Shilo stood in the bathroom, feeling completely shocked at how fancy it was. Lush and tacky, it looked like someone had tried to combine the Victorian age with a Greek bathhouse. The Madame ran water from a golden tap into an antique tub on fancy legs. She poured in some purple liquid that splashed and bubbled.

"Lavender," she said with a wink. "Now take off those dirty rags so I can wash them for you."

"Take off…." Shilo eyed the three girls in various areas of the large bathroom.

"Strip, child!" Scarlett snapped.

Shilo quickly complied, completely aware that this woman could easily overpower her if it came to that. She stood in her underwear, feeling like an awkward and embarrassed child.

"Those too. We're all ladies here."

Someone chuckled in the background. Face flushed, Shilo stepped out of her undergarments. But as she climbed into the tub of water, her shame was quickly forgotten. The bath was heavenly. It was hot, filled with think suds, and smelled wonderful. Shilo sand into the water down to her chin, feeling the best she'd had in a long time.

"Thank you," she sighed, genuinely pleased.

"Well, we can't have you covered in filth. Not in my house. There's soap and a washcloth at the foot of the tub." The Madam patted Shilo's head good-naturedly, then left the room.

Shilo closed her eyes, trying to pretend she was completely alone, in her own little world. She pushed away the murmurs of the other girls and focused on her beating heart.

Thump. Thump…

It wouldn't work- there was just too much to think about. Shilo couldn't make her mind an empty box. She had gone from a bad situation to a purely odd one.

A whore house! I'm taking a bath surrounded by hookers!

Shilo was bemused. But, at least Scarlett was kind. She'd offered Shilo room and board in exchange for a job cleaning up around the place. As silly as it was, a part of her was excited- her very first job. It was in strange circumstances, yes, but what part of her life had been normal so far?

Another abnormality- Graverobber. He'd saved her life, for completely unknown reasons, yet he was slowly shifting from a crooked smiled knight in shining armor to a fierce, cold mystery. Shilo was afraid of her savior. And, she had to admit to herself, completely and utterly attracted to him, in so many ways. He was sexy and intense, but also foreign and strange to her. And dangerous, so dangerous. Shilo wasn't sure what to think, and all this uncertainty was starting to make her feel sick.

"You're that girl."

Shilo opened her eyes in surprise, trying to refrain from jumping out of the bath in shock. "Um?"

It was the same girl who'd brought her the soup, the one with blue dreadlocks and caramel skin.

"The one who was all over the papers and the news. That Repo Man's kid. You're her."

"Oh. Yeah. My name's Shilo."

The girl grinned broadly and extended her hand. "You can call me Blue."

Shilo shook Blue's hand, who obviously didn't care that she was sopping wet and covered in suds.

"How old are you?" Blue asked, squinting.

"Seventeen."

Blue grinned. "Ha! I'm twenty one. So is it true? You never left your house before now, or anything?"

"Yeah. It's true." Shilo could have easily lied. But what was the point?

"Wow." Blue's expression was awed. "So…you've never been to the movie theatre, or gone to school, or anything?"

Shilo shook her head, trying to swallow the lump forming in her throat. She knew all of these things, obviously, but hearing another person talk of them, be so shocked by them, made everything so real. Shilo was a freak. She'd never went bowling, or had a pizza, or bought her own clothes….or even had company other than her dad.

"Hmm. We'll have to fix that."

Shilo smiled hesitantly. "Okay?"

Blue laughed. "Don't be such a little kitten! I'm not going to take you anywhere crazy at first. But you need to live, chick. You know? God, at seventeen I was…well, pretty much the same as I am now."

Shilo grinned. "Living sounds pretty good."

Blue smacked the side of the tub. "Damn right, it does! Now, finish up in here and I can show you around the place."

Shilo stared after Blue as she walked away, a warm feeling in her chest. She was pretty sure she'd just made her first friend. Shilo wasn't entirely sure how these things worked, of course, but she felt comfortable around Blue. She was nice, energetic, and didn't have any malicious plans to kill her. Shilo was reminded of TV shows she'd watched when the new girl at school got quickly befriended and shown around by someone friendly. This sure wasn't high-school, and Shilo was nowhere near being a normal teenager, but things were starting to feel a little less repulsive. At least she had a plan. At least she wasn't stumbling around in garbage.

Shilo grabbed the bar of soap and started scrubbing her hair.

Her hair. She hadn't had hair for as long as she could remember. The curly locks were thick and soft in her fingers. There wasn't much there, but as Shilo lathered soap into her hair for the first time, she was completely grateful for what was.