Gabby slammed the door in Alice’s face.

“What now?” Carmen whispered, afraid to disturb Alice’s thought process.

“Now we find Dana and Lara.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Get in the car.”

Carmen sighed.

“I’m never gonna get to sleep tonight.”

Shane tipped the cabbie and stepped out onto the cracked sidewalk the cab pulled off quickly, yet another sign of the how “bad” the neighborhood was. But this was nothing to her. She’d lived in worse. She looked up at it. It looked abandoned, boarded up, with a few of the more rotted boards on the door ripped away, but just enough for a man to fit through. It was one story, dirty and, if Shane’s suspicions were correct, a crack house. The man at the police station had said that Gabriel had been bailed out by someone else, but couldn’t tell her who. So, like an idiot, she called Carla to tell her she would be coming home empty-handed. But Carla knew of a place that Gabriel used to hang out in Boston. So, here she stood, in front of a seedy crack house, on the wrong side of the tracks. “Carmen would be proud.” Shane thought bitterly, with a mixture of a scoff and a laugh. “Well, better get this over with.” She muttered, sighing as she stepped through the rotting boards into the dimly lit room. As soon as she was in, all eyes turned to her. Wide, dilated eyes taking her in fearfully, the drugs only enhancing their owners’ paranoia.

“Ah, a new customer.” A man said, walking up to Shane and looking her up and down.

A glint of mischief shone in his eye, and Shane took a precautionary step backwards. She couldn’t make out very much in the dim light and didn’t like it. For all she knew, he could be carrying a weapon.

“Look, I’m not gonna buy anything from you, I’m just here for my… Gabriel.”

“For your Gabriel? Then you must be Carla.” The man grinned even wider.

“No. I’m Shane.” She said through gritted teeth.

“Shane? Are you his concubine?” She realized just then he had a slight accent. And who the hell said ‘concubine’ anymore?