Little Girl Lost: Volume 1 of the Little Girl Lost Trilogy. Cindy Hanna

Stepping over him as one might step over a piece of garbage, Ax walks to his car, gets in and calmly drives away. He does not bother to check the man’s pulse, certain that his prey is dead.

      Ax notices an eerie silence from the rear seat after driving a few blocks. Looking back, he sees Eric Angel’s tiny, limp body, with a bullet hole neatly in the middle of his forehead. The boy, who had been peeking over the front seat of the car to view the fight, had been struck in the head by one of Ax’s bullets and killed instantly. His small form lies crumpled, in a pool of his own blood, on the floor. His head is upturned, as if questioning, “Why.” His once-brilliant green eyes remain open, the light having gone out of them.

      “Ah, fuck!” Ax growls aloud. “Now how the hell I gonna control that bitch?”

      The cops descend upon the murder scene like locusts on a Kansas farmland. They scour every inch of the place, interviewing everyone, not surprised that no one seems to have seen anything. They spend long hours gathering their hollow details.

      The police have their suspicions of what went down—one pimp crowding another’s turf. Blah. Blah. Blah. They know the dead man to be a scum-ball pimp, yet they must treat the investigation into his death with the same respect and thoroughness as any other. Of course, nowhere is it written that they have to solve the case. What was one more dead pimp to them, but a service to society? As the detectives know, street vigilantism does serve a purpose.

      The police run their investigation while Ax disposes of Eric Angel’s body, cleaning every speck of blood out of his vehicle. The deed done, Ax cruises by the motel several times, careful not to draw attention to himself, to see if the officers have left.

      After the officers leave, Ax pulls into the motel’s carport and summons his bitches to come with him. Sally sits in the rear seat, where just hours before, her son had been shot. She finds it odd that Eric Angel is not in the car. Sensing Ax’s ire, however, she decides not to question where her son is, choosing instead to look straight ahead and keep her mouth shut. That is when she sees it—the neat little black hole in the windshield directly in front of her.

      Suddenly, the meaning of her dream becomes clear and she begins screaming, “No! It can’t be. No. Not my baby!”

      Ax roars, “Somebody shut that fucking bitch up before I do!”

      Sally realizes that the bumblebee she had seen in her dream had been the bullet as it approached her son. She had witnessed it in her vision the same as her son watched it approach him. Sally hears the mournful wailings of a wounded animal—herself—moments before she blacks out.

      With no mention of a murdered little boy or a body, Eric Angel’s death goes undetected by the authorities, affording Sally the opportunity to avoid getting caught up in the investigation surrounding the pimp’s death. Ax, on the other hand, is not as fortunate. In his efforts to stay just outside the questioning reach of the investigating officers, Ax becomes a scarce sighting at the motel, which lessens the scrutiny with which his whores are accustomed to living under.

      Sally goes on a massive three-day cocaine binge following the death of her son with a cleverly “squirreled away” emergency supply of coke Ax’s other prostitutes have stolen from Ax’s supply. Wanting to provide her with instant relief, they opt to have her smoke crack instead of snorting cocaine. One of the girls offers her some, coaxing, “Here, Sally, this will help ease your pain.”

      Sally smokes the crack and is instantly rewarded with a euphoric feeling, shorter-lived than with coke, but releasing. She does not eat or sleep while on her binge, is talkative about everything, feels energetic and self-confident and is able to continue performing her sexual services with the johns.

      Following her binge, Sally slips into a state of deep depression and tries to come to terms with her son’s death. When that proves too overwhelming, she tries to block it just as she does with what johns routinely do to her body. She continues to smoke crack as a means of escape, but does not binge again. She knows she has to break free of Ax, that this may be her only opportunity to escape, and that she will need to be thinking clearly in order to make a getaway. She minimizes her drug use and manages to compartmentalize her grief over Eric Angel’s death while she waits patiently for her opening.

      A window of opportunity presents itself, and she flees, taking Angel with her, while Ax is preoccupied with avoiding the police.

      The girls realize that they cannot stay in California without Ax finding them. They had heard of it happening before. One of Ax’s prostitutes would run, he would track her down, drag her back and execute her— right in front of the others—by chopping her up with his ax.

      While talking with Angel, Sally’s voice drips with foreboding. “Ax won’t ever stop looking for us. You know he doesn’t like losing his possessions—especially the ones who can rat him out.”

      “Yeah.”

      Both girls shiver.

CHAPTER 6

      Needing distance from Ax, having nowhere else to go and intrigued by the glittery opportunities Vegas might hold for them, Sally and Angel decide to hitch rides-for-favors towards the strip club Misty had told them about and Mama Pearl. They arrive in Sin City a couple of days later and rent a motel room off the main strip a block down from the gentlemen’s club. Exhausted, they decide to wait until the following day to meet Mama Pearl and talk to the club’s owner about getting jobs. They shower and climb into their own beds. Sleeping separately seems strange after having shared a bed for so many years. Sally stretches out in an attempt to touch all four corners simultaneously. “Look, Angel, I can almost reach.”

      The vision of her friend splayed like a human cross makes Angel laugh. “You’re strange.”

      Sally grins broadly. “That may be, but I’ve got my own bed, and I’m loving it. Did I ever tell you that you hog the sheets?”

      “Yeah, right, little miss elbow-me-in-the-ribs-all-night-long.”

      Both girls giggle. Angel grows serious, props herself up and looks at her friend and says, “Sally, there’s no one I’d rather go on this adventure with. Love you.”

      A contented look lightens Sally’s face. “Love you, too. Good night.”

      Sally’s eyes fall on a wall picture of Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion just before Angel clicks off the light. The room falls silent as both girls close their eyes. The only sound is their deep rhythmic breathing.

      Sally has a final thought before drifting off to sleep.

       There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place li….

      * * * * *

      Sally sees the shards of wood splinter from around the doorjamb as it explodes inward. There is no sound…just visuals. An intimidating hulk fills the doorway—Ax.

      A thousand images strobe through Sally’s mind: Ax’s sardonic grin, a scrap of paper with writing upon it, Angel screaming, Sally desperate to help, unimaginable pain. Then silence. Deafening silence….

      * * * * *

      Sally awakes in a pool of sweat with her heart racing. She cannot catch her breath—her chest rapidly rises and falls. Panicking, she breaks out in a cold sweat.

       Ax…oh, my God…Ax. Where is he?

      She opens her eyes and looks around, fearing the worst. There on the wall is the picture of Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion from her motel room. She looks to the bed beside her and sees Angel sleeping peacefully. She tries to push the sleepiness from her head in order to think. Sitting up in bed, she rubs her eyes. Gradually, her breathing resumes its normal pace, her heart rate slows and her mind begins to clear, as she realizes where she is and what has happened.

       Another dream. Another one of my fucking