I don't know what to think as I dart out of that little grocery store with my stolen goods in hand. I've never come so close to getting caught, and the terror of that possibility drives me on. I'm not really worried about me, but if I get caught so does Pixie... and I'm not letting her go back to that hell.

Just as I feared, the day went steadily downhill. I panhandled around the parking lot for a few hours and made a hundred bucks. Pixie was in the van coloring with the back doors open to let in the early fall breeze. It was afternoon when I noticed she was acting funny, sleeping in the middle of the day. Then she wouldn't eat lunch. Then she started saying her throat hurt. By the time I went into the store to stock up on supplies, she was burning up.

She's still asleep by the time I get back to the van with our stuff, but I need to drive us the hell away from here before I can give her the meds. Where to park and sleep? Tomorrow's Sunday. I hate Sundays. No one's gonna be hiring, a lot of stores are closed, and it's harder to make money panhandling because everyone panhandles on Sunday, hoping to woo the church crowd. Every now and then I can hit up a small church and get stuff from their food bank, but that's risky because sometimes they ask questions, and there's always the chance they've seen my face on missing-persons boards.

I park the van on the outskirts of a big Wal-Mart parking lot and then crawl into the back to wake Pixie. She whimpers when I touch her.

"Pixie, it's Austin. I want you to take this medicine to make you feel better," I say gently.

"No," she whines, "I don't like medsen."

"It tastes good! Come on, just one swallow. That's it," I say, holding the little cup to her mouth.

I get her to drink it down, and then I take her temperature. 100.8. Okay, it's fever territory but not horrible. Hopefully the meds will take care of whatever she's got.

"Go to sleep, okay?" I gently smooth her hair off her face. "You'll feel better in the morning. Guess how much I love you."

"To the moon and back," she mumbles sleepily.

I kiss her cheek and then climb back up into the passenger's seat to keep watch and do a little writing. I pull my crumpled notebook out of my bag and open to where I left off last night.

"Today was bad," I write, "Pixie had epasode and freaked out. I wish I could fix her memories or somehow take away her nightmires. Got supplys. Met a girl today she was kind of hot but then caght me stealing. Not so hot then. Pixie is sick now and has a fever. I keep thinking about that girl not sure why. She had red hair. She was nice to pixie to."

I stop there and fold the journal up. I'm exhausted tonight and plan on sleeping deeply. I keep watch for about an hour before I drift off. It would be better if I stayed awake though because I dream about Ray as soon as I close my eyes.

In the dream I have that night, which is really just a memory, I'm Pixie's age. I have this dream a lot and revisit this memory often. It's one of my recurring nightmares.

"Hey, Austin? You want to help me make some money? I'll give you ten bucks," Ray asked me that day.

I knew even then not to cross Ray or say no to him when he wanted something from me, which was a very rare occurrence until that day.

"What do I have to do?" I asked curiously.

"I have a friend who wants to hang out with you. You just have to go hang out with him and be his friend for one hour. That's all," Ray said.

I shrugged my small shoulders. "Okay. That doesn't sound bad."

"But you have to stay the whole hour. That's the deal. If you don't, or if  you're bad when you're there, you don't get the ten bucks and I'll be mad at you. You'll be punished. Understand?"

Punished could mean a lot of things in Ray's world, none of them pleasant. He particularly enjoyed whipping me with electrical cords, forcing me to drink hot sauce, making me sleep in a dog cage and burning me with cigarettes, among other things. He was always coming up with new ways to torture me. I hadn't yet learned the crucial survival skill of not showing your enemy what gets to you, what's important to you. Don't give them ammo. But I was an idiot and screamed and cried, laying bare all my weaknesses. As a result, both his cruelty and creativity were boundless.

I nodded as if I had a choice, and Ray smiled his scary smile. "Good boy," he said, "One more thing. You don't tell him your real name. Your name today is Caleb. Got it?"

I nodded.

"Let's go."

We were living in a motel at the time. Ray took me down to his friend's room, which was just like ours except everything was on the opposite side like we were inside a mirror. I was surprised to see that the guy wasn't a little boy but a grown man. I  didn't know why a grown man would want to be friends with me.

Ray and the man were talking about something in low tones, and I saw a wad of money pass between their hands. It was the most money I had ever seen in my life. Dozens and dozens of bills wound together with a rubber band. The two of them seemed to be deciding on something. I heard Ray say,

"I want him back the same way I'm leaving him."

The guy mumbled a question and handed over another few bills, but Ray shook his head, gave the bills back and said something like, "He's not prepared for that."

The man looked upset, and Ray got this look in his eyes that made my blood freeze, and he said something to the man really low, and the man held up his hands, looking scared. Then Ray said, "Just like we agreed. If you damage my product I'll cut you open and let my dogs eat your guts. Got it?" The man nodded frantically.

Then Ray left, and the man closed the door. He smiled at me. He was an older white guy with some gray hair but not really old enough to be a grandpa. There was something weird about his smile, like the Joker from Batman. I didn't know why, but he scared me.

"What's your name?" he asked me.

"Aus- I mean Caleb," I whispered, stepping back one foot at a time.

"Come sit with me, Caleb," he said, sinking down onto the bed and patting the spot beside him. I slowly walked over and sat down next to him on the edge of the mattress. The man smiled. "I brought you a present."

"Really?" I asked hopefully.

"Yeah. Look," the man said, and he reached into a bag at his feet and took out a big Matchbox Cars play-set with a loopy racetrack. I had never seen a toy so cool. The man opened the box and set up the racetrack on the bed.

"Can I play with it?" I asked.

"Sure. All you want. You can even keep it if you're a good friend today," he said.

"Wow, really?" I grinned, crawling onto the bed. This was the best deal I'd ever gotten: ten bucks from Ray and a new toy, just for hanging out with this old guy!

I played happily with the racetrack for about twenty minutes, and then the man said, "Okay, that's enough cars for now."

"But I want to play more," I whined.

"Like I said, if you do what I want and be a good friend today, you can keep it and play anytime you want."

I sighed, looking longingly at the play-set. "Okay. Then what do you wanna do now?"

"We can watch some TV. Do you like cartoons?" he asked.

"Spongebob."

The man turned on the TV and flipped through the channels. "Doesn't look like Spongebob is on. I'll just leave it here."

I didn't know what was on TV, but there were two people kissing and they didn't have clothes on, and they were doing something together and making weird noises. I had never seen grown up naked people before so I was curious at first. But then the man put a hand on my back, and I stiffened as I felt the hand go up my shirt.

"Why are you doing that?" I asked, looking back at him with a frown.

"Don't you like to have your back rubbed?" he asked.

"Not really," I said.

"It's pretty hot in here. Why don't you take your shirt off? I'll help you."

It was July, and it really was hot, so I thought nothing of it.

"I can take mine off too," the man said, and he did.

I could feel the man's breath on my neck. He was so close. I felt this weird knot in my stomach. Not fear, exactly. Something else. Something telling me to get away.

"I kinda want to go outside now," I said, standing up.

"But Ray said you wanted to be friends with me," he said.

The man gently took my hand. His voice turned kind and soft. "I need you to help me with something. Then you can leave with your new toy. I promise."

"What do I have to do?" I asked.

"Well, we're both going to take off all our clothes, like the people on the TV. Let's do that first, and then I'll tell you what to do next. What do you say? Does that sound too hard for a big boy like you?"

"No, that's easy, but why do we have to have our clothes off?"

"That's part of the game we're gonna play."

"What game?"

"It's called the Naked Game. Here, I'll help you undress."

I pulled away. Only Mom took off my clothes, and I had never heard of this Naked Game before. I knew deep down in some primal way that this was really weird and wrong, but I just didn't know why... so I had no reason to object. Besides, the man was nice, and he told me it was okay as he helped me take off my shoes, jeans and Underoos. We were both guys, so maybe it was okay. Maybe this was normal.

"Now you help me," he said.

"But you're a grown up. Can't you undress yourself?"

"That's not how the game works."

"You didn't say that before," I argued. "You didn't even say the rules!"

"If you don't help me, you'll lose points. I thought we were friends. That's what friends do, help each other. Maybe I should just take the play-set with me and give it to some other boy who's nicer than you."

I looked down. My stomach was churning. I didn't know what to do. I really wanted that race track.

"Um... I guess I can do it," I mumbled.

"Start here," the man said, and he took my hand and put it on his zipper.

I changed my mind and tried to pull away, but he held my wrist so tightly it hurt.

"Let me go! You're weird, and I don't want to play this anymore!" I cried.

"You promised you would help me. Do you want me to tell Ray what a bad friend you are?" the man asked, squeezing my wrist as I tried to twist it out of his grasp.

At the mention of Ray's name, I froze. I could only imagine what Ray would do to me if I screwed this up.

"No," I said, my chin trembling.

"Then do what I say. Don't cry. No need to cry. You be a good friend to me, and I'll be a good friend to you, Caleb," the man said, gently wiping my tears away. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I won't hurt you. You'll like the game we're going to play."

"Okay," I said.

"Are you sorry?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

"I'm really sorry. Please don't tell Ray! Please!" I sobbed.

"Maybe I won't, but you need to prove to me that you're sorry," he said, frowning.

"Okay. How do I do that?" I asked tearfully.

"You were helping me undress so we could play the Naked Game."

Trembling, I did what the man asked me to do.

This is where the memory breaks apart. From there, I only have flashes. I remember being on the bed, looking at the window. The image of those twisted yellow blinds is burned into my skull forever. Then there's nothing, almost like I fell asleep. The next thing I remember is Ray coming to get me. I remember he said,

"If you ever tell anyone about today, I'll kill your mom. Then I'll kill you."

After that day, Ray sold me time and time again to dozens of pedophiles, most of them repeat customers who "rented" me by the hour. I was his slave. His "product" and his profit. I never saw how much money he made off me, but it must have been a lot because he was so pissed when I got taken away from Mom.

Until I was taken into state custody, I figured out how to go somewhere else in my head while it was happening, just like Pixie with her doll's eyes. I could feel myself actually leave my body, walk out the door, go to a park, play on the swings. I lived inside my head, built whole universes there where I was king and nobody could hurt me. Back in the real world I was on autopilot, a shell, a robot. I did whatever the men asked me to do. I  let them do whatever they wanted to me. I didn't know what was happening to me, but I knew it was wrong. So wrong.

I didn't dare tell my mom. I was so ashamed. I knew that, somehow, I had made these men want to do these disgusting things to me, and I hated myself for that, hated myself forever.

I wake up from the memory with my face wet with tears. In my sleep I must have reached for the baseball bat I keep in the floorboard of the van, and now I let it fall, realizing I'm safe. As usual, the memory has made me nauseous. I open the passenger's side door and lean my head out to puke up what little I ate for dinner today. Then I try to get my shit together and stop freaking out before I wake Pixie. My chest clenches as I try to breathe steadily through the panic attack. I do this thing  where I count my fingers over and over again. Five, five, five, five, five. For some reason it really helps me calm down. I'll tap my fingers on my leg pinkie to thumb and then thumb to pinkie over and over, counting them.

I don't think about the past very much. My brain won't let me remember a lot of it.  Sometimes there are large gaps where I know something horrible happened to me, but the details aren't there. But those memories live in my subconscious, so when I'm asleep I'm never safe from them.

1,2,3,4,5. 5,4,3,2,1. Pinkie to thumb. Thumb back to pinkie. Five fingers.