He walk out the kitchen, through the living room telling Carolina to shut up. She right behind him, louder than him sometimes. “Momma knew! Yeah, I said it. She knew I would be better at this than you.” Carolina runs past him in silver heels, stopping him at the front door.

I don’t say nothing. I’m just glad to be inside. Alive. It was Roxanne who told Carolina that she should come get me. She found a way out of the basement. Stayed gone until the next afternoon. I was still crying when Carolina and her came for me. It wasn’t that Carolina cared all that much about me. But I’m money on the table, a sure bet. At least I used to be. And she don’t like losing money, she told me on my way out of there. I kept thanking her like I was a freed slave. She sounded like Anthony when she told me, “To us, you’re the same as that flat-screen TV, the curtains, that grandfather clock. They stop being useful, we throw them in the trash.”

“I’m useful,” I whispered. Then I closed my eyes and waited to get hit. She got Roxanne instead. ’Cause she had no business being over there in the first place, Carolina told her. Plus, she lied. She told Carolina she saw blood sneaking out from under the door like a snake. That was last week. I only started walking like my normal self yesterday.

Anthony walking out the door in the cold without a coat, with her behind him. I stare at the sidewalk and the trees that follow the road. Carolina’s words blow in the wind. “Just before she died, Momma said she made a mistake picking you. She knew you would ruin this business. The new girl will probably be trouble too.”

Anthony brought her here this morning. The sun wasn’t even up. A little while ago, I saw her putting gloss on her lips, walking upstairs behind Gem. Did she come on her own? Get knocked out, drug here? Last time I seen her she was working the register at the grocery store.

Carolina and me alike. We don’t know until it’s too late that people done had enough of us. So, I see his knife before she do. It’s up to her throat by the time she shut up. “I run this!” I close my eyes so I don’t see blood. “Just because you’re my sister—”

She bring up his mother and their sister who died. I keep my eyes closed and listen. Anna, that’s what they call her, was the baby of the family. She had herself a baby right when their mother took sick. Then she got sick too. “Girls with babies. Girls on pills. You can’t make things up to Anna by taking them in.” I open my eyes. She poke his chest. Then stares at me. “And dead girls, plus the ones you give away for free, won’t make us no money.”

“I was supposed to finish college.” He puts the knife back in his pocket. “Earn my degree. Go to work on Wall Street.” He punches the door. “I wasn’t her husband! I wasn’t Anna’s father. It wasn’t right to make me responsible for them.”

This the first time I see her hug him or act like she care about anybody. He don’t say nothing. Her fingers squeeze his chin. “You were the man of the house.”

“I was eighteen. In my second year of college. On scholarship.”

“I was in high school. But I woulda done it. I told her that. But she wanted you.” She goes to stand in the doorway, watching him. “Momma was in this business twenty-five years and didn’t learn a thing about men.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They always get the credit when it’s the women who do all the work.”

“You think you can run this?! Then run it.” He’s stomping down the porch steps when he say, “I got business out of town anyhow. I’ll be back in three weeks. But if you mess up—”

“I won’t. I promise. I swear.” She runs and hug him till he got to peel her arms off him. For the first time, I notice dark clouds over their heads.

Closing the door, she rub her hands together like she won the lottery. Laughing, she says maybe she ought to thank me. She been trying to get through to him for years. “This time I think I did.”

She walking out the room. I’m staring at the dead-bolt lock she left open. When she come back, I figure it’s ’cause she remembered. But it’s her cell she wants. Grabbing it off the end table, she start talking, bragging. “I wanted you gone the first day you showed up. The money’s in younger girls. We need some nine-year-olds in here. I told him that. But does he listen?” Her voice is a siren going off at the other girls. “Get up! Listen up! There’s going to be some new rules around here! Meet me in the kitchen in ten.”

Feet start running up and down the hall. I watch the door, then the steps Carolina walked up, then the door again. The new girl comes up from the basement, stops, and stares at me. She roll her eyes like I did something to her, then goes upstairs. Carolina screams at somebody.

I’m slow standing up. Slow getting to the door. Holding my breath the whole time, I stop like Carolina’s down here ordering me to. What if he still out there? I run back to the couch. But what if Carolina gets rid of me, sells me, while he’s gone? I think about the basement next door. The van, johns, police. I run this time. My hands is on the knob, shaking, when I hear her say my name.

“Charlese.”

It’s Roxanne.

“Don’t forget about us.”

I got one arm reaching back when I walk out the door. Outside in the cold, I say, “Roxanne, come with me.”

She shaking her head no when the rain starts.

“We got room at our place for you.” She’s at the door when I say he don’t own you.

“I don’t want him to get no other girls.”

“But he will. Whether we here or not.”

She backs up.

I got no more words. Just bare feet on a cold wet sidewalk. Rain pouring down on me. Slipping, I run as fast as I can.