Sanskar stood on the curb of Eighteenth Street between his pickup truck and the burned out chassis of Cutlass Supreme with Prithvi at his side. He had tried to persuade his friend to stay behind, but the stubborn a*s had insisted on coming along. For the third time, he pulled the crumbled piece of paper from his back pocket to check the address written on it. He looked from the paper to the house and back to the paper with a growing sense of unease.

Prithvi- Are you sure this is the right place?

Prithvi pressed his lips together in a tight white line, worry clouding his gray eyes.

Sanskar- God, I hope not.

Sanskar said and felt a rush of gratitude that Prithvi had come along. By the looks of this place, he might need some back up. Kamini had the tendency to walk hand in hand with disaster.

The house set back a ways from the narrow street, cloaked in the shadow and looking a good deal shabbir than its dilapidated neighbors. The moon receded behind troubled clouds, leaving the overgrown yard obscured by darkness. Plywood covered the doors and windows, the grayed wood splattered with red graffiti like splashes of blood on a corpse.

No signs of life existed beyond the rusted tricycle resting against the broken porch steps, an eerie reminder of better days.

Sanskar removed the gun from the waistband of his pants and checked the chip one last time as he moved up the side walk, and prayed that he wouldn't need it. Prithvi followed on his six, stealthy and dangerous as a lion stalking his prey. It was like old times, back on the streets of Chicago, when they'd walked on the wild side.

The front door was boarded shut but the covering over the back door had been pried away and swung to the side when Sanskar tested it. Prithvi pressed flush against the back wall of the house, pistol in hand. Sanskar raised a hand indicating that his friend should wait. Prithvi frowned but jerked his head in acknowledgement.

Sanskar thrust aside the plywood and took a tentative step into the house. He stopped for a second inside the threshold and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. At the same time, the moon emerged from its hiding place. Beams of moonlight filtered through the cracks of the boards over the windows and cast eerie pools of blue and gray light into the room. The floor was littered with trash; fast food wrappers, dirty clothing, and wand of aluminum foil used for cooking up the drug du jour (of the day). A sickening sweet scent overlaid the heavier odors of human excrement and unwashed bodies. Sanskar took a deep breath and pulled his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth to keep from gagging.

His heart sank as he peered through the kitchen and into the vacant dining room. Dirt and age smudge the once white walls, checkered by light square patches where pictures had once hung. Someone had spray painted a man's face, twisted in an expression of agony, mouth open and garish in the moonlight. It stared at him in surreal disapproval. He thrust an arm out the door, motioning Prithvi in behind him. He had seen this kind of place before and knew the dangers that lurked behind every corner. Junkies had been freakishly strong and irrationally violent when stirred up. The two man moved silently through the debris into the living room as carefully as if moving through a mine field.

Two dirty mattresses rested on the floor covered with a pile of rags. Not rags actually, but bodies wasted by drug abuse, barely recognizable as human. They didn't stir as Prithvi and Sanskar approached and Sanskar wondered if they might be dead.

Prithvi- Holy Mary, Mother of God.

Prithvi said in a choked whisper and crossed himself.

Sanskar bend down and placed a hand on the nearest shoulder, shook it roughly, and was greeted by the unturned face of a boy who couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. The snub nose and hollowed cheeks were smudged with dirt, the sunken eyes glazed and unseeing. An unhealthy gray tinged the boy's skin as if he hadn't seen daylight for a very long time. No doubt he was a runaway. Sanskar had an unsettling version of the boy's mother, sitting at the kitchen table sick with worry, staring at her telephone as she waited for a call that might never come. That boy could have been him if he hadn't changed his ways, he realized, and felt a rush of sympathy.

Prithvi- You can't save them all, Sanskar.

Prithvi said, as if reading his thoughts.

Right. Sanskar sighed and shook the boy again who had slumped back to the mattress in oblivion.

Sanskar- I'm looking for a tall girl with straight black hair. Her name is Kamini. Have you seen her?

With great effort, the boy focused in on Sanskar's face. The boy shook his head but Sanskar squeezed the thin shoulder harder.

Sanskar- Are you sure? A pretty girl about this tall?

He raised his hand to his chin in approximation of Kamini's height.

The boy's eyes sharpened and he nodded then pointed up the stairs on the second floor.

Mingled relief and disappointment surged through Sanskar all at once. Part of him had hoped she wouldn't be here, that this rescue mission would be nothing more than waste of his time. The other part of him seethed with anger that she had once again put him in this situation. God only knew what horrific sights lay in wait for them at the top of the stairs.

None of the bedrooms had doors and he could see bodies in all of them. The first bedroom held several people who blinked at him without seeing, shuffling around like rats in the darkness. A boy and girl writhed in the corner, deep in the throes of s*x, undisturbed by his presence.

He found her in the second bedroom, curled up on the pile of rags in the corner next to a gaunt stick figure of a guy with stringy black hair. They were curled up together like a shrimp in a tangle of skeletal limbs. Several emotions coursed through him as he caught sight of delicate features beneath the matted dark hair; shock at her state of dishevelment, anger that she could put herself in such danger, and sorrow that someone he had once cared for had fallen into such a deep pit of despair.

He crouched down besides her and brushed the hair from her face with a tender hand. She stirred and smiled but didn't open her eyes.

Sanskar- Kamini?

He took her by the arm, shocked by the frailty of her bones, and shook her.

Sanskar- Kams, wake up. It's time to go home.

Kamini- Sanskar?

She blinked up at him with sleepy eyes.

Kamini- Come to bed, Sanskar.

Sanskar- Get up, Kams. It's time to go.

He said, his voice sharper than he intended.

Kamini- That's okay. You go ahead without me. I'll be there in a minute.

She said, and fell back asleep.

Sanskar- No, we are going. Get. Up. Now.

He shook her again, hard enough to make her head roll on her shoulders. She roused long enough to take a swing at him then collapsed again.

Fu*k! It couldn't be easy. Nothing was ever easy with her. He scrubbed his face with his free hand, curbing the urge to throttle her. With a sigh, he shoved his pistol back into the waistband of his pants and began to disentangle the stick figure guy from her. The guy groaned and rolled over but never woke up. At least that was one thing he wouldn't need to worry about.

Prithvi- Sanskar, you want to hurry it up?

Prithvi's urgent whisper floated up the stairs. He'd stayed at the foot of the stairs to keep an eye on things.

Sanskar- We've got company.

From the back of the house came the banging of the car doors and hushed voices floated up the sidewalk. Sanskaar paused from his dealings with Kamini long enough to peak through one of the windows. A Cadillac Escalade gleamed in the moonlight. A well dressed young men accompanied by a guy clad in a leather jacket, his hair shaved into a Mohawk, walked toward the house. Dealers, no doubt, came to collect or sell or maybe both. The last thing he needed was an altercation with Kamini's dealer. They always hated losing a customer.

Sanskar- We're leaving, Kams. Right now. Get your a*s up.

He poked her with the toe of his boot. She moaned but didn't moved. He bent down and scooped her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She weighed no more than a child and he carried her easily down the stairs.

Prithvi met him at the bottom of the stairs.

Prithvi- We can go out this way.

He said, motioning toward a door in the living room.

Prithvi- It goes out to the garage.

Sanskar adjusted Kamini's weight over his shoulders and nodded for Prithvi to lead the way.

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