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nights, she lay awake in her bed crying, wondering how she was ever going to get by with two children to care for. She remembered those endless nights when infant Justin refused to sleep, crying and crying and crying until she finally had to leave the apartment for fear of doing something to hurt him. Now her son was nearly three, but still terribly two, and she was going to have to find a way to deal with another infant. She wasn't sure she could do it.
    Not that she had a lot of choice anymore. She'd decided to keep the belly squirmer, and that's all there was to it. To hell with what William thought.
    William was a pig. He'd been a pig for as long as she'd known him, and if it hadn't been for the night of drunken passion that had created Justin, she'd never in a million years have married him. William wasn't the father, but he was a man, and at the time, that's what she thought she needed most.
    April pulled into her space at The Pines and scanned every compass Point for signs of trouble before turning off the ignition and climbing out of her tiny Geo. Her little Chevy served as her symbol of freedom --her statement to the world that she wasn't completely useless. It also was the only asset that she owned outright and in her own name. One day, it might just be her ticket out of here.
    Making sure she'd gathered all her stuff, she didn't bother to lock the doors as she walked away. Better that a thief get into the car and find nothing to steal than break out the windows and leave her with a big mess in the morning. If they wanted to steal the car itself, more power to them. She could use the insurance check.
    As she crossed the dark playground on her way to her building, she kept her hand in her coat pocket, wrapped around the tiny .25 that she'd bought six years ago but never fired. William liked to say that she could empty a whole clip into someone and only piss him off, but if that bought the time she needed to avoid a rapist or a weapon bigger than hers, then that was just fine. Killing wasn't her bag. Surviving was.
    She kept her eye on the cluster of kids over by the sliding board, watching without turning her head, as they did the same to her. What could they possibly be doing outside at four in the morning? Where were their parents? And why would they want to be outside on such a cold night? In the summer, it almost made sense, as a means to escape the stifling heat of the apartments, but not tonight. Here in Pittsburgh, spring felt too much like winter.
    Twenty, thirty yards away the lads posed no immediate danger, but as one of them took a step closer, her hand tightened on the pistols grip. When it turned out that he was merely moving around to sit on the end of the sliding board, she relaxed. She tried to tell herself that her paranoia was silly, but it was the kind of silliness that kept you alive in The Pines.
    She'd once counted the steps, from her parking space to her front door, and the number 182 remained burned into her brain forever. One hundred eighty-two steps, exposed to the whims of whoever might decide to take advantage of her. Yet, no one ever had. She wondered sometimes why that was. Maybe it was because she stayed clean and sober and never hassled those who could not make the same claim. Maybe she was seen as a kind of Switzerland among the warring drug factions. She liked to think of it that way.
    Soon, though, Justin would grow from a toddler to a little boy, and along about the time he started school, the druggies would come after him. Not to use - that came in junior high - but to carry money from one spot to another. The gangs liked to use little ones because police didn't hassle them as badly. Even when they were caught, the kids were usually home with their parents by the next morning.
    That's if they were just carrying money. More and more, the dealers were using little ones to shuttle guns, and that scared the daylights out of her. Guns brought death, it was that simple. Just like in the