Midnight

"Where am I?"

The blond girl looked surprised. "The depot for runaway slaves, of course."

Well, that was that. "But I didn’t run away,"she protested. "I was going right back after I got a sugarplum."

"I don’t know about that. I was trying to run away, but they finally caught me."The girl slammed one fist into an open hand. "I knew I shouldn’t have trusted that litter carrier.

Carried me right to the authorities and me blind and without a clue."

"You mean you had the litter curtains down – ?"Bonnie was asking, when a shril whistle interrupted her. The blond girl took hold of her arm and began dragging her away from the fence. "That’s the second service dinnertime whistle – we don’t want to miss that, because after that they shut us up for the night. I’m Eren. Who’re you?"

"Bonnie."

Eren snorted and grinned. "All right by me."

Bonnie allowed herself to be led up a dirty stairway and into a dirty cafeteria. The blond girl, who seemed to regard herself as Bonnie’s keeper, handed her a tray, and pushed her along. Bonnie didn’t get any choice in what she was to have, not even to veto the noodles that were squirming slightly, but she did manage to snatch an extra bread rol in the end.

Damon! Nobody was tel ing her not to send a message, so she kept on doing it. If she was going to be punished, she thought defiantly, she was going to be punished for trying to get out of here. Damon, I’m in a slave warehouse! Help me!

Blond Eren grabbed a spork, so Bonnie did too. There were no knives. There were thin napkins, which relieved Bonnie, because that was where the Squirmy Noodles were going to end up.

Without Eren, Bonnie would never have found a place at the tables, which were crammed with young girls eating. "Shove over, shove over,"Eren kept saying, until there was room for Bonnie and her.

Dinner was a test of Bonnie’s courage – and also of how loud she could scream. "Why are you doing all this for me?"she shouted into Eren’s ear, when a lul in the deafening conversation gave her a chance.

"Oh, Well, you being a redhead and all  – it put me in mind of Aliana’s message, you know. To the reall Bonny."She pronounced it oddly, sort of swall owing the y, but at least it wasn’t Bonna.

"Which of them? Which message, I mean?"Bonnie screamed.

Eren gave her an are you kidding look. "Help when you can, shelter when you have room, guide when you know where to go,"she said in a sort of impatient chant, then looked chagrined and added, "And be patient with the slow."She attacked her food with an air of having said everything there was to say.

Oh, boy, Bonnie thought. Somebody had really taken the balland run with it. Elena had never said any of those things.

Yeah, but – but maybe she’d lived them, Bonnie thought, a tingling breaking out all over her body. And maybe somebody had seen her and made up the words. For instance, that crazy-looking guy she’d given her ring or bracelet or something to. She’d given her earrings away to people with signs, too. Signs that said: POETRY FOR

FOOD.

The rest of dinner was a matter of picking up food with the spork and not looking at it, crunching it once, and then deciding whether to spit into her Still-writhing napkin, or to try to swallow without tasting.

Afterward the girls were marched into another building, this one fil ed with pal ets, smal er and not so comfortable-looking as Bonnie’s at the inn. She was now horrified at herself for leaving that room. There she had had safety, she had had food that she could actual y eat, she had had entertainment –

even the Dustbins were clothed in a golden glow of remembrance now – and she had had the chance of Damon finding her. Here she had nothing.

But Eren seemed to have some mesmeric influence on the girls around, or else they al were Aliana-ites too, because when she shouted "Where’s a pal et? I’ve got a new girl in my bedroom. Think she’s gonna sleep on the bare floor?"And eventual y, a dusty pal et was passed hand over hand into Eren’s "bedroom" – a group of pal ets al spread with the heads together in the middle. In exchange, Eren handed over the wriggling napkin Bonnie had given her. "Share and share alike,"she said firmly, and Bonnie wondered if she thought Aliana had said that, too.

A whistle shril ed. "Ten minutes until lights-out,"a hoarse voice shouted. "Every girl not on her pal et in ten minutes wil be punished. Tomorrow section C goes up."

"All right! We’re going to be bloody deaf before we’re sold,"Eren muttered.

"Before we’re sold?"Bonnie repeated stupidly, even though she had known what would happen from the first moment she had recognized this as a warehouse for slaves.

Eren turned and spat. "Yeah,"she said. "So you can have one more breakdown and then that’s it. Only two per customer, and by tomorrow you may wish you’d saved one up."

"I wasn’t going to have a breakdown,"Bonnie said, with al the courage at her command. "I was going to ask how we’re going to be sold. Is it at one of those horrible public places, where you have to stand in front of a crowd in just a shift?"

"Yeah, that’s what most of us wil be doing,"a young girl, who had been crying quietly through dinner and the pal et-arranging time, spoke up in a soft voice. "But the ones they pick out as special items wil have to wait. They’l give us a bath and special clothes, but it’s al just so we look more presentable for the clients. So the clients can inspect us more closely."She shuddered.

"You’re frightening the new girl, Mouse,"Eren scolded. "We cal her Mouse, because she’s always so scared,"she told Bonnie.

Bonnie silently screamed, Damon!