With one eye on the door and the other on a rigid fear-stricken Evie, Mal is quick and decisive. "We're going to the hideout," she declares. "Jay, help me. Carlos, get the rope."

Carlos wipes his tears on his jacket sleeve before hurrying to sweep up the snacks he brought into his backpack. With a heartened glance at Evie, he runs to the window to throw down the rope they used to climb up.

Evie shakes her head from her spot on the bed, eyes fixed straight ahead. "She's going to be mad. She's going to be so mad."

"We'll deal with your mother later," Mal says, her voice a little harder than intended. She will deal with the Evil Queen at some point, but right now they need to get Evie some place safe. "Jay's going to pick you up now."

Jay jumps eagerly at Mal's command, all too happy to take Evie away from this place. "Ready, Princess?" he asks, kneeling at Evie's bedside. He takes her lack of protest as permission and carefully slips one arm under Evie's knees and the other around her back. Evie remains tense and wide-eyed but offers no objection. Jay gives her a wary smile. "Up we go," he sings as he scoops her up. At first, Jay is shocked at how light Evie feels in his arms but quickly comes to the sobering realization that his surprise is misplaced considering her mother starves her.

With Evie securely in Jay's arms, Mal moves hurriedly about the room, grabbing the sheet from the bed and throwing it over Evie, who is dressed only in a thin pale blue slip. With the bed stripped-down, Mal can see more deep crimson-colored stains where Evie had lain. Her blood boils and her fists curl with the desire to pummel the person responsible, but that will have to wait.

Three quick raps ring out from the door and Evie jumps at the sound. Jay sends Mal a tense look and tightens his hold.

"Evie dear, open up," the Evil Queen calls out almost cheerfully. Of course, Evie can't possibly open the locked door from the inside, but appearances are everything to the Evil Queen and she always did like to play these sorts of mind games with her daughter.

Carlos has already slipped out the window and started down the rope. Jay is right behind him, doing his best to hold Evie with one arm and the rope with the other, relying heavily on his feet clenched tightly around the rope to balance. "Put your arms around my neck and hold on tight," Jay instructs. Despite her apparent shock, Evie does as she's told and wraps her arms around Jay's neck.

Mal watches as blue hair disappears below the window sill. Just as the sound of a deadbolt unlocking reaches her ears, Mal darts through the opening behind the pair, slamming the window shut behind her.

As soon as Mal's feet hit the dirt she's ready to bolt but a hand reaches out to grab her arm and stop her.

"Hold up," Carlos whispers. "When the Evil Queen notices Evie is gone the first thing she's going to do is look out the window for her, and if she sees us, she'll have a lead into finding Evie."

Mal takes a breath, grateful for Carlos's clear-headedness. While the location of their hideout is a secret, Mal doesn't want that evil bitch using their identities to somehow track down Evie.

Jay, Mal, and Carlos press their bodies back against the cool stone of the castle wall, making themselves as small as possible. Evie clings tightly to Jay, her head buried against his chest as he holds her. Jay can feel her body shake with quiet sobs and his shirt grows damp with her tears but he doesn't mind. He does his best to offer hushed words of comfort under his breath but he's not sure Evie is even listening to him, which is probably for the best because he's not very good with words. Gods, what is happening to him? He is going soft for a girl he hardly knows.

The crisp night air rustles the bushes that obscure them and Mal reaches out a hand to tuck the blanket around Evie's body more securely. Jay catches her eye and gives her a knowing smile but Mal is quick to look away.

"Okay. I think we're clear. Let's go," Carlos decides, leading the way out of the shadows of the towering castle.

The walk to the hideout is silent and tense. It takes everything Mal has to keep from repeatedly turning to look back at Evie, but she knows the girl is safe in Jay's arms and so she walks forward with conviction. Mal's decision had been impulsive and emotion-driven and she has no plan for what they'll do with Evie beyond tonight. Taking Evie to the hideout may have been Carlos's idea, but Mal knows the boys will look to her for guidance beyond this first step and she hasn't the slightest clue how to proceed.


"Put her in my bed," Carlos says, once the four are safely inside the gang's sanctuary.

"Use mine. It's cleaner," Mal interjects with a suspicious look at Carlo's unmade bed in his corner of the hideout. "I actually wash my sheets."

Carlos blushes but nods at Mal's order. It's not like laundry has ever been a big concern of his.

Mal completes a quick look through the hideout to make sure the location hasn't been somehow compromised. It's never been a concern of hers in the past but she wants to be extra cautious tonight. She had looked over her shoulder half a dozen times before she deemed it clear to access the hideout's hidden entryway from the street.

Jay deposits Evie on Mal's bed, careful not to jostle her battered ribs too much. "Here we are, Princess. Home sweet home."

Carlos has thought about sneaking Evie away to the hideout for years now, but Evie would never oblige him. In the past it had been a fleeting somewhat implausible fantasy, but seeing Evie now sitting primly on Mal's bed, away from the horrors of her castle, floods him with relief. She'll be safe for the night and for that Carlos is grateful.

"I think I have some sweat pants you can wear," Carlos mumbles as he disappears into his section of the hideout to look through his stuff.

"I'll grab her a t-shirt," Jay volunteers.

With the boys off on their scavenger hunt for clothes for Evie, Mal finds herself standing awkwardly at the foot of her own bed. Her eyes lock onto Evie, who sits stiffly at the end of the mattress—her bare feet dangling over the side and her face twisted into a grimace.

There's pain in every breath Evie takes. With every twist or turn of her frail broken body, Mal can see that pain etched on Evie's face clear as the sky in Auradon. She can hear it in every sharp shaky inhale Evie tries to suppress, feel it in every wince and whine Evie fails to mask. Mal aches to do something to take it all away, to say something that can erase the hauntingly hurt look from Evie's eyes—eyes that won't even look in Mal's direction.

Mal shuffles her feet in place, itching to move closer to Evie but quickly thinking better of the idea. She feels anxious and useless, watching Evie try in vain to conceal her own discomfort. Mal clasps her hands, writing them together only to let them fall uselessly at her sides a moment later.

There are far too many thoughts swimming around inside her head and words of apology come tumbling out of her mouth without warning or preamble. "Evie, I'm so sorry. If I had any idea—I would have never," Mal flounders, unable to put her need to right this wrong into intelligible words.

Apologies are untrodden ground for Mal, and not surprisingly, she kind of sucks at them. She could never quite get her mouth around the word "sorry" in the past, at least not in a non-sarcastic way, and she never felt the need to try. But she's never been more sincere in her life—she is sorry, truly deeply sorry for the hurt she's caused Evie and the obvious pain she's ignored, but the word doesn't seem to carry nearly as much weight as Mal needs it to.

For so long, Mal has actively spurned the word sorry, believing it to be a show of vulnerability and weakness, but now she wonders why she ever gave it so much power in the first place. Such a simple word can never do justice to the feeling of regret ripping at her heart right now. How is one little word supposed to make up for a lifetime of pain and suffering?

Mal knows this thing with Evie goes back much farther than Evie's first day at Dragon Hall, when Mal had blindly decided to wage war against the girl who used to be her best friend. Mal realizes now that Evie has been suffering at the hands of her mother for much longer—and Mal knows she's the reason Evie has known nothing but misery and suffering for the past ten years. How is she supposed to apologize for that? How is sorry ever going to be enough?

Evie watches silently as Mal struggles to get out her apology, not giving an inch of comfort to the guilt-riddled girl.

"Evie. Who was that man?" Mal continues, unable to help herself. She still has so many questions about what transpired at The Castle Across the Way tonight—questions she's not sure she's ready to hear the answers to. "And why was your mother bringing him to your room?"

"Oh cut the act, please. I don't have the energy for your games today, Mal," Evie says coldly.

She's still struggling to wrap her head around the events of the night and she hasn't yet decided how she feels about being here in Mal's hideout of all places. Her relief at not having to serve Jasper tonight is real but restrained. Is one night's reprieve worth the inevitable punishment she'll endure when she returns to her mother?

Evie had long ago given up on her fantasies of running away from her mother's castle; her unforgiving reality eventually eroding all sense of hope in her young heart. She's accepted the terms of her life now—resigned herself to being used and degraded as if it were normal. But there had been a time when Evie was naive enough to sit with an eager Carlos under the cover of the old oak trees in the thick of the forest and hash out elaborate plans of escape. The pair had even put a few of those plans into play, but their schemes never did end well. Evie had not-so-gently come to learn that she could not out-run her mother and men like Jasper would always be waiting for her.

Tonight is nothing more than a respite, a brief intermission in the unrelenting shit-show that is her life.

"It's not a game. Evie, I—"

Evie snaps her head towards the fumbling purple-haired girl with a dangerous glint in her eye, cutting off any explanation Mal might be trying to muster. She's not quite sure what Mal's angle is here but she's not going to play into the devious girl's hands. Mal may have brought her food and granted her access to her crew's secret hideout for the night, but Evie is not so foolish as to trust the girl who's made her life a living hell for the past two weeks—no matter what Carlos says. Her body may be weakened from days of abuse but her mind is still sharp and she's not nearly as vulnerable as Mal must suspect of her.

"Like you don't know? Like you're not getting a kick out of this? Gods! Today must feel like Christmas morning to you!" Evie lashes out.

"What are you talking about?"

Bright green eyes pinch together, Mal looking taken aback at Evie's outburst. Evie can't help but be impressed by Mal's dedication to this farce.

"Oh, come on," Evie scoffs, rolling her eyes at Mal's look of confusion. "You find out the prissy little princess you hate so much gets beaten and whored out by her mother and you're not thrilled? Please."

"Whored out," Mal repeats, utterly dumbfounded. The words taking a moment to click in her head and then suddenly everything becomes horrifyingly clear. Mal steps closer, shaking her head frantically. "Evie, no! Oh, gods! That's….that's horrible! I'm so sorry! I didn't know! I never—"

"Save it! I don't need your pretend pity," Evie spits, turning a defiant shoulder to the stunned girl.

Carlos clears his throat behind Mal, uttering a simple "Evie" to break through the tension. It's clear from the look on his face that he has heard at least some of the conversation but he doesn't comment on it.

Mal wonders how long Carlos has known about what goes on behind the walls of Evie's castle and why he didn't say something sooner. Evie may not be a part of the crew but she is Carlos's friend and Mal and Jay would have done something to help—maybe. Or at the very least Mal wouldn't have antagonized the girl when they first met at school. She wouldn't have called her names, or made all those childish jokes about her sleeping around, or teased her about Gaston—-and damnit, is Gaston one of Evie's regular appointments, too? Is that how she knows the Physical Education instructor? Mal shudders at the thought. And her locker, that stupid locker Evie was so damn happy about—Mal would have never written that word across the door had she known the truth. Carlos should have warned her. He should have told her what Evie's life was really like because Mal never would have stolen that stupid necklace if she knew this was going to be the outcome. She never meant for Evie to get hurt, not like this.

"I got some clean clothes you can put on. They'll probably be a little big but at least you'll be warm."

"Thanks, C," Evie says, looking past Mal. "Is there somewhere I can change and wash up?"

"Back there," Carlos answers, pointing to the hideout's makeshift bathroom. "We have a tub but the water doesn't run. We have to bring it up from the spigot outside and boil it. We can do that for you tomorrow morning. But there's a bucket of water and some rags you can clean up with for now."

Evie nods appreciatively but remains seated on the bed.

"Do you want some help?" Carlos asks.

Evie nods again before sheepishly admitting, "I can't really lift my arms over my head."

"Okay, no problem. You want me to help you get changed or would you be more comfortable with Mal since she's a girl?" Carlos suggests. He's helped Evie get cleaned up in the past but then he had been the only available option.

Mal whips her head towards the boy like he's crazy. Surely he can't expect her to help Evie undress.

"You," Evie says to Carlos, not sparing Mal a glance.

Carlos nods and helps Evie off the bed.


"Her mother makes her have sex with those men!" Mal rants to Jay. "That disgusting vile piece of trash! Someone should teach that old bitch a lesson!"

Jay frowns as he sits at the edge of his bed, watching Mal furiously pace before him. "The Evil Queen pimps out her own daughter? So that guy who showed up tonight…"

"Was coming to rape Evie! With her mother's permission!" Mal cries in disbelief. She's seen her share of horrors on the Isle but this situation with Evie feels different and much more heinous than anything she's encountered in the past. Mal is far from naive, she knows of women who trade their bodies for goods or money, and she's heard the tales of girls cornered by wolfish men in dark alleys, but being forced to surrender your body to predators at the behest of your own mother is a cruelty not even the daughter of Maleficent can grasp.

"That's disgusting," Jay says, physically recoiling from the information. He pulls his beanie off his head and pushes his fingers through his tangled hair. "No wonder Carlos got all worked up over the Princess."

Mal nods, fuming. Carlos—she needs to have a word with the boy. Unaccustomed to the strange new emotions battling for her attention, Mal falls back on her old familiar favorite—anger. Mal is angry. Most obviously at the Evil Queen and the perverts who prey on Evie, but also at herself for being so blind, and at Carlos for keeping her in the dark. She's even a little angry with Evie for not speaking up. Someone should have told her the truth so she could have intervened sooner. Or she should have figured it out on her own. It had all been right there in the way Evie behaved and how Carlos tried so hard to protect her, but it's like Mal's mind wouldn't let her see what was right in front of her because she wasn't ready to confront her own feelings for Evie. Her cowardliness kept her from helping Evie sooner and she's not so sure she can forgive herself for that.

A few minutes later Carlos emerges from the bathroom without Evie.

"Hey, uh, Mal," he starts, sounding tired and timid.

Mal's pacing comes to an abrupt halt. "What is it? Is Evie okay?"

"Yeah, well, not really, no, but that's not…" he trails off, looking down at his boots and scratching his head. "Um, do you have—I was wondering if—"

"Carlos, what is it? Just spit it out!" Mal snaps, cutting off the boy's insipid stammering.

"Do you have any, uh, lady products?"

"What? Like lipstick?" Mal questions incredulously. "Don't tell me she's worried about her makeup right now."

Carlos straightens up and shakes his head. "Like feminine stuff. For that time of the month."

"Do you mean pads? Tampons?"

Carlos blushes, nodding at Mal. "Yeah—yeah, pads. That should work."

"Got your period, Carlos?" Jay quips from his bed, his trademark grin back in place. The thief is currently lying back against the rusted metal frame of the bed's headboard, one arm bent behind his head and the other tossing his beanie into the air.

Mal and Carlos both turn to glare at him.

"For Evie," Carlos clarifies, his cheeks growing red. "The last guy—her appointment from last night was pretty rough with her and she's bleeding."

Jay sits up, letting his beanie fall into his lap as a string of curses spills from his mouth.

"Yeah. I think I have something. Give me a second," Mal answers somberly, turning away from the boys to hide her crestfallen expression.

Mal swears she's going to be sick. She's going to vomit all over her bed if she thinks anymore about what Carlos just told her. After a few minutes of rummaging she finds a couple of sanitary pads stashed under her bed. With such poor conditions on the Isle and the generally not-very-great health of its people, periods tended to be pretty irregular for most girls, so feminine care products aren't exactly readily available. Luckily, Mal had stashed away some leftover supplies from her last cycle a couple of months ago.

"Found them. I'll bring these to Evie."

Carlos looks like he wants to interject but his cheeks are still burning in embarrassment and he easily gives over to Mal's lead.


Mal knocks hesitantly on the door to the bathroom. There's no lock, the door doesn't even shut properly, but she's not about to just barge in on Evie. "Hey, it's Mal. Carlos said… I have something that might help." She cringes at the awkwardness of her own voice.

"Come in," comes Evie's gentle call.

Mal is surprised Evie doesn't scream at her to drop the pads and leave. Cautiously, she pushes the door open and steps inside. She isn't sure what she was expecting to find but it sure as hell wasn't Evie sitting on the edge of their old iron tub in Carlos's and Jay's way too big clothes with her sapphire hair swept up into a messy bun at the top of her head. Mal can't help but smile at how small the girl looks being swallowed up by all that fabric.

"I know I look ridiculous," Evie says shyly.

Mal shakes her head. "No—well yes, but in a cute way."

The look of genuine surprise on Evie's face gives Mal a moment to catch onto what she actually said. Did she just call Evie cute?

"Uh, Carlos mentioned…" Mal says, brandishing the pads. "Here."

"Thanks." Evie is quiet and pensive, much more subdued than she had been a few minutes earlier. A few seconds of awkward silence tick by as Mal wonders what could have caused the shift in Evie's mood.

"Does it—are you in pain?" Mal then asks. "Carlos said you were bleeding, you must be in pain."

Evie shrugs. "It's not so bad. I'm used to it."

"You shouldn't be," Mal insists, watching the emotions pass over Evie's bruised but still beautiful face. "Who was the guy? From last night?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes!" Mal cries, kneeling at the side of the tub and grasping Evie's hands in her own. "Tell me his name and I'll make him pay!" Mal has never wanted to hurt someone more.

"He did pay. He paid my mother 15 gold coins and 3 yards of fabric for me," Evie says with a humorless laugh, turning her head to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes.

Mal drops Evie's hands. "That's not funny."

"No, I suppose it's not," Evie agrees with a serious expression. "But it's the truth."