Footsteps on tarmac wake me. A split-lip sunrise is creeping over shops and houses, bleeding onto the street and onto my back. I stagger to my feet, tug my mac tight to straighten out a few creases, and then throw the old man who is approaching me a generous smile.

He, on the other hand, returns me something more like a disapproving frown. "You been sleeping on my porchway?"

"No, not sleeping. Just, uh, waiting for you," I say, unable to cover a yawn. "Guess I might have dropped off at one point, but that's more of a nap than a sleep. Generally, just been waiting for you to open up."

He nods. "Then you can wait a little longer. I don't open for customers until seven."

A glance at my watch tells me sunrise has either come at two AM, or the fucking thing has stopped working. Again.

"Look, I'm not a proper customer. I just want to borrow the expertise of a master jeweler, and I heard you're the best around."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, son." He turns the key and steps inside. "Besides, what would I want to help a non-paying 'customer' for, eh?"

I put a boot in the door, jamming his effort to close it on me. His face wrinkles up and I realize he just got a sniff of me.

"You smell like my ex-wife. That is to say, a bottle of whiskey."

"Name me a better fragrance."

"Au de shower perhaps would suit you better."

"Look... I uh, I need a new watch," I say. "Something that doesn't stop ticking after a week."

His frown eases, but he's not yet convinced.

"A Rolex, if you sell them."

Now his face is eager and warm and his eyes might as well have turned to dollar signs. "Well, why didn't you say so? I'm Christoph. Come on in and I'll help you choose. We'll get you sorted out in no time."

I finger the marble in my coat pocket. "That, and like I say, I could do with a little advice too."

Christoph twists the marble around in his long fingers, as he examines it one-eyed through a magnifying loupe. The shop is a glistening indoor night-sky: silver broaches and sparkling necklaces shining in thick glass cabinets, each lit with a soft yellow glow. The rest of the shop is dim and cool where the spotlights don't reach.

The old man pulls the loupe away from his face and looks at me. "This is what you've been waiting all night for? Me to examine this?"

"That, and I wasn't going to get much sleep tonight anyway, I don't think." And that much was true: I'd only left the bar at three, and I hadn't fancied going back home much after. The only thing waiting for me there were my thoughts -- and when I'd been drinking, it was best to avoid them for a while. When I hadn't been drinking, too, for that matter.

He nods as if he understands. "Well, what do you want to know about it?"

"Whatever you can tell me."

"Is it sentimental? A family heirloom, perhaps?"

"I don't know. Maybe to someone, but not to me."

He sighs and buries himself back into the loupe. "Well, it's a marble by design. And quite pretty, for what it is."

"Right." A pang of disappointment. I'd been hoping it had been something more.

"I'll be damned if I know how it was crafted though." He looks up at me, frowning.

"What do you mean?"

"Well... Marbles are usually crafted from glass. Heated up then rolled down a circular passageway to get their shape, before they cool and harden. And the glass often leaves little bubbles and such inside of it, like in this. Often, also like this, they vaguely resemble -- quite by chance -- dust clouds and solar systems, that kind of thing."

"By coincidence?" There goes my first theory. That the bubbles inside of it purposefully represented something like planets.

He nods. "The second way marbles are made, depending on material, is much simpler: they're ground into shape."

"This is the first method then, right? 'Cause it's glass."

He shakes his head. "Diamond."

"What?"

"This is a diamond. That's why I asked whether it was an heirloom. It's a whole diamond ground down to look like a marble. How they ground it down, how they put the details into it, that gives it that marble-like appearance... The cloudy surface on this side, the bubbles of air injected into it over here... Injected into a diamond. Unique. " He scratches his head. "Can't say for sure how it was made. But I'm certain it's quite valuable."

Value doesn't matter so much to me, as where it came from does. We talk a little more, but he can't tell me anything else so I call it quits and head to the door.

"Sir... About that watch?"

The sun's still rising as I'm walking down back to my apartment when I hear a man shouting at a bundle of blankets lying on the other side of the sidewalk. The man is wearing an expensive-looking suit and has a red tie that matches his cheeks.

"...So either get a job or stop fucking asking people to give you shit for free. You get it? I mean, holy fuck, if I just lay around all day while real people have to go work for a living, I'd feel too embarrassed to even open my mouth. And if I ever did, it would only be to say sorry. Sorry for existing and making your life a little worse."

He kicks his pointed black shoes at the blankets and I see them stir and hear them whimper. The blankets fall aside, just for a second, and I see the young girl beneath them.

Young enough to be my daughter.

And I think of that baby in the forest that I should never have left alone. And I think of me and Sue and all the things that won't ever be. And I find I'm pretty fucking pissed.

I cross over the road. "Hey! Hey, asshole!"

He turns to me and snarls, his eyes as red as the sunrise, and I'm wondering if he's been at sniffing coke all night.

"What the fuck do you want?"

"You want to kick someone, tough guy? Come on then. Have a crack at me"

"Jesus Christ," he says, "you're one ugly fuck. What happened to your face?"

"Mine? What happened to yours -- looks like you need to see the dentist?" I lunge forward, heaving my weight towards him, my fist cracking his jaw.

His mouth is spilling red and teeth as he steps back.

"You're-- you're fucking dead," he lisps."

I don't have the power I had in the forest, back when I was surrounded by the poison, drinking it in and squeezing out its essence into the elks. But I've had a long night of smoking and drinking. My mouth opens and a green cloud engulfs the suit. He's on his knees, vomiting and bleeding. I give his ribs a swift boot, for good measure. Then, he's still.

"Hey," I say to the ball of blankets. "You okay?"

A mousey head slowly peeks out. She's tears and snot and says, "I... I don't want any trouble."

And I know I'm getting soft cause I ask her her name.

"Lilly." She sounds unsure, like she ain't been asked it in some month.

"How old are you, Lilly?"

She swallows. "Fourteen."

"Fourteen. Fourteen?! What the fuck is a fourteen-year-old doing sleeping out here? You run away or something?"

She shakes her head but doesn't answer vocally.

"Why you here?"

Shrugs. "Nowhere else to go."

I'm regretting it already but I say, "Sammy. I'm Sammy. Come on, let's get you up, if we can, before you freeze to death. Did that prick hurt you badly?"

She glances at the man's unconscious form, before flicking her gaze back to me. She shakes her head. "Had worse."

"Let's get you something hot." I hold out my hand and, after a long pause, she takes it, letting me help her to her feet. She's shivering, so I pick up the blanket she's been sleeping beneath, an abrasive half-cotton mess that stinks worse than I do, and drape it around her shoulders.

"I'm going to take you somewhere, okay?"

She looks suddenly nervous. Her voice is a whisper. "I don't... I mean, thank you and everything... But I'd still have to charge and...stuff..."

My concrete heart is starting to crack. "Jesus, kid. It's not like that. You're fourteen, for crying out loud."

The doorman is aghast as the two of us push past him.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Sir, hotel policy is no--"

But we're already inside, heading to the reception desk that sits beneath lavish chandeliers, where a svelte woman in a navy jacket is smiling, then isn't. She looks over my shoulder at the doorman who is scurrying after us.

"Sir!" cries the doorman.

I ignore him and speak to the lady, "My friend here, Lilly, is going to be staying with you for a while."

Lilly looks as startled as the receptionist.

The lady is about to refuse us when I say, "You might recognize me from television. Saving California? That sound familiar?" I give her the big cheesy grin I gave to every chat-show I went on. "Eh?"

"Oh... You look different now," she says, but that's good enough, she's recognized me.

"I get a lot of publicity still," I say. "Press love interviews with me."

She nods slowly, knowing it's some sort of threat, but she hasn't quite worked it out fully.

The doorman is by my side, "Sir, I really must ask you come with me, or else I'll have to--"

The receptionist holds a palm up at the doorman, and he falls silent.

"Now Lilly here is going to be staying indefinitely. I'll be paying the first six months upfront. Then, I'll pay the next six. You're going to have someone sort out her clothes and get her a few nice things to wear. That, and her food, and the tuition you'll organize her to have, will go on my card. Understand?"

She nods and takes the plastic.

Lilly is in tears and I really hate this new me, because something inside me is feeling close to emotional. And for a few minutes, I'm not thinking of the baby that I left with the Storm Guard.

Funny how good it feels to get rid of some of my money. Guess I don't much like how I earned it.

Am I helping Lilly here, or helping myself?

But Lilly is beaming as she's led to her room, and I guess it doesn't really matter which one of us I was trying to help.

"Have you got a concierge here?" I ask the receptionist.

"Of course. We have two. Both are available to help you with your every--"

"Good. I need them to get me some numbers. Got some calls to make."