Oh shit. Never take life for granted kiddies; you don't realize that until a gun barrel is staring you point blank in the face. Cold metal touches down on my forehead, one of the man's meaty hands presses over my mouth and the other hand shoves the gun harder against my head. Ice cold adrenaline races through my veins, But before I could do anything another set of abnormally large hands pinned my arms behind my back, a gruff voice, clearly trying to mask his normal one, whispered in my ear "thanks girlie" a pouch is forced out of fingers by hands much stronger than mine. Their masks and disguised voices tell me their probably not planning on killing me, but hey, i'm not in the position to take chances. I smile under the sweaty hand and take one of the man's giant fingers and chomp down on it. He lets out a very girly sounding scream as I swing one of my feet back and hear a satisfying crack as my heal digs into the other mans crotch. The pouch flies out of his hands and I grab it and tear down the street before either of them can recover. Damn, that was way to close, I never got caught, and seriously this had been the first time in over two years. I tried to push the thought from my head as I made my way 'home' but it kept coming back, am I losing it? The thought was terrifying,I decided not to tell anyone about tonight and just lie and say everything had gone smoothly. It wouldn't be hard; I was very good at lying. But then again, J was better.
The warehouse was dark, it always was. I had finished before anyone else, which normally wasn't rare, however the blood around my mouth was, I was still trying to get that man's sweat and blood out of mouth, god I felt like a vampire. Spitting on the ground one more time I checked the pouch. "980 990 1000" I whispered out loud. Good the thugs hadn't managed to slip anything out, woulda' been hell for me if they had. I threw they cash into the slot by the door and walked upstairs, five bunk beds, nine girls, we lost Natalie a few weeks ago, the little idiot had run right into a gang shooting, wonder when mark was getting a new one, not that I cared, most of the newbies only lasted a week, they were too soft, running their mouths about their 'morals' or whatever and how it was 'wrong' to kill. Sure I killed, but it's not like I enjoyed it, I wasn't that heartless. Sighing, I kicked off my boots under my bed and padded in my socks to the tiny bathroom we all shared; two sinks a toilet and a shower, not much for te- nine girls, not that we spent to long putting on makeup and doing out hair and whatnot, I still liked it when I was alone, I could shower without death threats. Cranking up the hot water, I let it wash all the blood and sweat off me. I was in there much longer than I could be if everyone else was 'home' if you're in the shower more than five minutes they come in and drag you out, naked or not. After about ten minutes I heard the door lock click, there were only 11 keys to that door, one for all of us and one for him, not that he ever came in, we only saw him on the flat screen TV up in the corner when he was giving us news and telling us what to do. Typically it involved robbing someplace, if not we just went off and did whatever the envelope that came through the slot everyday with our name on it said, like mine this morning, it looked like this
Courtney-
Rob drug lords' house on 1832 North Street at 11pm
-J
That was it, all I knew was his name started with a J! So why did I do this? Well J brainwashed most of the girls into doing this, we were all street girls, having roamed Gotham from a young age. Most of them, if they had one at all, had families who didn't give a damn what they did, probably didn't even notice they were gone. Me? I don't even know, been in foster care my whole life, out late one night, I wasn't scared, never scared, I could defend myself, so when I saw a figure at the end of the block at one in the morning, I was excited for a good fight with some wasted ass-hole, not a girl, she only looked a few years older than me. She started yapping about how my family didn't care and that she could take me away and all that, I told her to shut up and just take me, I was at the bottom of the heap, what did I have to lose? No friends, no family and a big-ass secret no one wanted in on. So I went with her, I liked her, she wasn't weak like you would think she was at first sight, blonde, skinny and had a great smile, until you saw her kill a man. I loved her she like the big sister I never had, her name was Carrie. She's dead now, I don't like to remember that night, the only person I ever liked dying, and I was the only one there, the only one who could of stopped it, guess it toughened me up though, now I know people die and I live with it, it's either that or I go insane, that's what happened to madaseen, she was a big black girl, seen it all, her twin sister were here a few years back, now I've never had twin but I could tell they were real close, her sisters name was- hell I don't even know, but she got herself killed after just a month, well madaseen went loco, crying every night, the dumb-ass went after the guy who killed her sister, got him too, and then got shot by one of his cronies. The only person here that wasn't an idiot was Kat. She showed up about a month after me, I dident like her at first, but neither of us had gotten killed in the two years we've been here, so I figured she's the best person to get to know at all.
Good thing it was Kat who walked into the bathroom, anyone else would of gone berserk for me taking all the hot water. She gave me a grunt and walked over to the shower violently drawing the curtains and turned the water on, there was a hiss and I found out it wasn't the water but Kat herself, blood was filling the bottom of the tub, now most people would either pass out of start frantically asking if she was okay, but I wasn't most people, Kat knew how to take care of herself, and I knew how to stay out of her business, not that I wouldn't ask her about I later, I wasn't that heartless. Walking away from the disgusting smelling bathroom I walked over to my bed row, me and Kat had been here the longest so we got the bead at the end of the row. It was almost 3 am now, and some of the other girls were starting to come in through the door, some looking happy, some looking like they wanted to kill themselves, it was rumored if you came home short of cash, J called you down and kept you in a room isolated for a day, and that was just for the first time, Of course it wasn't a rumor, been down there myself, room was full of rats and smelled like piss, even if he would feed us while we were in there we couldn't keep it down. One girl had killed herself with a pencil after J locked her in there for a week; it was just her third time. While I was busy trying to sleep a voice can on through the intercom. "Linny, please go to the third door on the left at the bottom of the stairs. Thank you" he always said it so politely, but we all knew where Linny was going, she must of come home short, of course it was only her second week. She looked terrified, the girl couldn't be older than 10, she looked around, hoping someone could help her. I scoffed, "newbie". I watched her cornrows swing out the door and grumbled, pulling the thin while sheet over my head, one of the girls had turned on the light, the light was never on. There was a mixture of grumbles from girls half asleep telling them to turn it off, and the gasps from the newbies telling her J was going to send them to the room for giving away someone lived here. But it wasn't a girl, that was clear, the entire room was silent, little Linny was standing behind him terrified. The fact everyone had shut up and the light was still on was a dead giveaway something was wrong. I shot up in bed, hand already reaching for the dagger strapped to my bed, until I realized who it was. Oh shit I thought, Batman