Read Tangled Webs for Free Online Page B

here.
    Arista quietly made her way down the hallway to the door they’d come in through, the one that led outside to the alley, with Becky close behind. “Open it for me,” Arista
said.
    “But, miss…” Becky always protested when Arista went out at night. The seediest of characters came out under the cloak of darkness, but that meant little to Arista. She knew
the shortcuts through the alleys and the blind spots where a thief was likely to hide in wait. She knew because she was one of them.
    “I’ll be fine. I just need some air.” Arista cracked open the door and peered up and down the alley. When she saw no one, she exited and waited until the click of the lock
sounded before she turned and sprinted off down the alley.
    This was as close to freedom as Arista would ever get.
    There was a spot by the river that she’d found years ago, hidden from view in the recesses of a burned-out warehouse. She could think freely there. Already she had outlived the lifespan of
an orphan, but only because Bones saw her as a commodity he could exploit for his own purposes. If he ever decided he no longer needed her, she’d be on her own. Or worse.
    Noxious scents wafted from the blackest corners of the alleys, where garbage and refuse and decaying animal carcasses piled up. The night soil men, the ones who kept the main streets clean,
rarely ventured this close to the river to clean up. The comfort of the working class was not a priority to anyone. The rich simply pretended that they didn’t exist; or if they thought of
them, it was as just another kind of garbage.
    Arista wrinkled her nose and hurried on, past the dark window of the bookmaker’s shop, until she finally came out on Fleet Street. The sounds changed, and in the pools of the streetlights,
girls of all ages milled around, waiting for an intoxicated man to proposition them.
    “Aye, there, sweetie.” A woman twice her age stepped into the glow of the oil-lit streetlamp and grinned at Arista. Her black-stained teeth were visible even at that distance, and
her face was framed with a mop of unwashed dark hair.
    The whores on Fleet Street were the lowest of the low. Rarely would a real gentleman make use of their services, as the girls at Covent Garden were much prettier and cleaner, though more
expensive as well. These ones gave away their bodies for mere pennies to the scurvy-addled sailors who passed through in a constant flow.
    “Fancy a little bit o’ fun, do ya?” The woman grabbed her breasts and jiggled them.
    “Bugger off, you pox-ridden whore.” The deep-voiced retort slid off her tongue, and she kept walking. Dressed as she was, she’d come to expect this from the street girls. She
watched them out of the corner of her eye. Their emotionless faces were painted thick with rouge, eyes lined heavily with kohl.
    The woman, the one who’d called out to Arista, had on a dirty, torn shift that barely came to her knees. Her stays were laced tight enough to cause ample exposure of what she sold.
“Think yer too good for the likes of us, then, li’l guvnor?” The woman extended her pinky finger and waggled it at Arista. Another woman snickered loudly.
    That could have been her—very well
would
be her, if Bones ever decided that Arista was no longer useful to him. It would be a far worse hell to sell her body for a shilling than
anything she had endured so far.
    The woman’s attention shifted and Arista saw a man staggering down the street. A chorus of high-pitched voices called out to the man as the group began shouting prices and services at him.
Wretched.
    I’d sooner die than peddle myself on a corner.
    The voices grew fainter and Arista pulled her coat closer to her body. In the dim light, from a distance, she could easily pass for a boy—a slight boy, perhaps, but clearly one with a
knife strapped to his thigh.
    No one else bothered her. She made it to where the unused warehouse stood, its tattered edges outlined against the sky. The