"Cali?" Maggie called.

"Yeah, Mags?" Cali responded through chest-thumping sobs.

"Are you OK? He knew that we all loved him, and he loved all of us too," Maggie offered. They were all hurting. Each of them had lost a brother. All they had was each other, and now, one of them was gone.

"I know, Mags. I know," Cali confirmed, allowing herself to mourn openly.

"Aggie?" Seth called out from his kennel.

"Yeah, Seth?" she asked, wondering how he would be able to handle this loss.

"Is Max gonna come back?" he asked hopefully.

"No, Max died, honey. He's in heaven now, with God," Maggie explained.

"Are you going to die too?" Seth asked in a quivering voice, horrified at the thought of losing her too.

"No, Seth. I'm not going to die. I'm staying right here with you," she stated, wishing she had some control over keeping the promise she'd just made to him.

"Aggie, when I grow up, will I go hunting with my dad like Max did?" Seth asked, having felt like he was a part of the story Maggie told.

"I don't know, Seth. Maybe. Or, maybe you'll have different stories that make you feel good. Something that's all yours and that makes you feel special the way Max's story made him feel special," she explained, trying to sound optimistic despite her deep despair.

"OK, I like that too. Aggie, do you love me as much as you love Max?" Seth asked, feeling vulnerable and alone in his kennel.

"Of course I do, Seth. I love you even more," she added, hoping to relieve some of his anguish.

It wasn't long after Max died that John William's feet were banging down the wooden stairs. He stood at the door of Max's kennel and looked at Maggie, lying next to the boy with her arm and leg covering him. "Let's go. Time for you to go back to your own kennel, you filthy little animal," he grunted at Maggie.

Maggie jolted upright. "Max is dead!" she screamed. "You killed him, John William. You killed Max, and I hate your guts! I hope you die!"

If John William weren't so shocked to learn that Max had died, he would have beaten the hell out of her for the way she was yelling at him. Instead, he stood dumbfounded, wondering how the little wimp had died from a beating. Returning to his senses, he opened the locked door. "Come on. Back to your own space," he stated.

Once Maggie was back in her kennel, she rushed over to the side where Cali was sitting, and the two girls locked fingers through the chain link fence. They both leaned their heads against the fence, trying their best to have as much human contact as possible.

John William went back to Max's kennel, lifted Max's feet, and humped the dead teen across the dirt floor. He stopped, still hunched over, to give Cali and Maggie a sinister smile. He dragged Max over to the far corner of the basement. From under the wooden stairs, John William pulled out a shovel and began to dig Max's grave. When he was finished, he rolled Max's body into the hole. The corpse hit the bottom with a thud. John William slowly covered the body with dirt, threw down the shovel, and started toward the stairs. "We have clients coming soon. You bitches better get your shit together," he yelled.

That night, after Dr. Barnes was finished with her, Maggie looked him square in the face. "Dr. Barnes, I need some more books. I want more books on medical stuff. You know, how to fix people," she said carefully.

"Of course, of course. Oh, I just love it when little ones want to learn. I'll bring them to you next week," he sang.

Maggie was on a mission. She wanted to know as much about the human body as possible. "Oh, and one other thing," she asked the good doctor. "Can you bring me the book, Harold and the Purple Crayon?" Maggie wanted to help Seth use his imagination to begin to make his own wonderful memories.

Chapter Thirty-Four.

Myles was very angry to hear that Max had died. John William explained that it was an accident that happened during the boy's punishment for killing Marsh. But an ominous feeling settled over Myles that this group of kids was jinxed. First, there was the bitch detective who had handed notes to Maggie and now there was Max's death. His instincts told him to cut his losses. There was too much at stake for him to worry about the four who remained.

"It's time to shake things up with this little group of misfits. I want you to reach out to our regulars. Get the ball rolling to sell these little shits off," Myles instructed John William.

"Are you sure about this?" John William prodded, not wanting to start all over again with a new group. He knew that if the kids he had taken were sold, then he would be back out on the street again, finding new ones. He liked the hunt and capture, but he cherished the power he wielded over his group more.

"Yeah, I'm fucking sure! What didn't you understand? Let me be clear. I want you to get some buyers in here, pronto. Call a couple of scabs from Camden, Philly, and Maryland. I want to be sure to find buyers for all of them. As for the little boy, I don't really care 'cause he ain't worth a pint of piss. Just get it done," Myles said.

On his way to the basement, John William thought about the guys he would call later that day.

"Listen," John William said when he reached the bottom of the stairs. "Things are gonna change around here. Cali, you're gonna get these rodents ready for some show time. We're filming tonight," he said, throwing a box of sexy lingerie into her kennel. Then he escorted Maggie and Shana into Cali's small prison.

"Why do we have to wear these?" Cali asked, suspicious of John William's intentions.

"Excuse me? Are you questioning what I'm telling you to do? Do you wanna end up like your little friend, Max, over there?" he sneered, looking over at the grave in the corner of the basement.

His tone gave Cali pause. "No, I was just wondering. OK, girls, let's see what's in the box," she said.

Cali put together outfits for each of them. They were all nervous. Any change in the normal routine made them anxious. After the girls were dressed, they stood in Cali's kennel looking at each other.

"You look disgusting," Shana told Maggie.

Maggie crossed her arms over her chest. She was already self-conscious about the outfit she was wearing and susceptible to ridicule. "I know I look disgusting," Maggie retorted. "I feel disgusting too. And so should you. We're just their little playthings, and being dressed like this makes it worse."

Maggie looked down at her body. She was wearing a corset, her undeveloped breasts lost in the cups of the top. The garter belt was too big and lay limply on her hips, making the attached stockings baggy on her long, thin legs. She glanced at Cali, who looked like a Victoria Secret model in her see-through baby-doll slip with a built-in push-up bra. Then she scanned Shana, who wore a mesh teddy. It looked like a one-piece bathing suit without all the material. The roundness of her full breasts poked out of the sides of the triangular cups. Maggie glanced at her legs, which bore the scars of days gone by in this life of punishment.

Shana snorted. "I told you two fools if you took some of the hillbilly heroin, you wouldn't feel so bad all the time. You're both idiots. It's easier to deal with this shit stoned. At least I can't remember half the shit that's happening. And another thing, Maggie, ain't nothing gonna change the fact that we're their little playthings, so give it rest. You're so fuckin' annoying with your goody-two-shoes routine."

Deep down, Shana felt all of the same things that Maggie did. She refused, however, to let anyone know. Her rough exterior was what kept her going. The drugs had numbed her mind and made her circumstances easier to accept. But she wanted to be free just as much as the others did.

A short time later, John William took the three girls upstairs. Each of them was filmed alone while the other two watched. Maggie was horrified when it was her turn. She had never been filmed by herself. With the other kids, she felt shielded from the camera in the mass of human flesh, but tonight she was there for everyone to see. She recited her lines as instructed. "Please pick me," she whispered. "I'll do whatever you want, and I'm worth every cent. Just choose me, and I'll show you."

Maggie's little plea to be picked would cause quite a stir among the local pimps who came to the house to view the film a week later.

Chapter Thirty-Five.

Shana was sold first, since she was the least valuable. A pimp from Camden, New Jersey, bought her for one thousand dollars.

When the men arrived to pick her up, John William went into the basement and opened Shana's kennel. "Let's go, bitch. You've been bought," he barked.

"Ha! See," Shana said, turning to the other two girls. "I am the hottest one." Then she turned to John William. "You have any dope for me?" She leaned in. "It'll help me sleep when I get back down here."

"You're not coming back down here. You've been sold. As in, you're leaving with your new pimp to work the streets of Camden. Man, is your new boss gonna have a good time getting you under control. You were worthless to us at the auction. Your new boss, he ain't as nice as me...he ain't gonna let you do him for dope. You'll do him so that he doesn't kill you," John William said, tormenting her.

Shana looked terror-stricken. "Cali," she cried, "please don't let them take me. Please."

Shana turned back to John William and fell to her knees. She grabbed at his jeans. "Oh God. Please, John William. I don't want to go. I wanna stay with the others."

John William laughed. "Nobody cares what you want. You're a little crack ho, and this is where girls like you end up: in the shit hole of the earth." Then he put his large, slimy hand over her face and pushed her off him. She landed on her back on the dirt floor. She shuffled on her hands and knees as fast as possible to Cali's kennel.

Cali put her fingers through the chain link fence. "I'm so sorry, Shana. I'm so, so sorry," Cali told her.

"I don't wanna go. I wanna stay here with you guys," Shana cried.

"Shana," Maggie stated in a firm voice. "I don't want you to go."

Shana's face snarled angrily, and she burst into a fit of rage. "All of this happened after you came. Why did you have to come? It's your fault. Everything is your fault. It's your fault they hurt me, your fault that Max died, and your fault that I'm being sent away. I hate you, Maggie Clarke."

Maggie couldn't bear to think that these would be the last words they shared. "I know you hate me, Shana. But I don't hate you," she said in a quiet voice.

Shana turned back to Cali and kissed her on the lips through the fence. John William watched their sorrow-filled exchange with sheer delight. When he motioned for her to step out of her kennel, she ran over to Seth, "Come here, baby," Shana told him.

Seth moved to the fence and put his tiny hand over hers.

"You take good care of yourself, OK?" she said.

"OK, Shana. But where are you going?" the small boy asked.

"I'm going away, and we're probably never gonna see each other again. But remember that you're gonna be a really cool guy when you grow up. OK?" she muttered, not knowing what else to say to the child.

Having seen enough, John William grabbed Shana under the arm and pulled her toward the stairs. "Let's go. Time to become someone else's bitch."

As John William yanked Shana up the stairs behind him, Maggie and Cali huddled together at the fence that separated them. Cali broke the silence. "They're selling us off, Maggie. They're not going to keep us anymore. That's why they filmed us by ourselves. We need to wrap our minds around this."

Maggie began weeping. She hated her life as it was, but she had clung to the belief that someday she would go home to her family. The thought of continuing in this sick world without the other kids was unbearable. Maggie felt like she had the day John William took her from the mall. Then she looked across the basement and saw Seth, his eyes as wide as silver dollars, staring at her, waiting for her to make him feel safe, and she felt a gush of guilt. If they were all separated, what would happen to Seth? Worry about Seth's fate overpowered her fear of her own destiny.

Maggie did the only thing that she could think of: she sat on the dirt floor of her kennel and prayed that somehow they would all be OK and that Seth would stay with her.

Chapter Thirty-Six.

Over the next week, men came to visit at all times of the day and night to check out Maggie and Cali. The routine was the same. The two girls dressed in lingerie, paraded upstairs, and stood in the middle of a room while men of all sizes and ages looked them over. In a week's time, at least eighteen men came to see them. Seth was always taken upstairs alone because when Maggie was there, he would whimper and cling to her, and selling a whiny kid to street pimps was nearly impossible.

Back in their kennels, Cali tried to keep Maggie's spirits high. "Look at it this way. If we're sold to pimps, then at least we'll get to be outside again. I mean, we'll be doing the same thing we are now, but at least we'll have a little more freedom."

"That doesn't change anything, Cali. We won't be together anymore. I thought when we got old enough, they would just let us go. I want to go home. I miss my mom and dad every day," Maggie said.

"I understand. But maybe if we're out on the streets, we'll find our way home. At least we won't be locked away where no one but these assholes see us. Right?" Cali argued.

"I don't know, Cali. I just don't have a good feeling about any of this. I'm so scared to be alone. And what will happen to Seth? He doesn't even know his last name or where he lived. How will he ever make it without us?" Maggie asked, wanting Cali to tell her that everything would work out for each of them.

Cali didn't have any answers. She wasn't streetwise. The only thing she knew about prostitution was what she'd learned during her captivity.

"Here's the thing, Mags. We don't have a choice. We have to make the best of what we got. This is all bad shit we're going through. None of us belongs here, and Max definitely didn't deserve to die here. I wonder how Shana is doing," she murmured.

"I know. I've been thinking about her a lot. Do you think she really hated me?" Maggie asked sadly.

"Nah, she was just as scared and frustrated as the rest of us. She knew in her heart that Myles did whatever he wanted. He protected her for a while, and when she lost that, she also lost her ability to cope with this bullshit," Cali explained.

"Maybe she was right. Maybe staying drugged up is the best thing," Maggie offered.

"Don't ever think that, Mags! The drugs are what got her sent to Camden. When I was waiting for a client the night before she was sold, I overheard John William telling one of the other goons that they had to sell her cheap because pimps don't like their 'property' already hooked on drugs. He said they like to get them hooked themselves," Cali said.

The girls lay quietly, waiting for Seth to be returned to the basement. When John William brought the boy downstairs, he put him in his cell and addressed Cali.

"Looks like your ratty ass will be leaving. You were gettin' too old, anyhow. Your new boss is gonna turn you out like a two-bit whore. You'll wish you were back here with me, girl," he rambled. "Get yourself together. They'll be back to get you tomorrow morning."

John William turned the basement light off as he went upstairs, leaving them in pitch darkness to face their demons. The contents of Cali's belly began to churn. She had known that this moment was coming, yet there was no way to prepare for it. She leaned against the chain link fence.

Maggie had started to breathe heavily when John William announced Cali's departure. There was a buzzing in her ears, as if she were listening to static through ear buds.

"Cali? What are we going to do? I don't want you to leave. What if I never see you again?" Maggie cried.

"Come on, Mags. It's gonna be all right. I want to tell you something. I want you to listen to me real close. Ever since I met you, I knew you were special. You're stronger than the rest of us. You know more things, and I need you to believe me about this. I always knew that you were the one among us that would make it out of here and find your way back. Do you hear what I'm saying?" Cali asked, serious as a heart attack.

"I hear you," Maggie answered mechanically.

"No! Mags, I need you to believe it. You're the one among us who will find her way back! You have to do it for all of us. To make things right. We've all lost so much, and when you break free, it won't be for nothing. You can tell our stories to others and make sure that our families remember us," she pleaded.

It was the conviction in Cali's voice that snapped Maggie out of her funk. "I believe you, Cali. I swear, I'll do whatever I can to find my way home again," she promised.

"Good. Another thing. When I get to wherever it is they're taking me, I'm gonna try to get a message to your parents. I don't know how, but if there's a way, I'll contact them...mine too. Your parents are Lorraine and Rob Clarke, and you lived in Conshohocken. What else?" Cali asked.

"My home phone number. If I tell you, can you remember it?" Maggie asked, excited that her parents would soon find out she was still alive.

Maggie recited the phone number, and Cali repeated it several times until it was fixed in her memory. A few minutes later, she repeated the phone number to Maggie again.

"Yep, that's it. Maybe you'll get home before I will," Maggie observed aloud.

"Not likely," a man's voice roared, and it was hot with anger.