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Rita awoke to the darkness and the hangover that throbbed behind her sunken eyes. She reached over to the night stand for the bottle of pills that had tipped over next to the five dollar lamp with a torn shade. The small plastic bottle that she had bought on the streets the night before came with a dozen capsules, half of which she had taken before falling into a drunken slumber during the ten o'clock news. They went down her throat easy as Rita held her head back with a glass of Jack Daniel's to her lips. She placed the empty glass onto the dirty carpet next to the bed where she had picked it up. Jack always went best with her daily dosage. The ache behind her eyes had already dimmed as fatigue began to consume her. A used litter box filled the room with the stench of cat urine, even though the cat had been dead for nearly two weeks. Rita had found Chester under the bed stuck to the carpet with his own dried blood. When she had lifted him off the ground it made a horrible tearing sound as the flesh and fur tore from the carcass. It took nearly five hours to completely get the stain out from where Chester had bled to death. The cat had been hit by a car and somehow found his way home without dying; lucky for Rita.

She rested on the soft pillow with her eyes closed waiting to be taken by the Sandman. Staring into the darkness behind her eyelids Rita could see her mother. A bullet hole bled from her forehead leaving a red river down her face. Her Cranium had been blown open exposing what was left of the grey matter that seemed to be swimming in cranberry juice. On her face was the expression of a daughter's betrayal.

"Forgiveness can be a necessity to those who seek it."

Rita was unable to open her eyes under the weight of the pills but she could feel the pressure of someone kneeling on the mattress at the foot of the bed.  And when the intruder spoke it was the voice of someone familiar. More than familiar, it was a voice that she has had to listen to her entire life.

"But to many it is a luxury. A luxury you will never get from me."

"Shelly?" Her lips felt numb as Rita uttered her sister's name.

"You took her away from me. The only glimmer of light that has made this life endurable."

"She was threatening to call the FBI. She gave me no choice." Rita heard the click of the hammer being cocked on a gun.

"There is always a choice. You came to the crossroads of your life. You had to choose a path and the path that you have chosen has led you to this." She pressed the cold barrel of the .44 revolver to her sister's temple. The same .44 revolver that killed their mother. Rita began to cry. "She gave you existence and you took hers away. Tell me something, Rita, did she beg for her life? Was she in tears like you are right now?"

"Please. I don't want to die."

"Neither did our mother." Shelly pulled the trigger. The back of her sister's head exploded on the pillow soaking the fabric in wet pulp and bits of skull fragments. Now she was in a situation that she knew there was no way out of. They would come looking for her but she wouldn't run.   She would wait for them and accept whatever came.

On her way out the door Shelly picked up her sister's black overcoat that was slung over the purple chair by the door. She slipped it on stepping into the shadows of the bitter night.

It was raining on the day she found her mother's corpse. It was also the day her pregnancy test came back positive. She wasn't sure who the father was but she knew exactly when it happened. Five months ago in August in the alley behind the nightclub, Insomnia. It was one of the many clubs that was owned and operated by Yablans, Rita's boss. Most of them were fronts for the business that makes him the real money. Importing and exporting guns. Of course, the ATF agents who were on the case called it smuggling.

Shelly was leaning against the brick wall next to a dumpster that reeked of stale alcohol and cigarette butts. Her date was still inside dancing with a red head wearing a tight dress that looked as if it were painted on. She didn't have any money and he had the keys to the car and so she was stuck in the worse place she could be stuck. The hip-hop was loud, even outside. At the end of the alley she could see a man hiding in the shadow of the building begin to walk her way. He staggered as if he had had several drinks over his limit.

"Hey, lady, you got a cigarette?"

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