Above the Law

Chapter Two

If the masked man hadn't showed up when he did, she'd be in a gutter right now, or still being used against the alley wall. She'd seen a man get murdered. His blood was on her clothes, on her skin. His death was smeared into her. It was a haunting image, but the only sick thought that came to her mind when she thought of it was that she was glad he and the others were dead. Glad they were slaughtered.

She scrubbed her skin until the scorching water ran ice cold. Her tears mixed with the blood and dirt at the bottom of the tub. She stood, her body shaking with every inhale and exhale, until she felt completely and utterly exhausted. She sat down on the tub floor and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, trying to keep her breathing steady. Her mind kept conjuring up the same scene, this time with little Lily and no man in leather to save her. He was right. She knew deep down he was right. Prison was too humane for them. They deserved the death sentence, not a reduced sentence for good behavior. She laughed bitterly, but it was swallowed by a sob. When had she stopped thinking murder was too horrible for even the worse criminals? When had she ever felt differently?

She clambered out of the cold shower and stared at her naked reflation. Tiny bruises littered her skin, but that was normal when customers got handsy. What wasn't normal was the long, purple bruise that was forming on her neck where the man had pinned her. She brought her fingers tenderly to the column of her throat. She dropped her hand and wrapped a worn towel tightly around herself, then stepped into her room. The light from the bathroom door shone on Lily's face. Her eyebrows were knit together and her big blue eyes watering. "Eden," she whispered.

Eden stared at the trembling girl, her eyes softened. "What's wrong, Lil?"

"Are—are you okay?"

"Yes. Now go back to sleep." Eden grabbed some pajama shorts and a large T-shirt from her drawer.

Lily shook her head. "Something happened tonight. Something bad."

Eden let out a sigh and walked over to her bed and sat down next to her sister. "Lily, I'm fine. Really."

Lily shook her head more vigorously. "You don't take long showers unless something's wrong."

"I got thrown up on, that's all," Eden said softly. She didn't like lying to Lily, but this wasn't necessarily a lie. She'd thrown up on herself after a masked maniac murdered her attackers and said he wanted her. "Why are you in here, Lily? And why wasn't the door locked?"

"Justin had friends over and they kept bugging me."

"Bugging you how?" Eden asked, voice still low, but anger now seeping into her word. She had no doubt in her mind that Justin's friends had hit on her, made some unpleasant remark on how big her boobs were and how hot she'd gotten in the last year.

"Not like that, Eden." Lily looked down at her hands so she didn't have to look into her sister's demanding eyes.

"You need to start locking your door."

"I said they weren't bugging me like that—"

"Just do it, okay?" Eden got up and headed to the bathroom to change before Lily could respond. Her sister was naïve if she took Justin's friends lightly. Or maybe she wasn't naïve, maybe she took it as a compliment that college dropouts hit on her daily. Eden had. Eden thought she must have been beautiful because her older brothers' friends paid attention to her, but she knew now that it was because she was simply there and they were bored and horny and hoping to get lucky.

She crawled in bed next to Lily and stared at the ceiling chewing on her bottom lip. From a young age Eden knew how to use her body to her advantage, it was simple supply and demand; if a man had what she wanted, she knew how to get it by flirting and taunting. She saw Lily doing it now, too, and it sickened Eden to know how much of an influence she was. Lily idolized her, and all Eden was was a screw up. Lily was headed down the same path Eden was, and that scared her most of all. Because that path wasn't paved, but it's journey was already programmed into her brain, even if she didn't know that the path led straight into the lion's stomach. And Eden had taught her that. Some big sister she was.

She thought of what the man in the mask had said tonight. How he needed help in order to get rid of the problem. She'd been appalled at his proposal—at being his bait—but she was already being used, wasn't she? Her father was exploiting her body already, but for drugs and alcohol. But the man in the mask, he wanted a partner of sorts. Someone to help him take down the growing population of rapists and pimps. She frowned. Surly she wasn't actually considering helping a serial killer?

Eden woke up at ten; Lily came sprinting into her room, footsteps pounded up the stairs right behind her. "Eden!" Lily yelled, tiny hands shaking her. "Eden, wake up!" Eden sat up with blurry eyes. Lily's eyes were wide and panicked. "You need to get up—"

Eden threw the covers off her, and swung her legs over the bed. "What's wrong? What happened?"

The question had hardly left her lips when her door was thrown back open and her dad, followed closely by Justin and Drew, came right over to the bed and grabbed her wrist and yanked her up.

"What the fuck did you do?" he snarled, his face was inches from hers, his breath still smelt heavily of alcohol, but mixed with something else. Something that made Eden's nose screw up.

"What? Nothing?" She tried wrenching her arm from his hand. "I didn't do anything." If there was one thing Eden had learned from her father it was that when he was angry, you hid. He was a scary man sober, but when he was intoxicated he was something else entirely. He was the reason she'd slept with a knife under her pillow since she was ten. He had ripped out a large chunk of her hair and given her a shiner she'd told her teachers was from falling off her bike. Even then she knew not to tell.

She looked around her room and at the faces that were staring back at her. Lily looked fearful, while her father, Justin, and Drew looked angry. But there was no mistaking it. They all had something in their eyes that was close to panic.

"I said," he growled, his grip tightening on her wrist. "What. Did. You. Do."

She swallowed the whimper of pain and stared up at her father. "I don't—I don't know what you're talking about," her voice shook and she tried desperately to remove herself from his grasp. He only tugged harder, making her wince aloud. "Let go!" she yelled.

"Get dressed and go down stairs," he spat, he released her wrist then headed down the stairs.

She trembled, staring stunned at the door.

"You're a real bitch, you know that?" Justin said.

Drew even looked disgusted, and the only expression he'd had for years when he'd looked at her was hunger.

The door slammed shut, making Eden's body go ridged until she heard Lily sniffle. She turned and saw her little sister sitting on the floor. "Eden, what happened last night?" she begged.

Eden went cold. "I—Nothing. I told you."

She shakes her head, her blue eyes shimmering with tears.

"Lily, what's going on?"

"What happened to you last night? What did you do?" The accusation in her small voice made Eden recoil.

"Nothing."

"Then why is there a detective downstairs looking for you?"