There I was, my hands cuffed in tight metal and my ankles had welded shut bracelets with chains coming off of them that were tied to the solid, cold cement wall nearby. I looked over at my gang, one other girl who was awake and two others who were sleeping soundlessly. I looked down at my cut hands and frowned as I realized a couple of them were still bleeding. We were about to be sold off to some pervert and I, our protector, couldn’t do anything about it. I had tried, I really had, to try and get most of my gang away, but four out of six were caught and I found out that the other two had ratted us out for food.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. You’ll find a way out of here, you always do,” the other girl smiled comfortingly. She was my closest mate, Lily. I found her amongst the water, nearly half-drowned by the time I got to her. I pulled her out of the water right before she went unconscious. She managed to say, “Pretty,” as she looked at a lily before passing out.
She was younger than me by about four summers and looked up to me constantly. She was the first to join up with me in our gang. She was the one who stopped me from becoming like every other hoe on the street. In our gang, we were tight. At least, I thought we were.
“Yeah, I’ll think of something. Now get some sleep, else you’ll be tired in the morn,” I said gently. In truth, I was about to cry from pain and despair. There was no way we could get out and now we were going to become slaves.
I looked over to Boots and Scrap, the other two sleeping girls who were twins in fact, though they didn’t look it. Boots was a short-cropped redhead with a scar on her cheek and a black eye from our last fight. Scrap, on the other hand, was even more of a rough neck, ready to jump into a fight without thinking. Parts of her black hair was missing from being ripped out in one of those fights. Her freckled face made for a good camouflage every now and then. I once pulled her out of a fight about her sis’ and took them both to be me own instead of being someone’s dead meat. Both were so starved when I pulled ‘em out that neither could stand to eat more ‘en a bread a day for awhile.
When Mouse was here, before she became the rat, she was able to get all of us a fine meal for street girls and was even able to get far enough that she could sweet talk a home-liver while we got away with some food and water. Thread would always steal someone’s needles and yarn and she would make us grade A outfits before she joined up with Mouse. I know they ratted us out to another gang for better protection, but I wonder if they were okay. Even if we weren’t blood, we were family.
But now we’re a broken family beyond repair. We got caught, and that’s the number one rule of the street: Don’t get caught. We would’ve gotten away if we would’ve realized our hide-out had been busted into sooner. The signs were there, but we thought that we were a small enough gang not to be bothered by the higher ups. We weren’t invading land ‘cause we were close enough to the marketplace for it to be safe. Gangs weren’t allowed to cause trouble in the marketplace. That was the second law on the street. But we were foolish.
“Hey, Bell, get some sleep too, the Bags won’t be comin’ ‘til sunset tomorrow anyway so we’ve got plenty time to think up a plan,” Scrap murmured.
I looked down at her with my green eyes. “Yeah, I s’pose you’re right, ‘night.”
I lay down and pretended to be asleep, facing away from all of them. But how could I sleep knowing that my mates were about to get traded off? I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I felt helpless inside. I could hear the other members of the gangs I had tried to join up with before Lily came. “You’re weak.” “You’re pathetic.” “You’d only slow us down.” “You’re sick and helpless.” “You wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for how pitiful you look.”
Yes, I was weak, but I had tried and tried to get food. Gangs preferred boys over girls because of strength and ruthlessness. It’s been two summers since me an’ Lily met up, a summer ‘n’ a half with Scrap and Boots, but it felt only like a season for all of ‘em. So much had changed in so little time. Boots had actually gotten an offer to join up with a family, but she turned it down ‘cause they only wanted her. She said she already had a family and wouldn’t join up with theirs unless they let us all in, but they didn’t want anymore kids.
Kids, yeah, that’s right. I keep forgetting that we’re just kids. We act more like the adults than any kid I know. Life’s serious on the street, no matter how hard you try to relax you just can’t. I’m just thirteen summers old. Boots ‘n’ Scrap are just eleven summers old. Lily’s nine summers. I looked back over to the chains on my wrists. They were pretty new, as if someone had them specially made just for us. I tugged at them hard, but it didn’t help. The chains held and I knew we weren’t going to get out of this.
“Guys, I’m sorry,” I whispered, my tear-filled voice making it unheard. I closed my eyes and cried myself to sleep, knowing that we were going to be pulled apart to never see each other again in just a few days. They all thought we were going to the same place, but I didn’t grow up on the streets learning nothing. I said goodbye silently as I drifted off to the utter darkness of sleep.