as he led me back to Dane, who was shaking his head about the other person.

A clang startled us all and we turned back toward the ticket window. A raspy voice said "here", and we went toward it, apprehension thick amongst us. A kid, maybe nine or ten, stuck his head out from a hole in the wall and waved us on. He had on a black Giants hat and ragged clothes, but his eyes were clear. He snapped his fingers sharply at us. "C'mon," he said urgently. "What are you waiting for?"

We followed him through the hole.

Dane went first and then motioned us to follow him. I did so next, though I was extremely reluctant on an instinctual level to release Reed long enough to do so. 

The odor was even worse and my mouth watered in advance of the vomit that next made its way out of my stomach. I managed not to puke on either of our shoes, not that we would have even noticed probably.

Reed came through to us and had a hand on my back but then in the silence I heard his sharp intake of breath and he was moving away. I couldn't see in the dark, disoriented from trying to follow the beam of the light as he used it to walk a few feet away. Then it stopped as he dropped to his knees, hard, Dane mimicking the movement beside him.

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and went toward them, tripped over something and fell to one knee. I prayed I hadn't broken the skin and exposed myself to what was probably a roomful of every disease known to mankind.

I stifled the hysterical urge to laugh even as Reed reached out hesitantly to touch the still form, directing the light onto her ruined face where his fingertips lay. Her eyes were closed, one swollen shut, and she was wrapped in a nasty horse blanket. 

"Oh," Reed said, his voice quiet but so loud. "Oh, bebe." He unwrapped the blanket, his hands shaking badly, as Dane shrugged out of his long, puffy coat. She was naked underneath, skin and bones, and I was shocked that it could have possibly happened in only two weeks.

"Hurry," the boy urged, standing in the corner with his eyes on the hole. He moved from foot to foot like he had to pee. "Please can't you hurry!" His eyes were glued to Reed, and desperation was in his voice. "You shouldn't have brought her here," he said of me, reproachfully, and I agreed with him with every fiber of my cowardly being.

His words chilled me further and I moved to help them get Dane's coat around her and then Dane was lifting her, crying silently as he did. Her head lolled back but she opened her good eye and Reed leaned in to hear her better as she spoke. "I don't know where I am," she said in the voice of a small child, and it was easily the eeriest thing I've ever experienced.

"It's okay, Babygirl," Reed said easily, and so convincingly I almost believed him myself for a second. "We got you."

I barely registered the boy groaning before a voice behind me spoke roughly. "Fuck is this?"

I spun to see a short, thick man in his thirties leaning over on the other side of the wall to look through at us. His skin was heavily scarred and pockmarked with acne, a gold chain around his neck and a crude tattooed cross at the corner of his eye. "Fuck you doing in here?"

We were completely cornered and terror exploded in my chest even as I stepped backward twice in panic and then Reed was in front of me and he had a gun in both hands and it was his turn to speak. "You will move, or I will shoot you." His accent was extreme and his hands were still as stone now. "Choose wisely, non? I am in a terrible hurry, and I am most inclined to shoot you anyway. In fact I will likely return and do so."

The guy didn't doubt him for a second and disappeared so fast we could hear him fall over something. Or someone. There was a crash, and he swore, and then Reed was stepping through and taking my hand to help me, the gun ready in his other hand. I quickly moved aside so Dane could hand her through to him. His face was streaked with tears that glinted in the dim light from outside.

The kid stood just inside the hole, watching as Dane took Arianna back. "Come with us," I implored the kid suddenly. What the fuck was a kid doing here. "We can keep you safe."

He shook his head. "I can't," he said, and he didn't seem upset about this fact. Resigned, maybe.

"We can come back for you," I said, even as Reed resettled his grip on the gun and reached for me. "We can keep you safe. It's what we do."

"Like you did for her?" He spit on the ground. "Don't," he added, emphatically. "You'll make it worse for me."

I tore my eyes away from his and we retraced our steps to the Jeep. The guy was nowhere to be seen.