2

"I...I can't, I just-"
"You bitch, I already paid you! You are NOT backing out now-" there was a small scream,"and you are going to finish what you started!"
I turned away for a moment from the muffled screams. There was a slim chance that this was the girl I was looking for. That, or just a nervous kid on her first night.
I weighed my options. On one hand, I hated to see a women being forced to do something that caused her pain. On the other, I had no weapon, and he most likely did.
Feeling woozy from those drinks, which hardly ever happens to me, and turned the corner.
"Hey," I barked, "leave the kid alone."
Unfourtnally, he did have a gun, and at the moment it was planted right between the girls eyes. She shot her head up from his lap when she heard me, a wild look of frozen fear in her blue pools as she craned her neck at me.
She was young. Much too young to throw her life away as a hooker. Hell, she even looked underage (underage in this town was twelve and under) in whatever light was being thrown from the street lights, but one thing I could tell was that she was scared as shit.
I kept my cool as the man shot his own head at me and glared, "You have no business here, missy," he spat, "now, why don't you move along and you won't get hurt."
"I'll leave with the girl." I said icily.
His eyes silted and he clicked the gun. The girl gasped, closing her eyes so tight tears formed in the corners.
"I said," I repeated, "I'll leave with the girl. That means unharmed."
"You have a big mouth on you." He commented through his teeth, "What have I to fear of you?" Then he laughed. A laugh so cold and horrible that it seemed to echo around the whole world.
"Just the fact that I'm a cop and I'll throw you in." I lied. Even though I was a P.I., I still had no right to land someone into the slammer.
I could see in his eyes that he had broken slightly.
"How do I know you aren't lying?" he asked, the hold on his gun lagging.
The girls eyes had opened and she was looking towards me now with a new fear that she would be the one I was throwing in.
I reached into my trench coat pocket and pulled out my P.I. badge, making sure he couldn't read it clearly.
It must've worked, because the moment I pulled it out he pulled the gun away from the girl and stood up, his pecker still hanging from the unzipped portion of his pants as he ran like Hell out of there and jumped the fence further down the alley.
I loosened my stance with relief, pocketed my badge and turned, almost forgetting about the girl who was now trying to slip away from me.
"Hold it right there." I commanded her, not turning to look at her.
There was a pause, and a weak, stammering voice chimed in, "It wasn't what it looked like, I-I.. I was just walking here and he..I mean, first it was day, and I saw..I wasn't-"
"Relax, I 'aint really a cop."
There was another pause, "I...Thank you..Ma'am.." the awed voice said.
"What are you doing out here, any how? Get on home, it's dangerous to be your age in this town at night."
"That man.." Her voice was closer now, but oddly quieter then before,"I have no home. That man found me here. He told me to come with him, that he wouldn't hurt me.." I felt her small hands grab my arm. She sounded on the verge of tears, "He wouldn't hurt me and that he wanted to help. He bought me these clothes..a meal."
I turned, and the moment I did she held to my waist tightly, "Oh, I was so stupid to trust him..!"
"Hey, you're not stupid," I said, "you knew what you were doing was wrong, you tried to stop it. Hell, if anything, he was the idiot. Really, taking advantage of a little girl like that.." It honestly made me stick to my stomach.
She started sobbing so I held her for a few moments.
"I don't want it to happen again.."
"Don't worry, kid, you learn from your mistakes."
Her crying had died down, leaving a few tear stains on my coat. "Thank you," she said again, leaving my arms to get out of the alley.
It started to rain.

My stone heart had broke in two as I watched her walk away to God knows where, shivering in the rain. So, being half drunk as I was, I had offered her to stay in my office, which was my home half the time anyway.
She was now curled up on the small couch I had gotten second hand a few days ago. I, leaning back in my desk chair, looked up at the ceiling calmly thinking, the only sounds being the rain pattering agents the window and her deep and slow breaths as she slept.
She told me she never had a name. That at the orphanage her dead beat mom had left her at nobody had ever bothered to name her.
So, I had lovingly named her Wanda Jr. Wanda'll get a kick out of that when she meets her.
In a way, the kid kinda looked like her. Despite her blue eyes, she was a dead ringer. Her long, lank brown hair even looked the same shade of red Wanda had under the right light.
We still didn't have her exact age, though. She looked to be either nine or ten, so I just guessed it.
I glanced over to her after seeing the small movement of my coat, looking like a blanket on her, as she shifted in her sleep. The color seemed to be coming back to her cheeks and her now soft, shaggy hair fell lightly against her face. I looked back to my ceiling and moved my fag to the other end of my lips with my tongue. Wanda had just told me the the other day that cigarettes are called fags in Britain. I now used the word as much as I could.
Before I had brought the girl to my office, we had dropped by my apartment to find some clothes and giver her a shower. The clothes she had gotten from the deadweight earlier were fine for the time being; simple blue jeans, cheap sandals, and a light green tank top, the loose kind you would find at a kid's store. I had discovered, though, after she had cleaned her hair, that she possessed no undergarments. Rooting through my drawers, I has located one of the few underwear I had and gave it to her, using a safety pin to keep it up. I had shorted on seeing if I still had an old training bra lying around, which I had highly doubted, for I hadn't helped but noticed that she didn't need one. Before I had opened the door for us to leave, I had asked her if her mouth was sore, to which she embarrassedly nodded yes. I gave her a mint, "to get the bad taste out", and we were out to my office.
I was about to nod off myself before I had heard the girl move again, but only this time it was to sit up and say through the semidarkness; "Miss.Stills?"
"Shoot." I responded lazily.
"Thank you."
It was the umpteenth time she had told me that that night. Normally I would have bit her head off in annoyance. But still, I couldn't help but smile.
"Don't mention it, kid."