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Children, knowing no better, bounced on the cots and played with broken toys and forgotten boxes. These people have nothing.
    As night approached, Myra became more aware of the people around her. The men from the lobby who watched her throughout the day now stalked closer.
    She opened her mind to catch glimpses of the men’s thoughts. None of them tried to hide. All of them meant her harm. A tremor of terror washed over her. She wouldn’t last the night in this place if their lustful, evil thoughts came to be. These men were thieves. They would use her and take her things. Even if she did survive, her belongings would be gone before the sun rose, and with them her ability to go home.
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    She took her bag, made her way to the bathroom at the front of the building, and kept her eyes to the floor.

    ****
It was dark. His first three stops at local shelters were futile. No one had seen the woman from his picture. Her frightened expression on the paper had him worrying over what she looked like now. Jane Doe was in trouble. He knew it. He scanned every alley and every street.
    Nothing.
    He changed direction to the south side of town, the side of town even the toughest of the tough didn’t go unless they had to. Drug dealers and prostitutes made their living on these streets.
    He tried to think of what might be going on in her head. She wouldn’t know this side of town wasn’t safe. Then again, maybe she did. Doubtful.
    Her big brown eyes and her words flashed in his memory. “I don’t know where to go.”
    So he searched, and would search all night if he had to. She was out there somewhere. Alone.

    ****
Night fell in around her. The deafening sounds from earlier in the day diminished into a dreadful eerie silence. The occasional car drove by, headlights shining in her path.
    The hum of machines that heated the buildings attempted to fill the silence but failed. Only the soft pat of her feet hitting the pavement kept her company.
    She slipped away from the mission shelter almost as easily as she had the hospital earlier in the day. The trouble was she didn’t know where to go. Where she would find safety?
    She walked the deserted streets. The cold night air oozed into her bones. “Where are those warm nights, Tara?” I’ll keep walking. It will keep me 25

    Catherine Bybee

    awake and warm.
    Piercing cold prickled up her back and made the hairs on her neck stand up. Myra felt the eyes long before she saw the face.
    Cruel, black eyes watched her.
    She used every power within her to see inside the man.
    Within his darkness, she saw herself as he did.
    Easy prey! His mind shouted.
    She braced for attack.
    Out of nowhere another man, at least one hundred pounds heavier than her, stepped into her path from the darkness of an alley.
    She turned and moved in the opposite direction, never making eye contact with her foe.
    Remain calm. She heard Tara’s words whisper in her ear as if she was standing by her side. Don’t show fear. Myra tried, but the day’s events rushed into her mind.
    Fear blossomed and grew.
    She quickened her pace and walked directly into the path of a second attacker.
    This one, lanky and thin, had skin that held a deathly hue of green. He undressed her with a look, chewed on his tongue, and licked his ugly, sore-covered lips.
    Keep moving. She attempted to walk around him. The vicious man blocked her path.
    Scooting to the side, she stepped past him.
    He laughed.
    “Excuse me.” She moved again, her heart raced.
    He stood close enough for her to smell stale tobacco and something else she couldn’t identify.
    “Lookie what we have here, Cutter.” He reached out and touched her hair. “Now ain’t you soft an’
    pretty.”
    Frozen in place, she felt his fingers whisk past 26

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    her cheek. She pulled away.
    “Now what could you possibly need out here at this time of night? Whatcha need? A hit?”
    Myra started to breathe faster, her heartbeat soared as she battled her