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like them young,” she replied.
    “That used to matter,” he said. “Not anymore. A few more nights on the streets, when all you have left to barter with is what’s between your legs, and you’ll come around.”
    Tammy returned with enough money for lunch and a couple of gallons of gas for the car. Haley could tell by their faces that it wasn’t enough. “You know where we gotta go,” Billy said quietly to Tammy, who tossed a brief glance toward the back seat.
    “And you know what could happen when we get there,” she reminded him softly. “You think she’s ready for that?”
    They continued to talk softly and Haley had to strain to hear what they were saying. “So what do you want me to do? Drop her off at some diner and hope no one else snatches her up in the meantime? You think she’s ready for that ?”
    Haley shuddered. She no longer had any money, she didn’t have any clothes, and she had no place to stay. The only thing she had left in the world was this unintentional alliance with these two strangers, who had helped her when she literally had no one. Without them, she wouldn’t know what to do or where to go. And she was fresh out of options. “I want to stay with you,” she asserted.
    Tammy finally acquiesced with a sigh. “Fine.”
    Within the hour they were sputtering and chugging through the winding Hollywood Hills so that Billy could replenish his supply of drugs to sell. Unlike the squalor of the abandoned building or the run-down area around the bus terminal, their destination, a mansion in the hills, was in an elaborate compound. The guards at the gate let them enter the private bricked driveway. Regal palms swayed overhead as they drove up an incline toward the entrance of the multilevel home. The exterior was cold, gray and modern. The interior was not much warmer. Stark chrome and gray walls, pristine white furniture, and stone tables made the residence both luxurious and forbidding.
    They were ushered through their opulent surroundings toward a deck with a view of the Los Angeles skyline in the distance, and the Pacific beyond that. It was Haley’s first glimpse of the ocean, and a reminder of the world beyond the dirty, gritty streets she’d explored thus far.
    She shivered a bit, exposed to the cooler breezes that the people of the Hollywood Hills obviously paid through their noses to enjoy. She followed Tammy’s lead and sat on a sectional bench arranged around a covered fire pit made of marble. She crossed her feet at the ankle and tried to fade as much into the furniture as possible as they waited. Haley could tell by Tammy’s subtle tremor that they were in a place far more dangerous than some burned-out abandoned building.
    Once she saw their host, she immediately understood why.
    The man wore his forties as elegantly as he wore his designer suit, which he buttoned as he stepped out onto the deck. His shoulder-length hair was as dark as his eyes, and his skin was a flawless olive. A thin line of carefully trimmed stubble framed his strong jawline. He met them with a confident smile that reminded her of all those shark documentaries she’d watched on TV.
    If he was the predator, she knew immediately that she and her companions were the chum. Shark bait , she thought to herself with a shudder.
    “William,” the older man said as he approached. “I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.”
    Billy hopped to his feet. “I had a good week,” he lied. “I need more stuff.”
    But their host was wholly uninterested. Instead he turned his attention to the two young girls sitting quietly on the sectional. “So you brought friends to celebrate,” the man said, leaning toward Tammy with a smile. “Always good to see you again,” he said in a low voice that made Haley’s stomach drop. Her breath strangled in her throat when his eyes drifted to hers. “And who might you be?” he asked.
    No one had bothered to ask her that before now, so she was unprepared to lie, especially