Minutes ticked by before she softly cleared her throat. "Anyway," she said in a horse voice, "word on the street was that there was this guy who'd pay decent money to take . . .pictures of kids. Boys, girls, it didn't matter." She cleared her throat again. "As long as they were young. The younger, the better, in fact."

I couldn't suppress the shiver of revulsion that ran through me at her words. "A pedophile." More things made sense to me now. Like why Cavallo would set Ice up using the lie of pedophilia, something obviously guaranteed to get her fire up.

"Yeah. Into selling child pornography. By that time, I'd started going through my growth spurt and looked older than I was, but I needed the money and figured what the hell. It seemed as good an option as any. After all, what harm could a few pictures do?"

"Jesus, Ice . . . ."

"Yeah, well, I didn't think about those things then. I just needed money and it seemed an easy way to get it. So I got directions over to his place and took Boomer with me. Figured with Boomer there, he couldn't make me do anything I didn't want to do."

She pulled her hands from under the sheet and I sensed she was going to try and distance herself from me during the rest of this tale. I grabbed her wrists as I'd done before, demanding contact with my body to let her know that it was safe to tell me her story. "Please, Ice, go on. I need to hear this and I think you need to tell it. It's been festering inside you too long."

Relaxing slightly, she allowed me to pull her arms back around my body and laid her cheek against my hair. "He was an older man, maybe mid or late fifties. Longish greasy gray hair and always a day's growth of beard. He lived in a really seedy apartment in a run-down building on the outskirts of the city. I tell you, if there were a quintessential pedophile, this guy would probably rate a picture in the dictionary."

When I didn't laugh, she sighed. "Yeah, I know. It isn't very funny."

"Not by a long shot."

"Are you sure you wanna hear this? It's not something about me you really need to know."

"Ice, I want to hear it. I think it's very important that I do. Please."

"Alright. Anyway, the guy didn't seem to have enough money to buy decent furniture or even a mop or vacuum cleaner, but he had this extremely expensive studio in one of the bedrooms. The photographic equipment alone must have set him back big time, let alone the lighting and other stuff. I went up to the door and knocked and when he opened it, I thought Boomer was gonna take his head off. The guy almost peed his pants, though by the look of them, I doubt anyone would have noticed. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. He said that the dog had to say outside. To which I replied, of course, no dog, no pictures. He thought about it a minute, then let us both in. The apartment was dark and smelled like a gas station bathroom."

"I bet you were pretty scared, huh?"

"Scared isn't the word. I was terrified. But I just kept telling myself that both Boomer and I needed the money. It got me into the studio. He didn't talk much. Just told me he'd give me twenty five dollars if I'd get undressed and sit on the bed so he could take pictures of me."

"Twenty five dollars?" I gasped.

"Yeah. Doesn't sound like much, does it. But it was a huge deal for me, considering I had about quarter to my name by that time."

"So you did it."

"Yeah. I had Boomer sit in the corner and I stripped down to nothing. He just kinda stared at me for awhile, then told me to sit down. He shot a few pictures. Then he began to put me in some pretty suggestive poses. I just kept reminding myself how much I needed the money."

I could feel the sting of tears as they leapt into my eyes. Ice rubbed her hands briskly up and down my arms, comforting us both.

"After he was done," and here she took another deep breath, "he offered me another twenty five to have sex with me. I took him up on it. Fifty dollars could keep me alive for a week, if I played my cards right. My virginity didn't seem that high a price to pay, given what I'd already been through."

That did it. The sob broke out before I could even attempt to stop it. Ice immediately wrapped me in her strong arms, kissing the crown of my head and rocking me. "Don't cry, Angel. Please don't cry. It happened a long time ago."

It incongruity of it all hit me hard. That a young woman who'd given up her innocence for the price of a few meals would be holding and comforting me, a woman who'd never had to worry about food or shelter, made my tears of sorrow turn to tears of shame.

I tried to pull away, but she only held me closer, stroking my tangled hair in an almost desperate way as she continued to beg me not to cry.

My shame and sorrow quickly turned to burning anger. I raged at the man, and so many others like him, who had preyed on the innocence of my friend and untold hundreds, if not thousands, of other young children just like her, forced by tragedy to trade something so overwhelmingly important for a pittance.

I longed to lash out at the image in my mind. The image of Ice as she was in that photograph; young, pure, beautiful being posed and fondled and invaded by a slathering, unnatural beast masquerading in the guise of a man. My body followed through on what my mind so desperately wanted and before I knew it, my tightly clenched fists impacted sharply on warm skin.

My eyes flew open in stunned disbelief. Ice stared down at me, shock naked on her beautiful features. She released me quickly as if my body burned and stood up from my bed, the stoic mask quickly settling over her face.

"Oh God," I moaned.

"It's alright, Angel," she said in a totally calm tone of voice. "It isn't something I haven't imagined doing to myself a dozen times over since it happened." Her eyes were hooded. "I was right to have wanted that story kept where it belonged. I'm sorry you had to hear it."

"No, Ice! God no. Please, listen to me. It wasn't you I was lashing out at. It was him! That monster that took your innocence away from you."

"Angel, my innocence left the minute I found out my parents had been killed. He didn't take anything that I didn't give freely."

I sat up straight on the bed, bringing the sheet up with me. "Freely?!? As freely as a bear gives up its life when it walks into a hunter's trap?"

"A bear doesn't know it's walking into a trap, Angel. I knew what I was doing."

"Ice, bears and all kinds of other animals are lured into traps all the time. Just like young children are lured into cars by the offer of candy or some other treat. You weren't any different. You went because he offered you something you needed. Money to stay alive."

Though she didn't say anything, I knew my words were penetrating that thick shield of guilt that she wore, twisted around herself, like a shroud. Her body relaxed slowly and I thought I detected just the faintest glint of gratitude in her eyes. I held my arms out and, to my great surprise, she came into them, allowing my embrace.

I moved back on the bed, gently guiding her down with me and, for the first time since we'd met, she allowed me to hold and comfort her. I molded her against me, stroking her hair and murmuring nonsensical phrases, feeling oddly maternal, as if I were soothing the young girl Ice had once been. And, in a way, that's exactly what I was doing.

She didn't cry. I think all of her tears had been used up long ago. But I knew that there was some deeply hidden part of her that was taking comfort in my love just the same, and that knowledge filled me with an elemental joy. After all, I had asked for this. Strove for it for two years now. To know the woman behind the mask. And here she was, snuggled tight against me, her head on my chest, showing a naked vulnerability that I had never thought to see. It was a gift of such immense proportion that mere words will never do it justice.

When she began speaking again, I was surprised, but held her close and listened to her cathartic words, knowing that I was most likely the first person ever to hear them spoken aloud.

"When it was over," she began, her voice soft and faintly muffled as she spoke against my chest, "he gave me the money he promised and told me I was welcome to come back anytime. He also said that, if I wanted, he could give me the names of other people who would be able to 'give me a hand' in the same way he did." She sighed. "I didn't much care at that point. I had my money and the only thing on my mind was finding a place with a hot shower and plenty of soap. I was sore and dirty and just wanted to get as far away from him as I could."

Taking a deep breath, she pulled away from my embrace, sitting back to lean against the wall of my cell, though she kept us connected by laying a hand on my thigh. "The money ran out pretty quickly and I found myself going back to him. Pretty soon, I was going to his friends as well. Some paid better, some not as well. Some wanted sex, some didn't. It didn't seem to matter much anymore."

She ran a steady hand through her midnight hair. "It went on for three years, almost. By that time, I'd gotten too mature to be of much use to the pedophiles anymore, but there was this man in Chicago who had apparently purchased some pictures of me and wanted to see me very badly. He was offering five hundred dollars and free airfare if I would come and pose for him. I did some asking around and found out that this guy was pretty reputable in certain artistic circles. I saw it as a one-in-a-million chance, and took it. The only problem is that I needed to leave Boomer behind."

"What did you do?"

"I'd developed, I suppose you could call it an acquaintance, with one of the corner store owners in the city and Boomer seemed to like him well enough. He promised me that he'd keep Boomer in the store to act as a guard dog until I came back, no charge. Seemed like a fair deal to me."

As her voice trailed off, a premonition stole through me, humping my skin into gooseflesh. "Ice . . . ."

"Yes?"

"Corinne told me that you . . .well, you went crazy after your best friend was killed. She was talking about Boomer, wasn't she."

The tears I thought used up sprang into her eyes then, magnifying their luminescence. "Yes," she whispered in a choked voice. "It was Boomer. There'd been a break-in at the store where he was staying; local street thugs looking for drug money from the till. Somehow, they overpowered Boomer and took him out. When I got back, I heard that they tortured him to death over three or four days, then threw what was left of his body in front of the store as a warning."

She blinked once, freeing the tears from her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks silently as her gaze became lit with the fire of rage. "I knew who did it. They weren't shy in their boasting." When she grinned, it was like a shark displaying a mouthful of deadly teeth to a baby seal. "I stalked them for a month. I learned every little detail of their day-to-day lives. When one of them even so much as took a piss against a brick wall, I knew about it. I was patient. Very patient."

Her fingers mindlessly plucked at the sheet trapped around my body. She didn't even seem to be aware that I was still in the room, and I made myself as still and quiet as possible. I didn't want that rage turned on me. "My patience paid off. I found out they were having a little get together of the whole gang in honor of the leader's birthday. It was gonna be in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city and everyone would be there." She laughed. "They just didn't plan on having an uninvited guest."

Her hand convulsed suddenly, trapping a corner of the sheet against her tightly clenched fingers. Her face was a grinning death's head mask. "I killed them all. Slowly. I wanted them to hurt just like the defenseless animal they had tortured to death. I wanted them to feel pain. Exquisite pain. I wanted to see the fear in their eyes and smell it coming out of their pores. I thrived off of their screams. I laughed when they begged for mercy. They were less than nothing in my eyes and that's what I made them. Stains on the floor."

When Ice started her tale of her killing spree, I felt my still-weak stomach knot up. By the time she had finished, I found myself hung over the bed, expelling water and bile into the basin she'd left there, my guts heaving and threatening to turn themselves inside out.

Ice's warm hands came down gently on my back, rubbing in circles as the last of the dry heaves left my system weak and reeling. When I was sure I was done, she handed me a rag and I wiped my mouth, then sat up slowly. "Sorry about that," I croaked around a raw and aching throat. "That hit me unexpectedly."

She nodded, cupping my cheek. "I told you it was a pretty ugly story."

"Yes, you did. But I needed to hear it as much as, I think, you needed to tell it."

Ice snorted. "I never need to tell that particular story, Angel. Believe me when I tell you that getting it out in the open hasn't made me feel any better about what I did. The courts were right. I did murder them. Intentionally. Calculatingly. In cold blood. I may have regretted it afterwards, but regret doesn't erase my actions."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Regret what you did?"

As she looked at me, her eyes were very serious. "Yes, Angel. I regret it very deeply. Though part of me revels in what I did to those kids, a bigger part feels very guilty. But regretting my actions won't bring them back any more than it will bring Boomer back. And regretting my actions won't stop me from doing it again. If you need proof, just look at what I almost did to Psycho when she killed Josephina. I'll never be able to control that part of myself. I'm not even sure that I want to." Smiling sadly, she tilted my chin up. "I am who I am, Angel. All the regret in the world won't change that."

Placing my hands over her larger ones, I gently drew them away from my face, kissing each before clenching them in my own. I looked deeply into her eyes and began to speak. "Ice, I know you believe that. That you're nothing but a murderer. But you're not, you know. You are so very much more than that."

Chafing her hands gently with my thumbs, I smiled. "You might think that what happened with Psycho proves your point, but it really proves mine quite nicely."

Ice tilted her head. "How do you figure that?"

"You could have killed her. I know you were ready to. But you didn't."

"I would have, if you hadn't been there."

"Maybe. But that's not the point. The point is, you didn't."

"Because you stopped me, Angel!"

"Exactly how did I stop you, Ice? Did I physically overpower you? Did I pull you off of her and fling you across the jail?"

"No."

"Right. I simply talked to you. I reminded you of things you already knew. I only appealed to the goodness already in you, Ice. Nothing more than that."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I could tell by the expression on her face that she very much wanted to argue the point. "But . . . ." Her voice trailed off.

I smiled more broadly, doing my own impression of a shark moving in for the kill. "No 'buts', Ice. You're a good woman underneath all that bluff and bravado. You know it. I know it. There are things that you've done which are horrible, some might even say evil. But you've also done some wonderful things. Things that even people who are supposedly 'good' all the time would never think or try to do. Yes, there's a side of you that's fueled by an intense rage. And there's another side of you that's capable of great things. What you have to do is choose which side rules your actions."

"It's . . .not that easy, Angel."

"No, it isn't. And maybe that's part of the reason why I'm here. Why we've become such good friends. Because I can see that part of you that maybe not many others know is there. And maybe I can help you bring it out more often in situations where rage is the only thing you know to turn to."

Ice shook her head. "Those are noble sentiments, Angel, but . . . ."

Releasing one of her hands, I placed my own hand on her chest, palm down over her strongly beating heart. "This . . .is a good heart, Ice. It's an honorable heart that's been beaten and bloodied. Let it heal. Let the rage and the guilt of the past go. You're right when you say that those emotions won't bring anyone back. Don't let them kill you too. You've been dying inside for too long already."

"I don't . . . ."

"Ice, let me help. Let me try to make you see the person I see every time I look at you."

With a sad smile, Ice gripped my hand as she stepped away, lifting it up and brushing her lips against my knuckles. "I don't think that's possible, Angel. But thanks. It means a lot that you would want to do that for me."

Leaning in toward her, I placed my hands lightly on her hips. "Let me try, Ice. At least give me that. Please?"

I found myself falling into her eyes once again. "Alright," she said after a moment, her voice deep and warm. Leaning over, she sealed her words with a gentle kiss. Then, grinning, she stood, gripping my legs and swinging them fully onto the bed. "And that, my dear, concludes story hour. Off to bed with ya. I'll have some tea and broth ready for when you wake up."

She untwisted and smoothed out the sheet, then tucked it up under my chin. Brushing the hair from my eyes, she placed a kiss on my forehead, then straightened up, tipping me a wink. "Sleep. Now."

"Yes, Ma'am!" I grinned.

"You're learning." Smirking, she turned to leave.

"Ice?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

With another wink and a casual wave, she left my cell. I fell asleep almost immediately, a smile on my face.

PART 11.

SPRING'S TRIUMPHANT RETURN brought with it a return to health for most residents of the Bog. The flu had hung on long and hard, eventually taking the lives of three more inmates by the time it decided to leave us.

As I child, I'd always been prone to head-colds that turned quickly into bronchitis, and as an adult, it appeared, that hadn't changed. Sickness had stuck with me like a secret lover through the rest of the long, dark winter, leaving me thin, pale and weak.

When the sun came out to play, warming our little corner of the world, I went out right along with it, running through the grass like a giddy schoolgirl and stopping only when my still weakened lungs saw fit to voice their displeasure through a spasm of coughing.

Every time I ventured outside, I fended off the pleas of my fellow inmates to again reprise my role as the Bog's 'star' short-stop. Breathing infield dust all day was something I had the feeling my lungs wouldn't be very thankful for. Instead, I spent my time slowly rebuilding my weakened muscles with the other Amazons at the free weight area.

Spring also brought with it some welcome news in the form of a plain white package stamped with the official State Seal. Inside was the printed copy of my official court transcript. Corinne and I spent many an afternoon laboriously going through each and every paragraph, word and punctuation mark looking for that elusive piece of evidence that could lead to an appeal for me.

Those afternoon searches were fruitless exercises, for the most part. No magic Rosetta Stone appeared to guide us through the hundreds of pages of legalese that twisted the mind and beguiled the eyes. Even Corinne's 'jailhouse lawyer' friends couldn't provide answers where there seemingly were none to be found.

During one such afternoon, Ice came to the library to visit on an infrequent break from her auto shop duties. Her hair was in wild disarray, her face lined with greasy smudges and, at that very moment, my welcoming eyes had never seen a more beautiful sight.

Grabbing a chair and turning it, she sat down, her forearms resting casually on the back as she looked down at the sheaf of paper decorating the table. "Any luck?"

I sighed, resisting the urge to just sweep the whole pile onto the floor.