"Shit. She's tiny. She can't be more than nine."

"I'm guessing under eight."

"Nuh uh. They wouldn't take a kid that young."

"Of course they would. I'll bet you one week of bathroom cleaning duty that she's younger than eight."

"Hah. Duty."

"God. Shut your trap. Both of you."

"Who died and made you king?"

"I'm the oldest, dimwit. By a lot."

Even as consciousness began to seep life back into her veins, JJ kept her eyes shut tight. The muffled chatter coming from above was just as puzzling as it was frightening, and she'd not yet mustered up the nerve to investigate. All she knew was that wherever she was, it smelled of wet stone, and the air was frigid, and there was some sort of shit-poor mattress underneath her.

"How do you think she'll take it?" asked one of the three voices. "You think she'll cry?"

"She's a girl," the deepest voice replied. "Girls cry."

And if there was anything JJ absolutely couldn't stand, it was being underestimated. She let her eyes crack open. Her mouth set itself in an obstinate line. Before her vision could even come into full focus, she croaked out, "I'm twelve. And I'm not gonna cry."

All three boys—she'd assumed they were boys by the tones of their voices, but now she was sure—looked a tad taken aback. Blinking away the drugged blurriness that lingered in her sightline, JJ sat up. After looking around for a moment, she ascertained that she was in a pink-sheeted twin bed framed in wood flimsy enough that it looked as though it could fall to pieces at any moment. The practically decaying room wherein she and the boys were presently staring each other down resembled either a cellar or a prison. She couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was both.

"I'm Jason," said one of the boys. She noted that this was the same one who'd assumed she would cry. She shot him her best scowl.

"This is Aaron, and this is Derek." The teen gestured towards the others, who she quickly identified as the very boys who'd grabbed her from the alleyway. Her heart lurched. Both anger and fear rose in her throat like a catching flame. JJ was cornered. Her otherness, most of all, was damning—it was three on one. She was effectively at their beck and call, whatever it was they wanted her for.

The pale and lanky brunette who Jason had called Aaron backed away from her and plopped down on the bottom of the bunk bed pressed to the adjacent wall. "What's your first name?" he asked. "Just first. We don't do last names."

There was a pause. She debated not answering at all.

"Everyone calls me JJ," she finally said, digging her nails into her palms so as to keep her hands from trembling.

Derek joined Aaron atop the bottom bunk, but Jason stayed standing, his arms crossed over his chest. Offhandedly, JJ found herself wondering how a teenager could look so old. Not physically, really—he had a babyface and a neat smattering of acne—but more in terms of tiredness. His eyes reminded her of a wilting flower. Still, he appeared to be somewhat of a leader, so she directed her next question at him.

"Where am I?"

He sighed a deep, exhausted sigh. The sound made her shudder.

"I call this shithole the Funhouse," he said.

From the far bed (which wasn't actually very far, given the size of the room), Derek chuckled derisively. "Don't get it twisted—there's nothing fun about this place."

"Jason has a flair for the ironic," Aaron added.

With a start, JJ remembered something; that witchy woman from the backseat of the van. Somehow, as if by osmosis of gloom, the pieces began to fall into place in her mind.

"That lady…" she almost whispered. "She took you guys too."

Three grim nods. She pressed her fingernails further into her hands.

"You're the first girl, though," Derek said, sounding a bit awkward. After all, he was still an adolescent boy—at least he'd retained something that could be described as 'boyish.' He motioned towards the pastel pink bed sheets, then to the identically-colored door. "They only opened this room up today. Ours is down the hall. It's exactly the same, but with blue instead of pink."

"Cliché even in their sadism," Jason muttered.

"You've been reading too much," Aaron replied, incredulous.

JJ swallowed hard and tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Who's they?"

"The Roycewoods," Aaron said, grimacing. "That lady you saw and her husband. They live upstairs."

"What… what do they do to you?" she asked. Upon catching their shared knowing look, she quickly amended, "To us."

And so they told her.

"The grand tour," Jason deadpanned, gesturing across the hallway with no shortage of resentment in his eyes. It was the next morning. The boys had left JJ alone after the previous night's lengthy spiel about what exactly went on in the Roycewood house. She'd needed time to sift through her own shock. They knew that; on their first days, they'd needed it too.

But the clocks—there were two now, one pink and one blue—now announced that the sun had risen (that was, in places where the sun could actually be seen), and so the boys figured it was time to begin integrating this new presence into their basement world.

Derek pushed open the door to the cellar living room and motioned her inside.

"This is our shitty version of a lounge," he said. "See that line on the walls?"

JJ nodded; about a foot of the concrete stained slightly greener than the rest of the room. Under the rug, the floor sported the same ugly color.

"That's from the flooding week," Aaron said. "The one we told you about."

"Oh," JJ breathed. That'd been one of the most horrible portions of last night's tale.

"We've got enough books to last a lifetime," Jason said, sounding a bit bored. "Hope you like to read, kid."

Fortunately, JJ did.

The boys showed her the shoddy bathroom very briefly (due to the smell, they never stayed in there longer than they could help it), then they brought her into their own bedroom. As they'd said, it looked almost identical to hers.

"Hey JJ," Derek called, twirling a rusty nail between his fingers. "What's your birthday?"

"November 22nd. Why?"

He pulled her over to the side of the bunk bed and showed her where he'd etched their names and birthdays into the wood. As he began to carve in her name, JJ felt a strange mixture of dread and belonging. Like she was part of something bigger now; something equal parts terrible and familial. This gesture, this inclusion of her name with theirs, signified that they'd accepted her into their ill-fated tribe. A motley crew brought together only by the same breed of bad luck.

She dropped down beside Derek on the bottom bunk after he'd finished. Jason was spread out on the twin bed, reading Moby Dick. Aaron sat on the floor, leaning against the dresser.

"You a foster kid?" Derek asked her.

"No."

Aaron and Derek made pointed eye contact and sighed in unison. JJ furrowed her brow.

"Derek and I are—were—in the foster system," Aaron explained. "We thought maybe that was the Roycewood's pattern, you know? Like, their signature. We thought maybe if they were consistent with it, the police would be able to figure it out and find us."

Suddenly, Derek brightened. "Hey! So you got parents, right? Parents who'll look for you, and put up flyers and shit? They could find us! People look for kids with parents!"

There was a long pause. All JJ could do was stare at her hands.

"I don't have parents like that," she said. "My mom probably hasn't even noticed I'm gone."

Derek's face fell. "Oh."

Before any more could be said on the matter, the dreadfully familiar sound of the cellar door screeching open resounded around them, echoing off the walls like a sinister heartbeat. JJ watched as all three boys unwittingly had the same Pavlovian reaction; they flinched, dropped everything they were doing, and scrambled to their feet. Their knee-jerk fear was comparable to that of wild animals, she mused. Or perhaps abused animals. Derek and Aaron didn't hesitate to scamper out into the hallway. With wide eyes, Jason hopped out of the twin bed and grabbed onto JJ's forearm, pulling her out behind them. Of all her fellow captives, she both liked and trusted him the least, but the fear drawn into the oldest boy's brow told her that she should follow without protest.

They lined up in the hallway like cattle at an auction. Both Roycewoods were meandering down the basement stairs with a certain air of casualness to their gait, an ease that JJ found wholly off putting. Roger was clutching a tray that held four sandwiches.

"How is our new addition settling in?" Anita crowed. From the middle of the line, Aaron balked at the syrupy quality to her voice. Sometimes, he found it even more repulsive when their captors feigned affection than when they showed their true, cruel colors. The put-on niceness just left him perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Answer your mother when she speaks to you, children," Roger said. "Has the girl behaved herself?"

Derek swallowed. He wanted to say, how do you think she's been settling in, you psychos? What kind of behavior do you fucking expect from a kid tossed into a basement and told they'll be staying indefinitely?

But he'd faced enough fists and rulers and belts in his first few months to know far, far better.

"JJ's been good," he said quietly, loathing how small and afraid he sounded.

"Good, good," Anita said. She strolled towards the blonde girl, looking her up and down as if to appraise her worth. JJ couldn't help but glare up at the vile woman.

Mrs. Roycewood's face darkened. She kneeled down so that she was eye to eye with JJ. "Ladies should always smile. You'll soon learn your manners, girl. I expect to have a polite and dutiful daughter to help me with the housework."

Polite and dutiful. In JJ's mind, these words meant blind, mindless docility—the polar opposite of her actual disposition. The polar opposite of how she'd grown up. Jennifer Jareau had been raised by the unforgiving knell of her own footsteps through an empty home, and by the art of learning how to need absolutely no one, and by the lawless backstreets of Philadelphia. She wasn't meek. She and Rosalyn had practically mothered themselves, for God's sake. She'd never been complacent, and she wasn't about to start now.

So JJ did all she could think to do, and she spit in Mrs. Roycewood's face.

The thwack of the woman's fist striking her cheek registered before she even had time to feel the splitting pain.

"You disgusting creature!" Mrs. Roycewood shrieked. "You little wretch!"

The woman hit her again, this time with such force that JJ staggered backwards. Derek caught her and held on tight. She could feel blood from her nose dripping across her lips, down onto her tee-shirt. Anita took another step forward, rage still blazing in her eyes. JJ braced herself.

But suddenly, someone was in front of her. A thin but determined silhouette with both hands in front of his face. Aaron.

"We'll teach her, Mrs. Roycewood," he said, working hard to keep the tremor of his voice. "She didn't mean it. She won't do it again."

Still towering over them with a face like a gargoyle's, the woman appeared to consider this. Her husband loomed in the background, silent and grinning.

"Bring the girl here," Anita spat at Aaron. "I'd like a word."

Derek and Aaron exchanged a look. After a beat of silent deliberation, Aaron nodded, and Derek nudged JJ forwards. Even as her nose and cheek throbbed, she still managed to keep her expression firm and cold. JJ would not give the woman the satisfaction of resignation.

"Your insolence impacts not only you, but your little friends, as well," Mrs. Roycewood growled. She looked behind her and waved her husband back up the stairs. "No lunch today. You can all thank JJ for that."

And so the tray of sandwiches disappeared along with the husband and wife, and in their wake they left four children with newfangled bruises and empty stomachs.

"It won't always hurt like this," he said to her later that night.

She looked up from her lap. Aaron swiped the damp rag under her nose again. It was stained with blood of all shades; some blotches must have been months old, sporting the color of rust, while others were a fresh, wet crimson. JJ shivered.

"You mean, the punches?" she asked.

He cast a surreptitious glance towards the pink door, as if to make sure no one else could hear what he was going to say next. It was of no use, really—Derek and Jason were fast asleep in the bedroom next door, having conked out early to distract themselves from their own gnawing hunger. Aaron had stuck around to try and scrub the dried blood off of JJ's face.

"No," he sighed, "the punches always hurt. But… I dunno. It sounds stupid. Derek and I always say that the cellar's sorta like a time machine."

She traced the swollen underside of her eye. "I'm not following."

He paused for a beat. "You grow up quicker down here. Mentally, at least. You start to trade the hurt for toughness. Oh, shit, that reminds me." Aaron darted out into the hallway, quick as a firefly. When he returned to the pink-doored bedroom, he was wearing an old-fashioned Polaroid camera around his neck.

"I found it in one of the boxes of books Mr. Roycewood brought down," he explained. "I've been taking pictures of everyone. You know, for proof. For if someone finds us."

The magnitude of his if was not lost on JJ. He raised the camera to his eye. The flash gave the yellowish murk of the basement a fleeting instant of true, honest light. Every bruise on JJ's face was stark and undeniable against the fluorescent white. These moments always frightened Aaron—the horror of their daily life was always easier to come to terms with in the dimness. Then, at least, reality was slightly blurred.

He sat down beside her on the pink-sheeted bottom bunk and let the camera hang loose against his chest. The photo hissed as it printed. He shook it for a moment, then handed it to her. JJ was surprised by how banged up Mrs. Roycewood's blows had left her, but she was more surprised by just how young she looked.

"You know," she said quietly to Aaron, still staring down at the photo, "my sister always used to say that people only get tough because they've been hurt enough times for their soul to scar."

"You have a sister?"

"I had a sister."

Aaron went quiet. Tears swum in the girls' big blue eyes, but he pretended not to notice.

"She sounds like she was really great," he finally said.

As her nose pounded steadily with the thumping of her heart, JJ took a shaky breath and offered him a small, sad smile.

"She was. Ros was really, really great."

After another few minutes of somber, commiserative silence, JJ sat forwards on the bed and pointed to a crack in the ceiling.

"It looks kind of like the Big Dipper, doesn't it?"

Aaron smiled. "You're right." He gestured towards a cluster of water stains on the far wall. "And that could be Orion's Belt."

"Oh!" JJ cried, grinning. "Look! See that shattered part of the mirror? It's Cassiopeia! I learned that one in school!"

And so thanks to JJ, for the first time in seven painful months, Aaron got to watch the stars.