Bao stared at the ceiling. Her eyes flicked from left to right. The blur of daylight swept easily along with the motion. Her black kohl lines slurred their way into forming black snail trails across her hazy vision.

She bowed her head.

Batting her long eyelashes awake, she fought off the fatigue of so many sleepless nights. The saloon wouldn't allow her to relax. Not even for a moment. Clinks of cowboy spurs upon the staircase shattered her rest. Passing flutters of cold wind pierced under her doorway and up into her room.

Her room.

Her only escape from the overwhelming claustrophobia this world of the wild west had to offer her.

Bao doubted that her father had known exactly what he'd left her to do when he moved on with the railway's progression.

Of course, Mr Zimmerman had extended his honest handshake and reassuring words that her father's only child would be cared for "like one of his own."

Bao shivered at the memory of his words. If this was how Zimmerman treated his own, then she would be praying extra hard for them from now on.

The dull crack of gunfire split through her thoughts. She raced quickly to the lace-curtained window and grasped ahold of the top of her cream bodice.

The firm whalebone sewn into the corset gave her a sensation of steadiness. That everything really was alright in the world and as it should be.

Her slim, razor smooth legs wobbled for a second, until she peeked through the curtains and spotted him. There, further up the street on the other side. He ducked along the undertaker's decking and slid between that building and the bank.

Losing sight of him, she craned forward on her tiptoes to catch a glimpse of his handsome face. She prayed he hadn't been hurt. Sheriff Clayton deserved so much more than the dirty, underhanded dealings of Serenity.

She'd lain with corrupt officials and business men of the region. They were willing to talk about their motivation and reasoning behind their sneaky actions. They loosened up after sex. They believed her to be too stupid or stoned to think much about their revelations. After all, why should she care? Their view of her often kept her awake as well.

Bao's shaking fingers fiddled with her black braid then set it back down upon her right shoulder. She tied a thick red ribbon to the end of the plait and smoothed the hair flat against her skin. Her focus switched from outside the window as she caught her own reflection on the inside.

Her light brown eyes returned to the shape of her neck. Long and elegant. Two indents of marbled bruises marred her skin close to the line of her left collarbone.

Zimmerman.

He'd caught her sleeping on the job. Quite literally. Her customer, a forty-year-old prospector, had fallen asleep in her arms before he'd even mustered up the strength to do anything. Now, Bao knew that this kind of client was the type of gift horse never to be looked in the mouth. He snored and slobbered the hours away, leaving her to rest and breathe easy for the night. The morning would see him shyly pay his dues and head off. Neither of them worse for the experience.

Zimmerman had other ideas, he believed that no red-blooded fella worth his salt could turn down a 'perfect skinned little piece of action' such as she, as he often told her.

Bao shuddered at the memory. His burning steely-blue gaze clawed into her mind. The impact of the chest of drawers just above her right hip as he slammed her against it, with her neck caught between his tightening grasp. He never gave her a chance to explain. He understood the game, he said. He knew she could make more money by screwing the guy, he said. He would never let her leave. He said.

Bao blinked fiercely and returned her attention to the spot where the handsome sheriff had been down in the street.

Her countless daydreams of them running away together tortured her. The scenes of his heroic fights against Zimmerman and laying the man in his grave while setting her free, played havoc with her morning brain.

She so wanted to believe in that fiction. That one day, the tall, dark and damn handsome Clayton Bailey would finally express his secret love for her and rescue her from this hell.

He sometimes gave her a quick glance while she hung onto the banisters of the Spirit of the West's staircase. She leaned over in such a way, as Molly had taught her, to show her cleavage to its best advantage. This managed to turn many heads of prospective clients but also worked a treat on the one fish she really wanted to hook.

One night. She knew it would only need the one night to get him to confess his love.

As she absentmindedly stroked her braid, the image of Clayton's cautious figure making his way out from the shadows blurred into her own. In the glass they became one.

Bao sighed. Her sharp, red fingernails dug deep through her hair and drew short pink scratches along her neck.

She knew instinctively who had fired the shot. She even recognised the retort and echo from the calibre of the weapon.

Zimmerman had dragged her to the back of the saloon the day after her father had left her. He'd forced her to learn how to cock, load and fire his revolver. Then he'd handed her a Derringer and shown her how to use it. Oozing confidence that he had no thought of her daring to consider using it against him.

She'd stuffed the gun under her mattress as soon as she was allowed to return to her room. It waited there. For her, for Zimmerman, for whatever it was that crept around the hallway after midnight.

Sometimes she would wake from a nightmare and reach out from her blankets to find the touch of cool, strong metal under her shivering fingertips. It never ceased to bring her breathing back down to a regular pattern.

Unlike the Sheriff.

One glance from him could melt her to the ground. At least, that's where she wished to disappear to whenever he focused his beautiful deep eyes on her. She knew that he wanted her. She saw the animal lust that lived under the surface of his respectful face. Men couldn't hide that from Bao.

What she really wanted to know though was how far Clayton Bailey would be willing to go to satisfy his hunger? A paid night in the arms of a saloon escort would hardly raise an eyebrow for a Sheriff in a small backwater place like Serenity. Yet even Bao, with her limited knowledge of Western culture, understood that this could undermine the Sheriff's standing in the powder keg town.

One slip of what was portrayed as 'decent' behaviour, by the more zealous religious residents, and the Sheriff could lose their respect. Something that Carl Zimmerman would be more than happy to see.

She sighed deeply and let the net curtains fall back across the dusty windows. No one would die today. As usual, Zimmerman's bark was worse than his bite. Maybe only she really understood that. The men around town appeared to be scared stiff in his blustering presence. Bao, however, had come to understand the type of man he was. Full of threats and fear. Such a man would think before his actions, he sought to isolate her, blanking out any other person's interference. It had to be them and them alone. That's how he lived. He fed off complete idolatry. He would crumble to nothing without the crutch of his insubordinates. That's what differentiated him from his more vicious counterparts.

Real bad men didn't think. They didn't have to. A black fog would surround their brains and actions spoke louder than words. Those men scared Bao more. She hadn't met them often, but she felt them as soon as they came into her personal space. Usually, this kind of man, or woman, moved in way too close. Their unpredictability setting off alarm bells.

She'd seen it before. Her father's father had been that way. Her father and mother had doted themselves to him. Respected his every wish and carried out his every instruction for their simple, menial lives back home. Yet, on the day that changed everything she had seen her father stand up to him and for the first time she could remember, he had said 'No.'

She recalled her grandfather's face collapsing in on itself. The folds of age and skin rippled down into deep gullies of frowns.

"What do you mean, no? She has brought dishonor." He had spat out at her father, in the spring garden of their cherry orchard, back home.

Her father and mother had grasped each others hands. She, as a little girl on a swing between two cherry trees, had waved her feet up and down to create more motion. Her eyes fixed on her parent's clasped hands. Her ears tuned to the vibrations of her grandfather's voice patterns.

The old man's rage had burned in his cloudy eyes as hot tears attempted to calm the storm. He'd been mortified by the news of her mother's unfaithfulness and demanded her father to punish her correctly. Something he refused to do for the sake of one unwelcome kiss.

Grandfather's hand swiped his sword free from the scabbard before Bao had a chance to see. The lethal metal glowed red under the sunset.

She stopped swinging. Her legs no longer had the strength to push her higher. She squeezed the swing ropes so hard in her soft hands that they bled out. Red blood trickled over her white knuckles. She could sense the atmosphere thickening.

Her mother lifted her chin. She dropped her father's hand and took a step forward to her grandfather. Her gentle voice whispered across to Bao's young ears.
"Daughter, do not fear. The man before you is lost. He is within the mist and has no way out. Do not blame him."

The swish of the blade remained in Bao's ears long after that day. The cries of her distraught father haunted her dreams. Along with the repetition of his curses. "Monster. I have no father."

Praying eased her memories. There she found solace and peace. Molly had caught her praying on her knees before her small cross on the window sill. She'd made no remarks and even winked one hard-kohl lined blue eye at her protégé before leaving and closing the door quietly behind her.

Net curtains covered up a whole lot of secrets.

Her bedroom window lace wrapped around her little wooden crucifix. These net curtains blew gently with the night air, they kept her company in her restless hours. Dirty men snored beside her while she watched the nets flutter and gather in the moonlight. She allowed her mind to follow their patterns and play among the daisies and stars and diamonds within the furling designs.

Her heartbeat slowed and she gathered a deep breath as she reached out and took the twitching lace curtain in her fingertips.

For a second the wind through the open window tried to wrestle the material free from her control. It gave up and the curtain lay dead in her hand. She moved it back far enough to peek clearly out of the second floor window and down to the street below.

Clayton helped Old Bill to his feet. The pair stumbled out into the street and hurried away down the hill to Old Bill's shack beside the stables.

She gazed up to look at the open window above the undertaker's opposite the saloon. A dark shadow still lingered behind the twirling curtains.

A shiver ran up the back of her neck. Goosebumps broke out in a cold sweat over her bare arms. She wrapped her hands across her chest and rubbed away the chill from her skin. Whispers from beyond the world of the living snaked around her head, crawling their way into her ears. A perfume of fresh hay and paraffin clawed at her nostrils.

What was it trying to say? She heard these otherworldly rhythms of speech again and again in the night. Sometimes outside her door from the hallway, other times close to her head on the pillow as she lay with her eyes clamped shut. She prayed the whispers away. Night after night. Now, they had a new strength. They could reach her in the daylight too.