Little Angels

Who: Maddy
Where: Petit Ange (Little Angels Parlor)
When: late afternoon

After almost sleeping the day away again, this time on Alyson's couch, Maddy bid her friend farewell and headed out into the icy weather. She felt a little better after being 'taken care of', but she was still tired. Still frustrated.

She walked through the near empty streets with a single-minded focus, not paying mind to anyone who said hi to her. She pushed thoughts of Dodge away, the thoughts of guilt, and focused on one thing.

The money for her house.

Because in all reality, she didn't actually have that much money (despite what she fooled Dodge into thinking and the fact that he'd actually believed that of her hurt -- and she was not thinking about that) and as much as she hated to admit it, there was one sure way she knew how she could get all the money she needed.

She had avoided the place ever since she first left the orphanage and now she stood across the street from the chic looking parlor that looked wholly out of place next to the abandoned stores and rundown apartment buildings. It stood out against the muck, a warm glow from behind the modest lace curtains in the windows.

Maddy stood in the shadows of the empty shoe store, watching two men walk inside. Businessmen, probably sent home when the power in their offices went out. Were their wives at home cooking dinner? Were their children playing games in front of a fireplace, the only source of heat in the house on this type of day?

Numbness spread through her limbs as she stood in the could. She should go home, go somewhere warm.

It looked warm in there.

She stood there in the shadows longer than she probably should have, fingers and toes tingling with cold before she finally walked across the empty street and into the little "parlor". As she walked, she spotted a figure darting into an alley and Maddy wondered, briefly, if it was one of Dodge's boys.

It was as warm inside as it looked from across the street. There was a gramophone playing Shirley Temple in the corner. The wallpaper was soft, pinks and golds and greens, like a little girl's bedroom.

It made her sick.

"May I help you, little girl?" The voice was female, low and rough. Smoker's voice. The woman it belonged to stood behind a little counter. She was older, her red updo clearly a wig, face powdered, rouged cheeks two spots of bright color on her pale face. She was squeezed into a too small but nice looking green dress and staring down at her like a nun at the orphanage.

"Need a job," Maddy said, finding her voice after a little while. "I'm fifteen but I can pull an eleven if you want me to."

When Maddy looked back up at the woman, she was met with a disturbing leer.