Everything was a blur to Lucy. The light and sounds of the night stretched and collided behind her. She couldn't pay attention to a single thing that was happening around her, she was still replying to Miguel’s death in her head over and over again.

In her mind, she watched as the bullet tore through his head and she watched as his back hit the floor with a dull thud. Her ears were still ringing from the gunshot.

Miguel was not a nice man by any stretch of the word. He was cruel and greedy and only cared about money. He never saw people as living things, only as something that could make him money. He never once did anything good with his life.

And yet she couldn’t get the image of his corpse lying on the ground. Blood pooled around him, his eyes glassed over with that stupid grin on his face, never believing for a second that he was going to die.

Was that how easy it was to die? Did life end that quickly, Miguel had lived for fifty-one years but his death only took a second. When he was alive he lived in wealth but in death, he lay on the ground surrounded by shit.

If a man like Miguel, someone who had complete control over his life, could die like that then what about her?

How was Lucy going to die?

“AH,” Lucy couldn’t stop the painful yelp that escaped from her lips. A large, greased, hand grabbed her hair and forcibly tore her off of the back of the bike. Lucy had to get her mind together, she no longer had time to worry about Miguel.

Miguel was dead, nothing was going to change that and Lucy was sure to follow him if she couldn’t even keep her mind straight.

Already she had made a mistake. A biker had already told her to get off but she hadn’t heard him, being too lost in her head.

And because of her disrespect, she slammed face-first into the ground. Rocks scraped her skin and her nose got bent at the wrong angle.

Now she was wide awake.

“ Get up.” The man holding her hair pulled her hair again, lifting her head off of the ground.

Spitting out the dirt in her mouth Lucy sarcastically thought to herself that these guys didn’t know how to treat a lady.

Trying to get to your feet without your hands was a challenge for Lucy. One thing that didn’t help was the large and on her head pushing her down, almost as if he wanted to meet the pavement again.

Nobody helped her, they just stood there, watching as an eight-year-old girl fought to stand on her feet. Blood was pouring from her broken nose, the pain was so much worse. But finally, the man let her stand up letting her get a good look at where they had taken her.

It was already midnight by the time they got there but the building in front of her was still alive. Cars and bikes were parked off to the side as music and laughter came pouring out of the wooden building in front of her.

It was the neon-lit sign that broke her though.

She was right back where she started.

After hours of running and dodging anybody that seemed remotely suspicious, she had ended up right back here, at the Hole.

“There she is. Happy to be back ain’t ya?”

“ Come on guys, give the kid a break she's had a long day.”

“ You caused a lot of problems today kid, hope you’re ready for what happens next.”

Jears and taunts floated above Lucy’s head. Their words were the least of her worries. What could their words do that their hands couldn’t? Compared to the torture that she was surely to face their taunts actually kind of made them look silly.

What could their taunting possibly do to her? It’s not like self-esteem could get any lower. She had done all of this to herself, if she had just listened to Issac, if she had been smarter, if she never had thought of stealing that orange, if she had just run away at the first sight of Miguel if she had never been born.

None of this would have happened.

Pushing her forward they forced her to walk at the front of the group. They were making her into a trophy to show off to all of their friends. Come look, over here, we caught an eight-year-old she ran circles around us the entire day but we finally caught her thanks to that fat Mr. M.

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Praise us be proud of us.

Fucking Idiots all of them.

People all around her were celebrating. Women passed around bears, men ate their fill, and TV blared in the background. They were celebrating her capture and they didn’t even care what would happen to her.

Lucy just kept her head down the entire time hoping that if she didn’t react they would leave her alone. She was too tired to care about anything. She had been running the entire day with no food or water.

“You know what to do guys. Take her downstairs, we’ll let the boss know that we have her.”

Rough hand picked her up dragging her past the onlookers towards the back. Behind the counter was a set of stairs that led down into a dark basement. Carrying her down the stairs they took her to a room towards the back. Thrown into the middle of the room all she could do was lay there as the door slammed behind her. She could hear them locking the door trapping her in here by herself.

She was too tired to care about the mess she had found herself in, that would be a problem for tomorrow Lucy, right now, she just wanted to sleep.

On the floor, hands tied behind her back Lucy finally let herself rest. Her mind was shutting down, putting her to sleep with nothing but the dreams of Miguel's lifeless body to keep her company.

***

At night Lucy was wide awake sitting at her desk reading with the lamp on beside her. Sounds of kids sleeping echoed around her disturbing the quiet night. She didn’t mind, compared to the usual sounds that they made their snores were almost soothing.

Taking a break from her book Lucy turned her head to her three roommates slept. They looked so relaxed, sleepy in their beds, wrapped tightly in their blankets. She stayed like that for a while only turning back to her book when she saw it was eleven o’clock. She had to finish this chapter before the Matrons came tomorrow with their tests.

She used to like reading. Before, whenever she had free time she always had a new book ready for her. Mrs. Jaz, the matron that they had before, always read them stories before they went to sleep. She would sit on their small sofa in front of the large black rug waiting until every kid sat around her. Then when she knew that she had all of their attention she would crack open her book and read.

When she read, it was the most magical thing in the world, they were transported into the stories. They saw knights fighting dragons, as wolves stalked through the forest after little girls in hoods. In her stories, fish flew over the moon and stars became a princess’s crown.

At least, that is how it was for her.

But when Mrs. Jaz got too old she chose to retire, choosing to spend time with her family, leaving her kids behind to someone new.

Ms. Guala was a cold woman to the kids. She never read to them or comforted them and she certainly didn’t like them. To Ms. Guala the orphanage was just a job, the was no requirement that said you had to care for kids, all she had to do was feed them, clothe them, and make sure that they were generally healthy.

But Lucy stuck out. It was Lucy’s fault really, she was caught reading high school science books and when asked if she understood them she said yes. What was wrong with telling her yes Mrs. Jaz never seemed to care that she was smarter than the others so why would Ms. Guala?

But to Ms. Guala Lucy wasn’t just a smart kid, she was a genius, and who wouldn't want to be the parents of a genius? If she could get enough people interested in adopting little Lucy then maybe she could get some compensation on the side.

Of course to make sure she had the highest bidders interested Lucy needed to get some attention.

That was how Lucy found herself taking test after test constantly forced to study and learn at the order of Ms. Guala. If she did well on the test then nothing changed, but if she did badly then she would find things taken away, from food to clothes, all of it would disappear.

So Lucy had to study, no matter how late it got she stayed up studying.

But she was so tired, all she wanted to do was take a break. Her eyes hurt so much, that she could barely keep them open. She had been staring at this page for the last ten minutes and it was getting harder to focus, the dim lighting front of the lamp certainly wasn’t helping either.

Just for a little bit. She just needed to rest her head for a bit.

Her eyes were already closing shut as she cradled her head in her hands. Maybe just a small nap would be fine, just an hour or two to reset her brain. Dropping her arms Lucy let her head fall towards the desk, she would just use her book as a pillow for now. She just hoped that she didn’t drool on it again, she really needed this book.

But her head never touched the book, instead it just kept falling, and then her whole body was falling. She couldn’t see her eyes were still closed but she couldn’t open them. Everything was black and the only thing she could feel was the passing wind as she fell.

It was only after she finished falling that she could finally open her eyes again.

Her room was gone, she didn’t have her desk and she wasn’t sitting in her chair anymore. The sounds had changed from snoring kids to moving cars. It was still dark but now she was outside in the middle of an alley.

There was no one around her. She was all alone. Lucy tried to take a step forward, trying to find out where she was but she tripped. Again she started falling but this time her trip ended quickly. And instead of landing on the hard floor instead, she landed on a body.

Miguel.

She landed on Miguel's corpse.

Her face was right in front of his face. She could see his eyes, still open, greedy waiting for his payday. The hole that the bullet entered was pooling with blood, some of it spilled over and down his face encircling his head like a crimson halo. His skin was cold and rough on her hands.

And then his eyes looked at her.

“ AAAAHH”