The Daughter They Sold

The man on his knees was crying, and I had my hand flat against the bathroom window before I understood what I was looking at. The window faced the alley behind the club. Someone had cracked it open to let the smoke out. Cold air came in on my face, with the thud of the bass still coming through the wall behind me. Under one yellow light, three men stood in a half circle around a fourth man on the ground. "I'll get it back," the man on the ground said. His voice kept breaking. "Please. Three days. Just give me three days." Nobody answered him. The man in the middle wore a long black coat. He was tall, with his back half turned to me, and his hands were in his pockets. The other two stood behind him and didn't move at all. "You had three months," he said. His voice was low and calm. That was what made my stomach turn. He didn't sound angry. "Please, my daughter..." The man in the coat took one hand out of his pocket. There was a gun in it. He let it hang at his side and looked at the man on the ground for a long time. I stopped breathing. My fingers pressed into the glass so hard that my nails hurt. Walk away, I told myself. Walk away now. My legs wouldn't move. He lifted his arm and fired. The sound was flat and short. The man on the ground fell sideways onto the concrete and lay there. One of his hands twitched twice and went still. A sound came out of my mouth before I could stop it. It wasn't a full scream. It was a sharp, cracked gasp, and it echoed off the bathroom tiles louder than anything I had ever heard. The man in the black coat turned his head toward the window. I dropped to the floor so fast my knee hit the tile. Pain shot up my leg, and I bit down on my lip to keep quiet. I pushed my back against the wall under the window, pulled my knees to my chest, and covered my mouth with both hands. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. My palms were wet with sweat, and my whole body was shaking. One. Two. Three. I counted slowly and listened. No footsteps. No shouting. Only the music, far away. I grabbed my bag and stood up. My legs felt weak, and I had to hold the edge of the sink for a second. I looked at my face in the mirror. My eyes were huge and my lips were white. I looked like someone else. Then I ran. The hallway outside was dark and narrow. I slammed my shoulder into a girl coming the other way, and she cursed at me. I didn't turn around. I shoved through the door into the main room, and the heat and noise hit me all at once. Bodies pressed against me. Someone's drink spilled down my arm, cold and sticky. I couldn't hear anything except my own breathing. "Sanna!" Tessa was in the middle of the dance floor with both hands in the air, wearing her red dress and bright red lipstick, laughing. She saw my face and her smile dropped. I grabbed her wrist. My hand was trembling so badly she looked down at it. "We're leaving." "What? We just got here. What happened?" "Where's Danny?" "At the bar, he went to get drinks. Sanna, you're shaking. What's wrong?" "Tessa, please. Please, just come." She stared at me for one second longer, then picked her jacket off the floor and followed. I pushed through the crowd with my head down and my heart racing. Danny was at the bar in his gray hoodie, leaning on the counter with two drinks in front of him. He turned, saw us, and straightened up right away. "What's wrong?" "Not here," I said. My voice cracked. "The car. Now." He didn't ask again. He dropped a twenty on the counter, left the drinks, and came to my side. His hand landed lightly on my back, and I almost cried right there because it was so warm. We were almost at the front door when I saw them. Two men in black coats stood just inside the entrance. They weren't dancing or drinking. They stood side by side with their hands loose at their sides, and their eyes moved across every face that passed. My legs nearly stopped. I pulled my hair forward over my cheek and lowered my head. Tessa walked in front of me. Danny moved closer on my other side until his arm pressed against mine. "Keep walking," he said quietly, hardly moving his lips. "Don't look at them." I kept my eyes on the floor. My breath was coming too fast, and I tried to slow it down. In. Out. In. Out. We passed the first man. I could smell his cologne. I felt his eyes on the side of my face, and my knees went weak. Then they moved on to the next person, and we were through the door. The cold air outside slapped my skin. I almost fell on the steps, and Danny caught my elbow. "I've got you," he said. "Walk." His old Honda was parked half a block down. We walked there fast, almost running. When I got in the back seat, my hands were shaking so much I couldn't fasten the seatbelt. Tessa turned around, saw me trying, and reached back to click it in for me. Then I started to cry. I didn't want to. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth, but the tears came anyway, hot and fast. "Okay," Tessa said gently. "Okay. Breathe. Tell us." "I can't." "Sanna." "I saw something." My voice was thin and broken. "In the alley, behind the club. A man was kneeling. He was begging. And the other man just shot him. He didn't even care. And I made a noise. I think he heard me." Nobody spoke. Danny's hand froze on the key. In the mirror, I saw his face go pale. "Say that again," Tessa whispered. "He shot him. Right in front of me." Danny turned the key hard and pulled away from the curb without even checking his mirror. A horn blared behind us. He didn't flinch. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. "Did he see you?" His voice was sharp. "I don't know. I don't think so. I got down. I hid." "We go to the police," Tessa said. "No." "Sanna, you saw a murder." "And the men at the door? Did you see their coats? What if somebody..." I stopped. I didn't know how to finish. I only knew how it had felt when the man in the alley turned his head. "I want to go back to campus. I have an exam at nine. I need to sleep." "You can't sleep after this," Tessa said. "It's the final for the whole semester. I can't miss it." Tessa looked at Danny. Danny looked at me in the rearview mirror, and for a second he didn't look away. "I'll take you to your dorm," he said. "And I'm staying in the lobby tonight." "You don't have to." "I know," he said. The campus was silent at two in the morning. Danny parked in front of my building and walked me up to the door. My fingers shook so badly that I missed the slot with my key card twice. He saw it and didn't say anything. He just waited until the light turned green. Tessa hugged me hard at the door. She was crying too. I held onto her longer than I needed to. "Text me when you're in your room," Danny said. "I'll be fine." "Text me anyway." I nodded. I couldn't make myself smile. I went up the stairs on legs that barely worked, locked my door, and put the chain on. Then I slid down the wood until I was sitting on the floor with my arms around my knees. I stayed there for a long time, listening to my own breathing.