3.

Jai didn't talk on the way home, and still hadn't said anything an hour after getting home. She sat on the sofa for a while, but her eyes kept glancing at the door. She moved to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. She wished Maddy was here.

She remembered first seeing Maddy at the laundry rocks, crying and trying to wash the drips of blood out of her clothes. Jai thought it was strange in a girl that was a little older than her, and was intrigued.

"It's alright," Jai said, sitting next to her, "You'll get used to it. What's your name?"

"Maddy,' she whispered, "and I never get used to it."

Jai knew straight away Chet would adore her. For all the wrong reasons.

"Jai," she said, smiling. She loved being able to use her own name. "Is Maddy your real name?"

"Short form, I guess."

"For mad as a hatter? Mad as a cut snake?"

"Madison."

"I like mad as a hatter better."

"That's because you're crazy."

"Takes one to know one."

They grinned at each other.

"You are a nutter."Jai said affectionately as Mrs Banks called for her. Jai scowled.

"Who's Melissa?" Maddy asked, listening to the woman call.

"Melissa's the name they gave me for school," Jai said, frowning, jamming a stick into the soft ground beside the rock she was sitting on. "Jai wasn't appropriate."

"You've been to school?"

Jai glanced at her. "Sure. Everyone has to go. Well, maybe it was different where you're from."

Maddy thought about this for a while, interested. "What did you learn?"

"Oh, everything. Loading and unloading clips, safeties, ammunition care, det cord maintenance."

Maddy stared at her. "You mean guns, don't you?"

Jai laughed happily at her look, then Mrs Banks called again. "I gotta go. See ya."

The next time they met, it was Jai who was looking for something to distract her. She had made Chet mad at her, and her ear still rang from his fist, trapping his words in the reverberation.

"I'm not finished, bitch," he said over and over inside the ringing, and Jai needed desperately to box to the whole afternoon away. Failing that, push it to one side with something else. She went looking for Maddy and found her up a tree, wonderfully high.

"How did you end up here?" Jai asked her, climbing up as close as she dared. The branch might be strong enough for one but two together would definitely break it, "You following family?" Jai couldn't believe this slip of a girl had ever done anything exile worthy. But she'd been surprised before. If you pushed anyone enough, they could do anything.

"I haven't got relatives," Maddy had replied with the quietness of one for whom that still feels recent. Her eyes were closed and she was feeling the breeze on her face like it was a godsend.

"Me neither," Jai said quickly, pleased to have something in common, "Let's be cousins." They'd sealed it with blood, so it was proper and all.

And Jai had done her best to keep her away from Chet, but it was like they were destined to meet; Maddy was Chet's idea of the perfect girl. And so when Maddy moved into Chet's place, Jai felt only marginally guilty.

With Chet, she had always been afraid, but she had learnt to cover her fear, as a matter of survival. She didn't know how Maddy survived; Maddy couldn't cover her fear for any money. Maybe that's why Chet kept her so long. He knew she was fragile, and he played just on that edge, plying her with love and fear, controlling himself, so he could enjoy her for longer.

Jai had never been kept for longer. She was not pretty like Maddy was, and felt that this saved her from a lot of attention. So she kept herself purposefully thin and her hair shaggy and short. If she wanted attention she knew how to get it. She found she had never wanted it from the same source for long. So it was a thing of wonder to her that Jackson was still interested in her, and that his interest had not twisted into a need to hurt or humiliate her. He seemed content to just be with her, something she found nothing less than miraculous. Her wonder at him never ceased.

-

When she had moved into the bedroom, Jackson had called Flame. He didn't know who else to call.

Flame was not the right choice. She was awkward, hesitant, and Jai could hear her thinking Filthy slut just like she had ever since they first met. Even Flame could see Jai was getting worse with her around. Now she sat on the pillows with her arms hugging her knees, and was barely responsive.

"I'm getting Margie," Flame said, almost running for the door in relief.

"She doesn't even know Margie!" Jackson shouted after her in despair. Flame closed her ears. Margie can fix anything, she thought.

And sure enough, Margie came straight in and sat next to Jai on the bed, hugging her firmly but gently like she was a human being, taking no notice of her stiffness, and eventually, Jai began to move again, first relaxing her grip on her legs, then leaning back onto the headboard, and finally leaning into Margie.

"I'm rotten inside. I'm falling apart," she whispered. Margie said nothing, but held her. "You know what happened?"

Margie nodded into her head.

"It's not the first time, is it," Margie said quietly.

Jai laughed. What a funny idea. "No. But it's different. I can't put it away… all my little boxes… all my little boxes are falling apart."

"Let them."

But Jai shook her head.

"I can't live without them," she whispered, "I don't know how." Anything bad that had ever happened to her, she had sealed away into a pretty wooden box in her mind, stacking it neatly with all the other little boxes, and had carried on being Jai. And now they were disintegrating, and their contents filling her body with their rotting, slipping contents.

"I don't know how to live here," Jai whispered. "I don't know what normal is anymore. I just walked into this life not even thinking, you know, just, just sort of living; but I don't know how to do it here."

The sound of Jackson's fists hitting Chet's body over and over haunted her waking dreams. It was not a sound she associated with Jackson. It was not a normal sound for here. It was a sound from before, from Melissa Brown's life. Not Nut Jackson's. It was a sound from girl packs. And later, men. These intrusions into her new life confused her. I made a clean break, she insisted to herself, it's different here. She couldn't even convince herself.