Chapter 2

We never should have kidnapped Mr. Kellogg.

I don't know why I thought that was gonna be a good plan. I mean, we were doing okay with just hooking, me and the rest of the Foxfire girls. We were making good money, even Maddy, even though she looked so young a lot of guys don't really think of her that way. It has nothing to do with her not being pretty like Goldie said. That's total bullshit. Maddy's every bit as pretty as me and Rita, prettier than me, even. People are just picky assholes is all. Sometimes you don't get a great chance to take their money, is all, and sometimes they didn't have much. Still, if we had even one girl a day hook one guy and take his cash, it was good money, and as long as no one got hurt it was working out. We weren't making a lot all the time, but it was some, and with Goldie and Lana having jobs too it was enough to have the stuff we needed to stay at the house, anyway, and since it was abandoned it wasn't like we had to pay rent.

But we weren't making money FAST, and there was so much we needed it for, not for us, so much, for other people, and who else was gonna get it but us? Marigold from juvie couldn't get a job, her parents wouldn't take her back and she didn't have anywhere to go, she was the only one in the whole fucking place who wasn't trying to make me lose it and I owed her something for that, didn't I? And Maddy's mom and Lana's sister's kids, and my own little sister, my own baby sister Evangeline and her mom Muriel. My dad was such a fucking drunk bastard he didn't even CARE, his own kid in the hospital ever since she's born and he can't even go SEE her, forget helping Muriel with money for her. My own baby sister in the hospital, not even able to hardly BREATHE, and they could kick her out, I bet, if Muriel didn't pay long enough, and then what? Just let her die?

Fuck, I couldn't think about that, not then, not after it all. If we could get enough money, all at once, we could give it to Muriel and maybe we'd never have to worry about Evangeline again.

But we fucked it all up when V.V. almost killed Mr. Kellogg, and now maybe that killed Evangeline too. Because she didn't get one dollar, NOTHING from it. And now maybe she'll grow up thinking I'm dead, that I was a screw up just doing shit to do it, and she'll never know it was all for her. She'll never know how much I loved her, how I would have gave her all my breath so she'd never go blue again.

Or maybe she'll never grow up at all, and that's my fault too.

I didn't know it would go so bad. I figured, Mr. Kellogg is rich, he can stand to lose a million bucks anyway. We'd take him, me and the rest of the gang, and we wouldn't hurt him, we would just ask his family for money, and once we had it we'd let him go, no harm done.

But he wouldn't talk, he wouldn't eat, and his wife, his damn stupid wife wouldn't pay, and then V.V. shot him and everything was fucked from then on.

I couldn't let them go down for it, the rest of the gang. It was my idea, it was all for me, and if it got screwed over it should be me who went down. So I told them to run…and when the cops came, it was me they saw, and me they took off after. It's me they're still after, even though after the car over the bridge incident, which I wasn't even part of in the first place, I'm pretty sure they think I'm dead. That's probably the best thing even for the girls, because if they think I'm alive they'd come looking for me, and then they'd get in trouble too.

I knew all my options, if I ever got caught, if anyone knew I wasn't even sixteen yet and still on the streets, let alone that I was Margaret Ann Sadovsky and I kidnapped one of the richest guys in New York. If I was lucky it would be back to foster homes or my grandma, or my drunkass dad who smacked me around every time he got pissed and lied about me in court and doesn't want me around anyway, my dad who probably fucking killed my mom but then sends me off to juvie when all I did was DEFEND myself and Violet with the stupid switchblade, I mean if you can't pull a knife on a guy trying to feel up on your own sister what the hell can you pull it for? And if I wasn't lucky, it would have been juvie, or prison, and I'd kill or die first.

No, I figured it was better if I never saw them again, if they all thought I was dead. Even Maddy, because that's what would keep them all safe.

Maddy…god, I missed her so much. It was bad in juvie, but it was worse after I had to play dead, because playing dead would last forever. In juvie I could write to Maddy, even if what I wrote was stupid bullshit that didn't say anything at all, because all the staff would read it before they'd pass it on. In juvie when it was really bad and I thought I'd go crazy or break apart into pieces if I had to be there one more second hearing their yelling, seeing their stupid grinning faces and feeling their hands on me, I could think of Maddy, see her even with my eyes wide open, and I knew if I just kept my cool I'd get out one day and see her again and nothing would ever pull me away.

But when you're dead to someone, you don't have any of that. You can't write or call and you know you can never see them, and it's almost like you're really dead after all. Because you're dead to them. And after a while even if you close your eyes and see her face so clearly it's like she's right there with you, you start to forget how her voice sounded, and how it felt to lay down with her arms around you…the way her eyes glowed when you told her she was your heart.

And she was, you know. Killer, Maddy, Maddy-Monkey…she was mine somehow. I loved my other Foxfire sisters, but Madeleine Faith Wirtz was my heart.

Sometimes after it happened, and I was alone like always, settling in on some fire escape or under a bridge or wherever I was for the night, I'd lay down, and I'd be sick like usual in this fucking awful cold, shivering and coughing like a smoker even though I gave it up when it was too much effort to bum them all the time. I'd be sniffing up snot, keeping my hand over my heart tracing the Foxfire flame that's been there since I put it there myself when I was thirteen. I'd trace the flame not needing to see it to know the shape, and I'd wonder if somewhere back in New York, or wherever she was then, Maddy was touching hers too.

I hoped she was, that she'd never, ever forget me or her Foxfire sisters, or everything we stood for, that even with it all fucked three ways to Sunday she'd still remember when it was like it was supposed to be, and we were making a difference. Lifting up women, protecting and providing for them, putting the asshole men that kept them down and hurt them in their place…but I was always scared that maybe she didn't, that maybe she moved on. Found another girl, or worse, a man, and forgot all about me and Foxfire…told him the tattoo was a birthmark and forgot more than my face…forgot me and everything we were.

It can happen, I know it can, because I forgot my own mother, and she's the one who gave me life, even though I think my father probably took hers away. She might have died for me, and I can't even remember her face…I can't remember anything about her. I didn't ever want that to happen with me and Maddy.

But I could never see her to let her know she was still my heart, and no matter what I could never forget. So when I saw the girl in the gas station and she was Maddy all over, even if she and Maddy didn't actually look all that much alike, it was like the world was letting me know I had one last chance, and she was it.

So I took it. Should have known I would screw it up too.