Mary scooted closer to the wall and pushed the box of cars in front of her face. Reaching out from under the bed she quickly pulled some dirty laundry toward her and tried to conceal the rest of her body, all the while hoping that her feet weren't poking out from the end of the child size bed.

"Man this place is a dump."

Hard footsteps neared and Mary held very still and tried not to breathe. She thought of the bugs she often saw crawling on the floor when she was lying in her bed at night. Her dirty discarded clothes hadn't been washed for weeks and the smell was attracting them. Suddenly she saw a boot between the box of cars and a musty smelling towel.

"She's not here, but come have a look at this book."

More footsteps neared, maybe three sets in all. It was too hard for Mary to tell. Not all of the intruders could fit into her small room, so they stayed in the kitchen. One of the men laughed.

"Oh how cute she's reading a book about shifters, so that can only mean one thing. She's questioning what she is."

"Is that good or bad?"

"What's it matter she's just a kid. We need to find her quick before they do."

Mary felt something crawling on her head and closed her eyes resisting the urge to swipe it away. The bug moved down unto her forehead and on her left eyelid. She pinched them tight as the feelers touched the bridge of her nose. A horrible thought crossed her mind. What if the thing decided to climb up her nose or into her unprotected ear? The footsteps moved away just as Mary felt a sneeze coming on. Carefully, at the sound of breaking glass and things crashing to the floor, Mary reached up and swatted the roach from her face. She knew it was there still, somewhere on the floor with a bunch of his buddies, but she tried not to think about that.

And then she smelled it...smoke.

"I don't get it, the fire's supposed to cover up the fact we snatched the kid but she's not even here."

"We'll find her eventually. Now come on lets go. She likes to hang out at the library."

Elle turned on the shower and waited for the water to get hot before pulling the curtain back and stepping in. Closing her eyes she allowed the warm heat to run down upon her head and tender shoulders, but little did it do to relieve her tension. She felt sore all over and her stomach ached from the dry heaves she had suffered all morning.

There wasn't much to throw up when the only thing she could keep down was crackers and water. She was sick, so sick. Julio hadn't come home again, but it wasn't the first time he had stayed away. It wasn't the first time he had someone else. Elle felt like screaming.

She wanted out more than ever.

She wanted to run away as far as possible, some place where he would never find her, someplace where she would be safe and taken care of, but just like she told Mea there was no such place. Besides, she was far too weak to try and she wouldn't get far on what little money she had managed to tuck away. She put her trembling hand on her flat stomach, knowing it wouldn't remain like that for long.

Oh God, she just wanted to drift away...so far away.

Feeling dizzy, Elle quickly washed her body and hair and got out. She didn't care much about trying to beautify herself when she felt like human garbage, besides Julio was always saying she was ugly anyway so what did it matter. Wrapping a towel around her head she pulled on a flannel robe and left the bathroom a mess.

She staggered back to her bed and collapsed. Closing her eyes she figured she should wait for the room to stop spinning before she got dressed. She could feel it again that greasy bile moving up her esophagus. She was going to get sick again and real soon, but all she wanted was just a few seconds of peace, of unhindered rest.

Somewhere a door slammed and Elle awoke. She hadn't meant to fall asleep. She had meant to pour over the classifieds in search of a job. She sat up and eyed the clock on the nightstand. Julio was home and there was no supper. Rushing to her dresser she pulled out panties, bra, tee-shirt and jeans and put them on. She heard the refrigerator door slam.

Julio was mad.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her honey blonde hair had dried in the towel and no amount of brushing could free it of its lumps and bumps. She could wet it down later once she saw to Julio's dinner. The best she could do was brush it back in a ponytail, but nothing could conceal her hollow unhealthy eyes.

She looked bad and she knew it. Julio eyed her coldly when she entered the kitchen. The disgust was apparent as he sipped his last beer. She had looked to that last beer as a hope that this night he wouldn't get drunk, but by the smell and look of him, he had several before coming home.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

Elle looked at him in disbelief. "Shouldn't I be asking you that question?" The majority of their fights had started because she didn't know how to keep her mouth shut, but the question was ridiculous.

"The only business you need to be concerned about is your own. The burger I sat out to thaw this morning is still in the fridge and the newspaper hasn't been touched. You got to get a job. You got to be working. I'm tired of being the only one paying bills."

Elle went to the counter and started pulling dirty dishes out of the sink. She hadn't been out of the apartment for two days and found his accusation ludicrous. He made it sound like she was sneaking down to the neighbors every day. The smell of rotting food assaulted her nose and Elle fought to remain in control.

"I've been sick Julio. I've been in bed all day." Elle glanced over her shoulder figuring by the looks of her it wouldn't be too hard for him to believe.

She would never consider Julio a handsome man. He had a broad nose, wide mouth and his dark almost black eyes were often filled with hate. At one time he had claimed to care about her. At one time he had offered her protection. Although short, he had the stocky body of a fighter and she had clung to that strength, only to learn the person she needed protection from was him. She no longer cried when she thought of him holding some other woman in his arms, and sometimes she even longed for it, knowing that as long as he had someone else, he left her alone.

"There's nothing wrong with you. You've just gotten lazy," he said. She started running water in the dishpan. She squirted in dish soap. She was about to tell him to go watch television while she fried him up a hamburger, but the next words floored her. "You've gotten uglier too. You disgust me."

And then Elle felt it, that hatred she'd tried to suppress over the years. "How would you know?" She spun around. "You don't look at me anymore because you seldom come home?"

"Maybe I would come home if I had something to come home to." Suddenly he was in her face, talking in his mean way with the stench of beer and onions on his breath, which only proceeded to turn her stomach. "I pay the bills here because I'm the man and don't you forget it!"

"Yes you're the man." Elle dared meeting his angry glare. "Or then you used to be, before you started hitting on a woman." Instantly Julio's hand was on her throat pulling her toward him.

She felt the fingers of his other hand grinding into her right arm as they fought and moved about the floor in a strange sort of dance. Gasping for breath, Elle dug her fingernails into his chest, arm and face, wherever she could get a hold.

Julio had never tried to strangle her before and the thought of dying in such a way caused Elle to fight all the harder. She kicked and punched until Julio finally released her sending her back against the kitchen sink so hard whatever breath she had left escaped her lungs.

"You," she spat sucking in air, "are no man!"

Julio started forward with all intentions of finishing the job when the sound of loud police sirens pulling into the front parking lot made him abruptly turn away. He looked in the direction of the window and the fire escape and then back at her, and an evil smile crossed his thick lips.

"I'll be back. You can count on it."

Elle stood clinging to the counter as Julio lowered the noisy metal ladder down to the alley. She dare not move until she heard his footsteps fading farther and farther away, one rung at a time. Only then once she was sure that he was gone did she move. A deep severe pain tore at her back as she went to the front window that looked down over the parking lot.

She could see an ambulance, a cop car and just pulling in was a fire truck. Whoever had called this time had meant business. Usually the only ones that showed up were the same two sober faced police officers, who explained in their monotone voices, that until she decided to press charges there wasn't anything they could do to help her.

This time, Elle didn't plan on staying long enough to talk to them or explain that she was afraid to send Julio to jail, knowing eventually he would get out and come looking for her. Racing to her bedroom, Elle worked feverishly for fear of chickening out and changing her mind. Anything was better than staying in her current torment.

She cried in rage and pain as she dragged the suitcase out from under the bed and threw it on the ugly purple bedspread. Julio's mother had very bad taste and they acquired most of their things from her over the years.

Elle had no attachment to anything in the apartment and she owned very little. It didn't take long to empty out her two drawers and grab the articles, her meager collection of work clothes from the closet and tossed them inside, hangers and all. She grabbed toiletries from the bathroom and the crackers from the kitchen. She had need of nothing else. The gifts Julio had bought her over the years, she didn't want. Most of the time they were cheap bribe gifts to get back in her good graces after he hurt her. She wanted nothing that reminded her of him, nothing.

Just as she was about to grab the last item she wanted, which was a book her grandmother had given her, she noticed that in her panic she had turned over one of Julio's boots. She was on her knees before the closet and sticking out of the top, clearly recognizable was a stack of bills wrapped in a paper band. She pulled out the wad of money only to discover another behind it. There had to be a couple of thousand dollars' worth, more than likely of drug money hidden away.

She looked inside the other boot and discovered two more banded stacks, and all were one hundred dollar bills. She couldn't take the time to count it but either way it was hers now. She'd hidden sixty dollars in the suitcase for a moment such as the present, but with the extra cash her options were far greater. She could take a plane, a train or even a bus to broaden the distance between her and Julio. She had put up with his abuse for far too long and he owed her this much.

Without even thinking about it, Elle took the stacks of money and shoved them in the suitcase. She had always dreamed of living someplace where it stayed warm all year, someplace where no one would ever cause her pain again. She put on her sneakers and coat and carried the suitcase to the fire escape. She was counting on the fact that Julio was far gone. She had no intentions of being stopped now.

Climbing out the window, Elle went to the edge and dropped the suitcase down onto some garbage bags, and then started her slow decent to the alley, and to freedom. Lucky for her, even though there was a fair amount of snow on the ground it wasn't terribly cold. She had downed several rungs when the smell of burning rubber filled her nostrils so thickly she could barely breathe.

The source appeared to be coming from the apartment below hers, where black smoke bellowed out through an opened window. The commotion out front hadn't been on the account of her and Julio's fight. Someone had called due to the fire that was now in full blaze in Mary and Mea's apartment. The heat was strong enough that Elle could feel it on her face.

"Mary," she gasped with a new urgency.

Hurrying now, Elle made it to the bottom and quickly retrieved her suitcase. She carried it to the shed where the landlord kept the lawnmower and hid it inside for safe keeping. Orange flames shot out of the front of the building, large and bright trailing upward to flick at the windows of the apartment she had shared with Julio for the last couple of years. She cared not that it was about to burn.

Several people stood around gawking from nearby homes and firemen hurried to carry a hose up the front stairwell. Elle had never taken the time to get to know her neighbors, but she had grown to care about Mary and Mea, and only now as she fretted over them did she realize that she was about to leave them behind without saying goodbye. Poor Mea, she was used to people leaving her.

At the sound of a fuss, policemen telling people to get back, Elle turned to see two firemen carrying a woman on a stretcher from the building. Her face was covered in black soot but Elle clearly recognized the old woman who lived across the hall from Mary. She was alive or they wouldn't have put the mask over her face.

Elle started toward them hoping to ask about her friends when suddenly she caught a whirr of blonde hair darting from the direction of an ambulance. She barely had time to respond when Mary flung her arms around her waist and held on. She didn't have on a coat and her sweatshirt was torn at the shoulder.

"Mommy, mommy, you're all right," she cried out loud drawing the attention of a paramedic.

"Ma'am the fire apparently started in your apartment. Were you aware that you left your child inside alone?"

"No, but," Elle looked down into Mary's horrified expression. With every rigid muscle of the little girl's body, Elle knew something was wrong, other than the fact her apartment was on fire and her mother was gone. Glancing around, Elle quickly spotted the source of Mary's distress.

Standing near a crowd of onlookers was the leather clad man that had tried to snatch Mary from the library, along with several others dressed in the same black jackets. She realized then that they must be the Harley riding Blackbirds that Mea had spoken of. Impulsively without giving the matter much thought, Elle broke down crying. She put her arms around Mary hoping that her acting classes back in high school would pay off. "I'm so sorry Mary. You could have been killed. What happened sweetheart?"

"The couch caught on fire. It happened so fast," Mary played along.

"Ma'am did you leave a cigarette burning?" the paramedic asked.

"I don't smoke," Elle told him. She smelled of cigarettes thanks to Julio so he remained dubious. "I had the back window open and there was a candle on the end table. Maybe that was it." Elle held on to Mary as the paramedic left to go speak to an officer. They would try to pin the fire on her now thanks to the conniving tricks of a ten-year-old. "Do you want to tell me what this is all about?" Elle demanded.

Mary's large blue eyes scanned the crowd of people, but the Blackbirds had gone. She wiped a tear from her black sooty face. "You've got to get me out of here before they come after me again. Please, you've got to take me away from here."

"I'm not going to let anyone take you." Elle wriggled out of Mary tight embrace. "But I've got to find your mom, so I can get out of here."

"She's still gone. I was all alone when those men came into the apartment. I heard them say they were going to the library next, because that's where I hang out, and then I smelled smoke."

Elle took Mary by the arm and started pulling her away from the crowd and the burning building. "Are you sure she didn't come home without you knowing?"

"She wasn't inside and I don't know where she is," Mary exclaimed. "I'm telling you the truth Elle whether you want to believe me or not. Those guys are coming for me."

Elle couldn't believe her luck. Her one chance to get away and now she was responsible for a kid. "We'll search for her later, but first we need to get my stuff from the shed where I hid it, and get away from here before Julio turns up."

"What do you think those men want with me?"

"I'm not sure but if by chance that's your dad's family and they're the ones responsible for the fire, then I wouldn't want any part of them. Something really stinks and this time it's not you." Elle patted Mary on the head. Even though Mary's hair stuck to the palm of her hand, Elle still smiled down at her. "Don't worry Mary I will look after you till we find your mom."

Chapter Fifteen.

Double Edge Blade Elle led Mary past the row of houses beyond where the police had roped off the street. She turned in the alley and started back toward the apartment. Once there if she found the parking lot was also blocked off, she planned to find a hiding spot out of the way where she and Mary could watch the shed until everyone had gone. She was determined that no one was going to get their hands on that money but her.

"I'm scared Elle. What if they hurt my mom?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself Mary. You said yourself she wasn't inside when the fire started. Let's just get somewhere safe and then we'll see if we can find her."

Just as Elle reached for Mary's hand she noticed a bird coming straight for them. The bird broke off at the last second, and Elle followed the winged creature skyward to a huge black cloud of birds, just like it, hovering directly above. Mary let out a terrified whimper when the cloud shifted and the birds began to descend at a fast pace. With no time to run Elle pulled Mary to her body, and held on tight, as the birds engulfed them inside a black tornado.

Elle's hair fell free of the ponytail and tumbled down into her face with the assault, making it impossible to see. She felt wind, wings and claws as they brushed past her skin. Still, as each frightening second passed she soon realized the birds weren't truly touching her, but instead it seemed they were trying to separate her from Mary. And then just as soon as the attack begun the blackbirds flew away. Heart pounding, knees buckling, Elle looked down at Mary.

"I've seen a movie about attacking birds but I never-" Unable to finish Elle just stood trembling as Mary looked up with round blue eyes.

"They're trying to get you to leave me behind," she said. "It's me they want."

Elle couldn't think of anything to say. Even though logically she felt the little girl was suffering from delusion, she was about to believe anything at the moment. And at the moment, all Elle was interested in was getting Mary as far away from the attacking birds as possible.

Grabbing hold of her hand she started running with her for the parking lot. With each step Elle quickly made plans in her head. They could hide out in the gas smelling, garbage infested shed. Then after dark when they would be less likely spotted she would retrieve the suitcase and Julio's money and walk to the corner market. There she would call a cab and take that to the police station to look for Mea.

Once Mea was found Elle planned to take the next flight out. She would have time to think of what warm state, what beach she would run to later. Now she just needed a place to hide with Mary to escape the crazy birds.

Hearing a noise behind them, Elle looked over her shoulder but Mary, loudly shrieking, caused her to instantly turn back around. The same leather clad man and his biker buddies were standing just feet in front of her, and they were very clearly blocking her way to the shed. Coming to an abrupt stop Elle pushed Mary behind her.

"Relax little bird we're not here to harm you. We just want the girl," the man from the library said.

"You're not taking her anywhere."

Again Elle heard a noise and when she turned around this time she saw a man standing directly behind Mary. She screamed as he pulled the little girl from her grasp. Losing her balance Elle fell to the gravel alley.

She took the brunt of the pain to her hip, but she also felt the blow to her back where Julio had slammed her against the kitchen sink. Yelling at the man to give Mary back Elle jumped to her feet and went after her. Just as Elle reached for her, he pulled Mary out of reach and since that made her angry, Elle kicked him as hard as she could in the shin. When he released her, she grabbed Mary by the arm and took off running.

As she passed by the man from the library, he started to laugh in a deep baritone voice. Elle saw the yellow tape across the parking lot and the firemen moving about pulling trash bags from the dumpster. Falling debris had apparently caught it on fire. And then as she stood trying to catch her breath, lungs burning, she saw it, her suitcase lying on top of a pile of burning garbage that obviously had been pulled from the now burning shed.

"No," she pleaded, eyes filling with tears.

Everything, her hopes of leaving, her future as well as her child's future were gone. She let go of Mary and covered her face with her hands, and started to cry. Somewhere close she recognized the loud motor of Julio's car but she no longer cared what happened to her.

She was done.

She was through.

Fairytales were for other people, not her.

Fire engulfed the pile turning it into an inferno of bright red flames and the fireman hurried with hoses to put it out. Numbly, Elle turned and started walking away.

"Where are you going?" Mary asked trembling. Elle did not answer her. Tugging at her arm, Mary took turns looking at the approaching men and the firemen, begging Elle to reconsider. "The firemen can take us downtown. We will be protected there. Please Elle save me."

"There's no one coming to save either of us."

Only when Mary stepped in front of her, tears streaking down her grimy face did Elle stop. Her heart went out to her and she ran a hand along her tangled blonde head.

"Please Elle help me," she begged.