Title: The Lost Girl

Author: Melpomene Blue

Disclaimer: I own nothing...

She was cold and hungry and hurting. Truth be told, she had been all those things many times over in her relatively short life – such was the reward of living life as a street rat. The constant pain, ravenous hunger, and bone-chilling cold she could easily handle with her own very specific brand of brash aplomb – at least she could handle it in the depths of her thoughts – but the inky, bottomless darkness that surrounded her filled her with unadulterated terror. The dark twisted and twined its way through her ears until she could not even hear her own breathing, it curled itself around her limbs and held them solidly in place, it choked her voice so that she could not even scream.

She had been lost for what seemed to her to be years but was probably more like months. The moreevasive part of her brain kept trying to convince her it had only been months. Surely it had been mere months... they wouldn't let her be lost for more than that, would they? They would swoop in to rescue her any day now all she had to do was hang in there and not give up. They wouldn't actually leave her to rot in the living hell that had swallowed her whole.

It worried her only vaguely that she kept waiting on them even though she could not remember who they were. Friend? Enemy? She only knew that so long as she clung to the hope that they would eventually find her, she wasn't completely lost. Had she ever known who they were? She hoped so.

Scrunching herself into as small a ball of wasting flesh and bone as was possible, she slowly rocked back and forth. The rocking was a comfort. It was the only comfort left to her.

Minutes? Hours? Possibly even days later the room filled with blinding light and jolted her from her fitful sleep. She untangled her arms and legs and crawled to the tiny metal grate set into the stone wall. A heavy mechanical grinding filled the air just before the grate drug aside. She scrambled through the opening on hands and knees knowing full well the repercussions of slowness.

The hallway outside her grate was filled with dozens more like her. No one spoke, the simply drew themselves up to stand against the wall, eyes averted, not acknowledging anyone or anything. Zombies.

The sharp clang of metal on metal rang out through the corridor followed by heavy footsteps. The guard's approach was unmistakable and more fraught with terror than anything else she had ever known – even the darkness. She had inadvertently drawn his attention too many times. It was her eyes that did it, he said that they changed shade with the intensity of her pain.

This time he wasn't alone. She heard the words he spoke without any inclination to understand their meaning although they seeped into her comprehension anyway.

"We provide a valuable service to the Fae community at large. Not only do we keep the factory running non-stop and at a very minimal cost but we also provide a depository for unwanted and discarded pets."

She heard a second voice hum noncommittally but even that did not give her cause enough to lift her head. What did she care who accompanied the dreaded guard? Sometimes she and the others would be rented out to Fae who would use and abuse them as they saw fit. The only guideline seemed to be that they couldn't be killed outright, nothing else was objectionable. She had been rented out frequently at first but as days slid into weeks and weeks into months her already slender frame became so gaunt and damaged her popularity began to diminish although it never died altogether.

The guard came to a stop in front of her and she could feel the terror creep up her arms and spine like so many icy fingers plucking at her tendons. She listened to him as he tapped his ever present metal rod against his palm.

"This one's always been a favorite of mine. It took a good long time to break it in but that just made it that much sweeter in the end." He chuckled darkly and she felt the tip of the rod prod at her chin. The electrodes she knew were embedded in the end of the modified weapon were the only reason she allowed herself to be bullied into lifting her head.

She raised her chin, her gaze leaving the guard's thick-soled boots and sliding up the wall. Although she had known the guard wasn't alone, she had not realized he had three others with him. She refused to focus her eyes on any of them and stared instead at the dingy wall directly across the hall from where she stood.

Another voice joined the guard's, "How much to... you know... put it down? It looks like it's barely on its last leg already."

Movement played in her periphery but she still would not focus her eyes. She knew of others who had been purchased to be put down, to be killed outright. Purchased to be extinguished. Others had tried to buy her from the guard for that exact purpose but he had always refused. He seemed to be more amenable to the idea this time around. Maybe, just maybe he'd agree this time. She could feel the corners of her mouth twitch into a ghost of a smile.

oOo

Tamsin wanted nothing so much as to rip the greasy smile from the guard's face and cram it down his gullet. Biting back her almost unbearable urge to unleash everything she had on the guard, she turned her attention to the woman whose death they were seemingly so casually discussing.

Kenzi? Could it possibly be Kenzi? The eyes and height seemed right but nothing else did. Tamsin was having a great deal of trouble blending her memories of the talkative, optimistic, bouncy thief with the horrifically abused creature that stood in front of her. Skeletally thin, sickly pale, and so very quiet: Kenzi wasn't even a shadow of her old self.

The small smile that flickered across Kenzi's torn lips at the mention of being killed sent shock waves of fury and worry through Tamsin. One glance at Hale and Trick assured her that she hadn't been the only one to link Kenzi's smile to the comment about being put down.

Tamsin missed most of the details Trick made with the guard, she was too focused on Kenzi. She needed to get the human out of there before anything happened to destroy the purchase deal. Tamsin had to clench her hands together behind her back when the guard leaned close to Kenzi to whisper something in her ear causing a fresh wave of terror to blossom in her distant, unfocused eyes.

Tamsin tried to make eye contact with her, to give her some kind of assurance that despite everything she was going to be alright but Kenzi studiously avoided looking directly at any of them. It took every ounce of Tamsin's will power not to lash out at the guard and in the end it was Kenzi herself who convinced her to not kill the man – Kenzi who had been so badly used and who still managed to draw breath. However, she couldn't resist spreading a good deal of self-doubt through the grotesque man's head. Best case scenario – the slaves would rise up and kill him in a revolt. Worst case scenario – he would at least leave them alone for a while.

To her credit, Kenzi took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and with a soul-jarring shudder she followed them through the building. It wasn't until the four of them stood outside the dilapidated warehouse in the half-light of the stormy day that anyone dared breathe. Tamsin closed her eyes against the pouring rain for a moment and when she opened them again she simply watched as Kenzi tilted her head back and let the rain wash across her skin.

Tamsin was jarred. How long had it been since Kenzi had felt the rain? How long since she had seen the world outside the factory? Even the stinking, dirty alley was an improvement over what her life had been.

No one spoke – all eyes were focused on Kenzi. Hale was the first to move, gently touching her back and offering her support when her balance wavered and she would have tipped over backwards. Trick's eyes swam with unspoken emotion. Tamsin, for her part, felt a very real need to unleash a great deal of violence on someone. The only thing that stayed her hand was the worry that she would certainly upset Kenzi even further by giving into her base desires.

Kenzi showed no sign of recognizing them, not even Hale. Tamsin squashed her own disappointment with the understanding that Hale's must be even more devastating. After all, Tamsin was her friend but Hale was in love with her.

"Call Lauren," Trick finally managed to say in an almost normal voice. "Have her meet us at the Dal Riata." He continued to watch Kenzi closely although she stood motionless in the pouring rain. "Kenzi once found comfort there when she was ill. Perhaps she'll remember and be reassured."

Tamsin nodded and stepped aside out of the slanting rain. Taking shelter against a dumpster, she couldn't take her eyes off Kenzi as she waited for the doctor to pick up. A moment later her phone was back in her pocket. "She'll be there. I didn't tell her who or why we needed her, just that we did."

Trick nodded without comment.

"Kenzi?" It was the first thing Hale had said since they came face to face with her. He somehow managed to load the name with so much emotion that Tamsin was left reeling although Kenzi herself appeared not to have heard him at all. "Kenzi," Hale's voice was achingly soft, "we're going home." He dropped his gaze to her bare feet. "I don't want you to get hurt, lil' mama, so I'm going to help you get to the car. But I'll only help you as much as you want me to, no pressure. We'll taking everything at your pace." He hesitantly cupped her elbow in his hand and began to guide her down the alley and Tamsin followed slowly, trying to ignore the bloody footprints Kenzi left in her wake.

It took forever for them to navigate the obstacles in the alley and even longer to convince her to get into the car. No one wanted to push her too much or cause her any additional stress or fear and so they matched the speed of their movements with hers.

Lauren was already at the Dal Riata by the time Tamsin pushed open the door. Apparently the wait had only managed to irritate the good doctor. "Where have you been? When you called you said it was serious, had I realized you were..." Lauren sputtered to silence as Tamsin held open the door for Hale.

Kenzi had finally passed out in the car, allowing Hale to bundle her into his arms. He kept her head tucked under his chin as he carried her into the pub, past a suddenly silent Lauren, and down the stairs into Trick's private quarters.

Tamsin thought the doc might faint dead away herself. Instead, Lauren sagged bonelessly onto a bar stool and wordlessly accepted the glass Trick slipped into her hand. She downed the drink in a single gulp.

Trick poured Lauren another drink as well as one for himself. "For courage."

"Does Bo know ?"

Tamsin snagged Lauren's second drink. "Not yet. We wanted to check it out for ourselves first. There have been so many false leads..."

Lauren stood up and moved to follow Hale's path, snagging her medical bag as she went. "Yeah, three years of false leads and wild goose chases."

to be continued...