with food, Alessa begged her for help again.
“Tasha,” she said, crying, “do you know what that sick pig did to me last night? Please, Tasha, help me.” Alessa’s chest heaved with sobs.
Tasha sat down on the mattress next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. Alessa clung to her as if she were a life preserver.
“Please, Tasha,” she begged, “at least find out for me what they’ve done with Remo and Lucy. I need to know. I need to know that someday, I can go home to them. Please, Tasha.”
Tasha lingered for a moment longer but made no promises to help her. She gave Alessa a quick hug and looked into her eyes. “I need you to understand that it’s either you or me, and when you live on these streets, you need to do whatever is necessary to keep yourself safe. Ain’t nothing personal. It’s a matter of survival.”
That night, after Alessa had carried out Harlin’s instructions and put on her lingerie, he didn’t take her out to the living room. Instead, the door opened, and he stood there with a man in his early twenties. He was skinny, with long, stringy hair. As he reached out for Alessa, she could see the dirt under his fingernails. His breath smelled of whiskey.
Harlin looked at her. “He paid for an hour,” he explained. “Since no one will bid on your old ass, from now on, you’ll give them whatever they pay for. Give him whatever he wants.”
Four days had gone by since Alessa was brought to the house on Dauphin Street. She was now their resident whore. Men would come in, and Harlin would tell her how long she had to spend with each of them.
On the fifth night, Tasha sat down for dinner in the kitchen with Harlin. She looked into her brother’s eyes. “Listen, Harlin, she’s crying all the time. She wants to go home and be with her family. I know you ain’t lettin’ her do that now, but I need to tell her something before she goes crazy on you.”
Harlin smiled. “Okay, Tasha. Fine. She don’t need to worry no more about going back to her family because they’re all dead. We killed that asshole husband of hers and that stupid little kid she pretends is her daughter. So you tell her we’re the closest thing to family she’s got. If she does what we want her to do now, I’ll let her help with the younger girls once we bring them in here. She’s too old anyway. Ain’t nobody willing to give me any real money for her.”
Tasha sat looking at him, her mouth hanging open. “They’re both dead?”
Harlin slammed down his fork. “That’s what I said, ain’t it?”
Picking listlessly at her food now, Tasha realized that her brother, the man she had once loved but had long ago come to hate, was toxic. She realized that Alessa’s family had died in vain. For she knew in her heart that Alessa would have done anything to save Remo and Lucy.
As she tried to fall asleep that night, Tasha couldn’t stop the tears. She thought about how close she and Alessa had once been. Alessa had been the only real friend she had ever known. Tasha knew she needed to tell Alessa the truth so she could come to terms with it and move on.
***
The next morning, when she entered the room, Alessa was sitting on the mattress and staring at the blank wall. She looked up at Tasha and gave her a feeble smile. Tasha sat down next to her and took her hand.
“I talked to Harlin about your family,” she ventured tentatively.
With hope surging through her, Alessa turned swiftly to face her. “O my God,” she exclaimed, overjoyed. “Thank you so much. Are they okay? Where are they?”
Tasha looked at the floor. “They ain’t with us no more.”
Alessa closed her eyes and dropped her head back. “What do you mean by ‘ain’t with us’? What have they done to them?”
“I mean they’re dead.”
A primal sound, almost like that of a wounded animal, soared up from deep within Alessa. Her grief seemed to emerge from her very soul. Tasha couldn’t bear to watch her suffering. The woman, once her friend, sobbed and screamed until she was spent. Then she stared into space. Her eyes were blank and her mind seemed lost in some other world no one could reach. Tasha sat with her into the early evening, rocking her and trying to console her.
“It’s gonna be okay,” she soothed. “Harlin promised that once he gets some younger girls back in here, you can help run the house. You don’t have to be with these men no more. He said you’re too old for it anyway. Guess it pays to get old, huh?”
Tasha’s words penetrated Alessa’s mind, but she remained silent. There was nothing anyone could say to make her feel human again.
When Harlin checked in with his sister, she explained that things were fine. “But the girl needs a night off,” she cautioned him. “She needs to grieve.”
Tasha stayed with Alessa that night, holding her, while she cried in her sleep. When Alessa woke up the next morning, she wondered for a moment whether it hadn’t all been a bad dream. Then she rolled over and saw Tasha asleep next to her and she knew it wasn’t. She burst into tears all over again. She had lost the only man she had ever loved and the only child she would ever have. She thought of their innocence and how she had brought this on both of them. She wished a million times she could relive her life and bring them back but knew she couldn’t. All she had now to keep her company was this dark room and the evil people who lived and played in this house. Everything she had achieved and the people she had loved had been destroyed in a single moment. Her grief now turned to hatred for Harlin. Hatred so intense and real that Alessa believed her heart had turned to stone and she could never have love for another human again.
