Rap. Rap. Rap.

What the...?

Rap. Rap. Rap.

Ashley glanced at the clock on the dingy nightstand. 3 a.m. Perfect. Check-out wasn't for another nine hours. Couldn't be housekeeping. It had to be either Grease-ball or someone else. Neither possibility motivated her to open the door.

Maybe if she ignored them, they would go away. Ashley reached for a sheet to cover with. Her hands came away empty, and she remembered why. She wasn't in her bed. Instead, she was sleeping in a strange bed, on top of a comforter. All of her clothes were still on; the thought of putting on her pajamas had seemed ridiculous.

Rap. Rap. Rap.

"Hang on," she called.

Ashley slid the gun out from under the pillow, safety on. She tucked into the back of her jeans, with the strong assumption that's where guns were naturally placed.

She tiptoed to the door, the one with all the phone numbers and grotesque sayings scrawled on the surface. Many of them featured pictures, and were ultra distracting.

Come see Carmella, usually found in 3B. A stick figure with Gloria-like jugs posed next to the words.

More knocking and Ashley ceased reading the door advertisements.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Hello? Sorry to bother. I got a flat tire. Got a phone I can use?"

It was a woman, and she was in trouble. Surely, it would be wrong not to help her because of immobilizing fear. Ashley cracked open the door.

"Hi, are you--?"

The maiden in distress shoved herself into the room. Her exaggerated motions forced Ashley backward. It took a balancing act her to keep her ass from falling to the ground. After noticing the expression on her unwanted guest's face, she was glad to not be in a vulnerable position.

"Can I help you?" Ashley sputtered.

"Yeah, you can take your business elsewhere," the woman said.

A palpable anger threw off the stranger in waves. Ashley wondered why it was directed at her.

"What business?" Ashley tried to sound tough.

The smile the woman gave was horrifying. Brown stains on her teeth ruined what little beauty she possessed.

"I don't have to spell it out for you. Just know that you gots to go, now."

"I paid for this room. I'm not going anywhere."

It was a dangerous answer for Ashley to give, but she gave it anyway.

"You fuckin' my man?" the woman asked.

How many crazy people do I have to meet in one day?

"I haven't done that with any man, ever," Ashley said.

"I saw him carry your bags over here. Larry isn't nice to just anybody."

Larry. So Greaseball had a real name. If he had been nice to her, it was because she was the rare twelve-year-old to check-in at Coach Inn. Then again, she could've been the umpteenth child he had done business with.

"If you were watching us, then you saw him walk away too," Ashley reasoned.

The woman huffed and puffed. "He did that 'cause he knew I'd be watching. After we went to sleep, I woke up and he was gone."

Ashley wasn't following the lady's logic. Her voice was laced with panic, and her words barely flowed out in one piece.

"Okay, well he's not in here," she said.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" The woman hovered near Ashley's face. "He slipped into the room next door." She nodded to the entrance of the adjacent room.

"If you're so smart, why didn't you knock over there first?"

Ashley woulda thought she slapped the woman for the response her words got her.

"Fucking whore! Where is he?" She flashed a shit-stained grimace.

"He's not here," Ashley repeated.

She sounded calm. Inside, her nerves hung like spaghetti and she was ready to collapse.

"You're lying to me," the woman said.

Ashley edged near the door, waiting for her moment to bolt. "Not at all."

"Prissy little cunt." Grease-ball's girlfriend drew her hand back and struck Ashley so that she saw white.

It took her a second to recover, and her brain scrambled. The gun! the paranoia within her screamed. Ashley took the gun out. Pointed just right, she knew she could get the lady to back off like she had made the boy back off earlier.

"Point a gun at me?" The woman kicked Ashley in the stomach.

Somehow, Ashley managed to clutch the gun as she doubled over in pain.

"That's what I think of your gun." A warm wetness flew on to Ashley's face.

Holy hell. The crazy lady spit on me.

The last thought exploded when Greaseball's girl kneed her in the face. On her way down to the ground, the gun skidded away.

"You come here, do my man, and mouth off to me? Learn some goddamn respect, kid!"

In the next instant, Ashley expected another blow to the face. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the blow never came.

"Jolie, what the fuck you beatin' up a kid for?"

After scrubbing the spit from her face, Ashley opened her eyes. The third voice belonged to a pretty teenager in a tight tube dress and heels. She invaded the doorway, hands on her hips. Her face would have been flawless had she not had a strawberry birthmark blooming near the corner of one eye.

Jolie focused on the ground, mumbling. "She's been fuckin' my man and she won't tell me where he gone."

The girl regarded her with a patronizing look. "Larry is out scoring some coke, dummy. He came to my room and when I told him I was dry, he said he was gonna go to Leemo's house."

"Really?" Jolie latched on to the possibility.

The girl chuckled. "Yes really. Now leave this poor girl alone." Sounded more like grr than girl.

"She pulled a gun on me," Jolie said, as if the fact made her violent actions justifiable.

"I don't see a gun, Jolie," the girl said.

Ashley was grateful it was hidden under the bed.

Jolie made up her mind, speechifying about Leemo's house as she lumbered from the room. When she was gone, Ashley was left with the good Samaritan. A good Samaritan who resembled a stripper.

Instead of leaving, the girl closed the door. She stood next to Ashley, who shrank back.

"I only wanna help you up." An outstretched hand proved the girl's point.

Ashley took the hand, never forgetting the gun under the bed. Both girls took a seat on the bed.

Awkward silence happened before anything else.

Finally, the girl said, "I don't really do coke, you know."

It was an odd lead-in to a conversation. It was also a conversation Ashley felt way too young to have. She had no choice but to listen, or leave the room. Since she couldn't leave the room without running into Jolie, she listened.

"I just do it when I can't get away with faking it, usually when a customer is watching me." Ashley wanted to ask what the girl had to fake, but she didn't want to interrupt. Obviously, the girl felt the need to explain her modest drug-use. "Makes them feel less guilty if they think I fuck to get money for coke, as opposed to me actually needing the money to survive."

"Okay." Ashley said. She still didn't understand a word of what the girl said.

"I didn't want us to start off on the wrong foot, you thinking I'm a run-of-the-mill coke whore. I am a whore though." A brilliant smile followed the affirmation.

Ashley noticed something different about the girl. The inflection of her voice had changed. While she spoke to Jolie, her voice had lilted, a slight twang in it. Now, she had a flat tone. It was as if she had been faking a persona, and alone with Ashley, she dropped it.

Ashley was thinking about the change in the girl's attitude because she didn't know how to respond to her last sentence. She found her voice after a while.

"That's...nice." She was thinking the off-chance of meeting Jolie outside would be preferable to her recent encounter with a self-proclaimed prostitute.

"I can see you have qualms about being friends with a whore like me, but a friend is what you need right now."

"Why's that?"

"Because I know Jolie, and she is a coke whore. She's all messed up right now, convinced Larry's hiding under the bed in here. She'll be back and probably not alone. Considering how old you look, I'm not letting you go anywhere alone. It's not safe."

"Me? You look about sixteen yourself. What sort of protection can you give me?"

Another smile. "I'm twenty-five. My baby face keeps me rollin' in the dough." Once again, Ashley thought she missed the punch line to a very adult joke. "Let's go, sweetie."

Ashley didn't move. Strawberry-Face put her hands on her hips and waited by the door. After a minute of indecision, Ashley grabbed her bag.

"Don't forget your gun." The woman said.

Somehow, Strawberry-Face had grabbed it without Ashley noticing. She held it out for Ashley to take.

With a thank you, she took her gun back.

"Where are we going?"

They were in the parking lot next to a pickup truck. The woman climbed into the driver's side.

"I'lldrive, and you can tell me where you need to go."    

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A/N: Is it smart of Ashley to climb into a car with a newly made friend, or does she simply have no choice?

This chapter dedicated to new follower and loyal reader, bc7hazard :D