It shattered when it hit the floor, the honey jar, into four jagged chunks and a hundred tiny shards that scattered across the filthy linoleum. Jasmine stood above it with her chicken legs spread out in her Minnie Mouse dress. She stuffed her fingers into her mouth and looked
(more) up at Anya with big, teary eyes.
"Shit," whispered Anya. She sidled to the window to sneak a glance outside. Nothing there, no one. She fingered the handle of the gun in her waistband.
To be safe, she let the curtain fall back against the window pane and the room fell to smothered midday darkness. She could barely make out the girl standing in the center of the room, her dark skin melting her into the background so that only the whites of her eyes marked her place in the darkness. A whine started in the back of the girl’s throat.
Anya struggled to get the words out in English. "It is ok," she said, crunching ceramic under her combat boots as she crossed to the girl.
Jasmine clutched at Anya and buried her face in the older woman's baggy sweater. "We ain't got no broom. How I gonna clean it up?"
"Leave it," said their prisoner from the corner.
Anya looked sharply in his direction, couldn't find his eyes beneath the mess of dark hair that hung in his face. "Hush," she said.
"It's the damn apocalypse, woman," he said. "No use in cleanin' up after ourselves."
Jasmine turned her cheek to Anya's stomach to look at the man tied up in the corner.
"Watch yer language," she said.
The man scowled. "Watch your... butterfingers..." he tried, then fell silent.
(less)
