The door squealed open into the type of dimly lit world I'd often seen in crime scene photos. A blanket of white smoke hung thick in the air, the smell of the marijuana joined by a pungent mixture of stale alcohol and rot. Several men sat on a couch to my right, huddled over a spot on the coffee table in front of them as the base thumped from the speakers in the corner.

In the back, four men stood around a circular dining table shouting at each other as they threw a pair of dice into a wooden box. After a roll, three of the men shouted expletives as the shooter retrieved a stack of cash from the box and waved it in the air. Two pistols sat at the edge of the table as casually as salt-and-pepper shakers.

"Snoop", the man in the skullcap said as he closed the front door.

Another man emerged from the open kitchen on the left. He was tall and lanky, with a long nose and dark braids that resembled those of his namesake. Eddie held his arms up as the man patted him down for weapons. I did the same, silently thanking Eddie for making me leave my pistol in the car.

"They straight," Snoop said before disappearing back into the kitchen.

"Whatcha lookin' at, white boy?" the man who'd opened the door said. My eyes had drifted to the man on the couch who'd loaded a white rock into a glass pipe and lit it up.

"Oh, nothing man." The words barely escaped the desert in my mouth.

"My man here ain't mean nothin'," Eddie said to the man, trying to alleviate the tension between us. "All we here for is some tail."

The man turned back to Eddie. "Just see that he keeps his eyes to hisself. He ain't trippin' is he?"

"He ain't trippin'," Eddie replied.

"Aight." The man looked at the roll of money still in Eddie's hand. "How much you got?"

Eddie brought the money up and began counting. As soon as it was within reach, the man snatched the entire wad from Eddie's had and started counting it himself. "We gon' need all dis, you feel me? First-timer tax." I could feel Eddie tense beside me. The man quickly dropped his hand down to the bulge in his waistband. "Or do you have some objections?"

"That's straight," Eddie replied, stretching his neck.

"We gon' need the bud too," he continued, motioning toward Eddie's pocket. "I know you got sum." Eddie pulled out the other two blunts and handed them over to the man, who held one under his nose and sniffed. Then he looked at me. "Whatcha lookin' for white boy?"

I thought he said whatcha lookin' at again and I started mumbling in my defense. When I realized what he'd actually said, I shut my mouth. Both Eddie and the man were staring at me like I was crazy, waiting for me to say something. The man looked impatient. I gritted my teeth before I replied.

"A young one. Brunette."

The man started laughing and clasped my shoulder. "I gotcha playboy. I gotcha. I got just the thing. Y'all head down to 2E and my man will take care of you. But check this out. I hear about you doin' any weird shit, shit's gonna pop off. Ya heard me?" We nodded. "Now get tha fuck outta here." He opened the door and showed us out.

Back outside, Eddie stood in front of me and looked me over. "You got this, Jack." I was sweating profusely and my eyes felt like sandpaper, but was glad at least one of us was confident about my ability to pull this off. Eddie led the way out from under the covered area where 2A was located and down the walkway that connected the remainder of the rooms.

Several women in tight miniskirts and low-cut tops watched us as we walked by. One licked her lips, exposing two gold teeth on her top row, while another grabbed my ass and made a whistling sound as we walked past. I turned to say something, but Eddie grabbed my arm and led me on. "Don't feed the chickenheads," he said like it was gospel. When we made it over to 2E, there was a man outside waiting for us. He must have gotten a message from the man in 2A, because he opened the door for me as soon as I approached.

"Back bedroom," he said, his lips a thin line. "One hour."

I looked at Eddie, but he just nodded toward the open door.

Once inside, I pulled the door closed and relished the silence of the room. It had a similar setup to the one before and I noticed there was a hall to the right of the living room, which I assumed led back to the bedrooms.

As I stepped into the hall, one of the doors opened and a young white woman in her late teens stepped out. She was in her panties and wore a short cropped shirt that exposed her pierced belly button. Thick, dark hair flowed around her shoulders as she slid along the wall in the hall. In another time and place, she may have been my type.

"Oh, hey," I said. "Uh, how are you?"

She furrowed her brow and laughed to herself. "Well that's a first. You nervous honey?" She reached out her hand and grabbed mine, stroking it with her thumb. "Come on back and we'll take care of that."

I jerked my hand away. "I'm sorry. I think there's been a mistake. I'm, uh, I'm not supposed to be here."

"You don't like this look?" she asked as I stumbled back toward the door. She reached up and pulled on her hair, exposing the thin, blonde head of hair hiding under her wig. "I can be anyone you want," she cooed. The words slid off of her tongue with the grace and ease of someone who had said them a thousand times.

"I'm sorry," I said again as I turned and exited, refusing to look back. I fell through the front door a little more awkwardly than I'd hoped.

The man at the door looked startled. "That quick, Hoss?" he joked.

"No, I –" I wasn't sure exactly how to put it. "I wanted someone...younger."

He stared at me with dark, dilated pupils, not sure what to do. He was definitely high on something.

"I hear ya, I hear ya." He looked back and forth between me and apartment 2A. "Lemme get Tre," he finished, turning to leave.

"No, no," I pleaded, stepping in front of him. "He was busy and said he didn't want to be interrupted." I really didn't want to see Tre again. "Do you think you can just take me? The youngest you got." My stomach turned when I said it.

He glanced down the walkway again as he considered my request. "Aight," he said.

I followed him down the walkway and back down the same flight of stairs we'd used to come up. He had to pull up his pants every couple steps to keep them from falling down around his ankles. At the bottom of the stairs, we turned toward the first floor rooms. I glanced around for Eddie, but didn't see him anywhere. I hoped he was all right.

"1D," he said, pointing to a room three or four down from us, on a corner. "Jest go on in."

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up as I walked down to the room. When I reached the corner, a figure stepped out of the darkness. I stumbled backwards so fast I almost fell onto the concrete. Even though the dim light of the walkway barely reached him, I could see his hollow eyes and gaunt cheeks.

"Why so scared, Jack?" the figure mocked, his voice dry and labored. "Isn't this what you came for?" He opened his arms toward the door and flashed a toothless smile. I turned the knob and stormed through.

"Sarah!" I yelled as soon as I was inside. "Sarah! Honey, can you hear me? I'm here!" I raced through the living room and into the hall on the right. The first two bedrooms were empty, but the third appeared to be occupied.

The lights were off inside and several candles were burning on a nightstand. There was a bed in the center of the room, stripped of everything but the top sheet and a stained pillow. A young girl was lying face down on the sheets, her head turned away from the door.

"Sarah?" I said as I kneeled in front of the bed. She didn't budge. She's dead, I thought. I reached over and shook her shoulder gently.

When she stirred, I jerked my hand back. She was alive.

"Sarah, wake up honey," I coaxed. She moaned something into the pillow and then turned her head toward me. "Do you have any more?" she mumbled through chapped lips, her eyes dark and lifeless. I scrambled back against the far wall as my heart sank into my stomach. She was younger than the first girl—maybe 15 or 16—but the face staring back at me was not my daughter's.

It wasn't Sarah.

"Just a little more," the girl moaned again. "Please. It hurts." She reached out her hand, revealing the open sores on her forearm. Her veins were so dark against her pale skin, like rivers through snow. "I'll do anything," she pleaded.

"Do you...do you need help?"

The girl closed her eyes and rolled over, mumbling something to herself.

I sat against the wall watching the girl's back rise and fall with her breath. She probably had a mother and father somewhere who were just as scared and worried as Rachel and I were. At least she was alive. But for how long? I couldn't imagine what these people had done to her.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, but jammed it back in my pocket before hitting the call button. Sarah was out there somewhere and her life could be in danger if the police raided the Heights. No, that wouldn't do. I couldn't risk it. This girl would have to suffer a bit longer—at least as long as it took for Lester's trial to run its course. I vowed to call the authorities as soon as it was over and I had Sarah in my arms.

"Hold on," I whispered. "Just hold on a little longer."

If she heard me, she didn't show it. I stood up slowly and backed into the hall.

The broken man from outside had followed me in and was sitting on the couch. He was gaunt, with thin white hair that hung like spider webs from his wrinkled head, his body little more than a skeleton. He took one look at my face and doubled over in laughter, falling into a fit of coughing as I bolted from the room.

"Where's my daughter!" I yelled, grabbing the man who'd shown me to the room by the shirt and pushing him against the brick wall beside the open door. "I know she's here!"

"Fuck off me, man," he growled, knocking my hand from his shirt and pushing me back. "You done fucked up now!" He barreled at me swinging, full of brawn and fury but little coordination. When I stepped aside, he tripped and fell into the grass.

His face contorted into rage. When I saw him reach into his waistband, I took off running around the corner and into the darkness of Hawthorne Street. I could swear I heard his footfalls mere feet behind me. My mind conjured images of the gruesome trio that was surely chasing me: a crackhead with a gun, an old man that hobbled and wheezed, and a young girl with dark eyes and track marks on her arms. I tripped over something in the dark and went face first into the dirt, busting my knee pretty good. When I got up, I realized that no one was following me. I was alone.

Eddie was standing outside the car smoking a cigarette when I finally limped back, sweaty and bleeding.

"What tha fuck happened to you?" he asked, throwing the cigarette down. "You see her?"

"She wasn't there," I answered, my voice flat. Flattened. Deep down, I wanted to cry. It was as if my emotions had been cauterized, my open wounds now seared and black. It didn't help that my high had begun to fade and my head was pounding. "I lost her." I dropped my head.

"Get in, Jack," Eddie boomed, staring into the surrounding darkness. "We need to get outta here." It was the first time I'd ever seen anything remotely close to fear in Eddie's eyes. I'm almost certain it was because he'd heard the same thing I had: the dry, wheezing laugh that floated on the breeze.

I went to bed after midnight and spent the entire night tossing and turning. The little sleep I got was filled with terrible dreams. A terrible dream—every time I closed my eyes and drifted off again, I found myself in the same place.

Unlike the barren wasteland where Lester Crowe took me before, the lonely stretch of rusting train tracks could have been located anywhere in the United States. The tracks were situated on some type of levee; the kudzu-covered ground dropped steeply down on both sides until it met the edge of a dense wood at least twenty feet below.

I peered over the edge and quickly decided I wouldn't be making the climb down. That meant there were only two options: forward or backward along the tracks which appeared to stretch endlessly in both directions. I chose the direction I was originally facing.

Never go that way, sneered a familiar voice in my head. It seemed as commonplace as a voice over a car radio and I was only a little surprised that I recognized it immediately: a character from one of Sarah's favorite movies.

Rachel and I introduced Sarah to The Labyrinth—one of my all-time favorites as a child— when she was six. The young protagonist, Sarah, is forced to navigate the twists and turns of a magical labyrinth in order to save her baby brother Toby from the evil king of the goblins, Jareth. I'd always pretended she liked it for all of the reasons I did rather than for sharing a name with the hero.

At the beginning of the labyrinth, Sarah is trapped in a never-ending pathway until a small worm shows her the way through a wall. When Sarah heads off in the new direction, the worm admonishes her: never go that way. When she goes the opposite way, the worm tells the audience that the original direction would have led her straight to her brother who was being kept in the castle at the center of the labyrinth.

Another game, Lester? Unlike Sarah, I stayed my course.

I'd only walked a short distance before the dream crumbled around me and I awoke in my bed. I lay there staring at the ceiling, finding it strange Lester had brought me into the dream only to remind me about a stupid movie. He wasn't that petty, was he? I got out of bed to get some water, then settled back into the covers and closed my eyes.

Once again, I found myself on the train tracks in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't tell if I was in the same position as before since the tracks all looked the same. I continued walking and this time I made it several miles before the dream ended.

The third time I entered the dream, I immediately took off running. I found that if I took the cross ties three at a time I could establish a good rhythm and not lose my footing, even though I had the familiar feeling I was running through quicksand.

After a while, I was finally able to make out something in the distance: a dark cloud of birds, circling around something below on the tracks.

When I was about fifty yards away, the stench hit me. Rotting flesh. I'd never smelled anything like it before and it's the type of smell that seems to permeate your pores even if you hold your nose. I stopped and tried anyway, looking back over my shoulder briefly, but refusing to turn around. I was supposed to see whatever Lester had placed on the tracks in front of me—no point in prolonging it.

At about thirty yards, a creeping dread grew within me. My legs felt like they were weighed down with bricks. It's a body, I thought. Although most of it was concealed by the birds that perched on and around it, I could just make out a black dress shoe dangling over one of the rails. I was pretty sure it was a man's shoe and breathed a quick sigh of relief. For a moment, I thought it may have been the young girl from the Heights who'd finally overdosed on whatever drug her captors had been injecting her with.

When I got close, the black mass of crows took flight, squawking as they retreated.

All but one. It remained perched on the throat of the man, picking at his left eye. The other had already been devoured, leaving a gaping black hole. It turned its head toward me briefly, cocking its head and squawking, and then went about its business.

The body was in the late stages of decomposition, but I could see still see hundreds of marks all over the man's bloated skin—peck marks if I had to guess. The crows had done a number on him and I couldn't help but wonder if they'd killed him themselves or found him there on the tracks.

When the crow was finished, it hopped around on his throat for a moment before taking wing, following the dark cloud of its brethren out over the kudzu-covered treetops.

When I looked down at the man's face, I was unsurprised to find I recognized him.

He was me.

I awoke suddenly, safe beneath my covers, with a single realization lodged in my mind: Lester had won. He'd known the entire time that Sarah wasn't at the Heights. Obviously. It suddenly made sense why the man outside my car had taken my gun and refused to let me go inside, why he said it wasn't time yet. Lester couldn't risk his precious partner—his ticket out of jail—getting hurt, and he knew that's exactly what would have happened if I'd steamrolled my way into the Heights that day.

When Rachel woke up, I told her everything. There's only one thing worse than losing a child: losing one twice. She broke down, worse than I'd ever seen her, and I held her while her body shook and her tears soaked the front of my undershirt. When her eyes were red and swollen and she didn't have any tears left to cry, we both sat on the floor against the wall in the living room, broken and defeated.

"Where do you think she is?" Rachel sniffled.

I breathed deeply, then exhaled, feeling the air enter and leave as quickly as our hope had. Our ridiculous hope.

"I'm not sure," I said, staring blankly across the room at a picture on a side table of the three of us dressed up for Halloween the year before Sarah went missing. Rachel was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, complete with rosy cheeks and braided hair. I was the Scarecrow. I wore a sack on my head and Rachel had cut out a hole for the face. I'd regretted stuffing my shirt with pine straw for a full two weeks. Sarah was the wicked witch, of course. Rachel sewed her custom cape and hat and we'd made her nose out of green Play-Doh.

Rachel laid her head on my shoulder. "What do we do now?"

There was only one way forward. "I have to make sure Lester's acquitted of First-Degree Murder. He won, Rachel. I don't want to think about what that means for me, but at least Sarah will be safe. That's all that matters."