Page 8 of Dirty (Chicago Underground 5)
“No,” he said. “I doubt she does. Which is what makes her an animal, only acting on instinct and fear. Those rotting apartment buildings are the cages we keep them in, like unwanted pets we’re too soft to kill. So what does that make me?”
Failure tightened my throat. “Sir…”
“Come and see, Shelly.”
My leaden feet carried me to the window. I stared at the jagged landscape of concrete and flesh, of rust and blood, while he brushed my hair aside and kissed my neck.
“What does that make you?” he whispered.
Cold air slipped under my skirt. His fingers bruised my hips. A sharp burn before I blocked out everything physical, pushed away anything warm and feeling and human. I was an animal, only acting on instinct and fear. I heard his footsteps as he returned to his desk and the rasp of pen on paper.
“Come here.”
He handed me a wad of cash. Five thousand dollars, I counted out later.
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered.
“After this, I don’t want you to see her again. A girl like that could be a bad influence on you.”
I took a cab to the county hospital, where the uninsured were allowed, where two other pregnant women shared her room, and sat at Allie’s side, the folded wad of money in my purse burning a hole in my gut.
Her brown hair splayed across the pillow, her face was damp with sweat. Pain wrenched her sweet features, but she smiled weakly at me. “I wondered where you’d got off to.”
“Had to stop at the bank,” I said lightly.
My best friend for years, she knew what that meant. Not the specifics, of course. There were some things better left unshared. But she knew that my father was a bastard.
Her forehead creased in worry. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not the one in labor. How are you? What are they saying?”
“Any minute now.” She grimaced. “That’s what they said nine hours ago.”
“There’s nothing they can do? I’ll talk to the nurse.”
She caught my hand. “No. I just want you to sit with me. Can you?”
So I did, crawling into the bed beside her. The cold steel of the railing bit into my side, but I needed the contact as much as she did, maybe more. I needed the hard, contracting bump on her belly, the mysterious, elusive hope born of a nightmare, to make me forget.
The woman on the next bed began to cough, ragged and thick. I held Allie’s hand, pretending this was normal and okay and a perfectly safe environment for her child to be born into. A child, when we could barely take care of ourselves. What would she do? Her dad had sent her two hundred dollars when she’d called him. That was all the money she had. And now my five thousand.
If I told her. She would take that money, spread it thin, and make it last. Then what would she need me for?
She clenched and keened as a contraction hit, and I rocked with her through it, wincing as she squeezed my hand. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the ache lower down my body.
“Have you thought about where you’re going to live?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t know, but I can’t stay at the shelter forever.”
“Yeah, I guess… I mean, you’ll probably get a full time job or something, right?”
“I already talked to Rick. He’s going to up my hours at the bakery.”
“Oh. Who’s going to watch the baby? I mean, a decent day care will be expensive.”
Her lower lip trembled. “I know. But I’ll make it work. I have to, right?”
Forgive me, Allie. “And what about when she gets sick? They don’t let sick kids go to day care. You’ll have to stay home and take her to the doctor. Rick isn’t exactly the lenient type. Plus paying for the do
