"And yet," Bella continues, "you formed the expectation that if you acquired one, they wouldn't instantly assume bad things about how - and would let you keep it?"

"I was kinda hoping they wouldn't find out," he says. "For a while. Long enough to be worth it."

"What would you sew?" she asks, leaning against the nearest column and sliding to sit on the floor.

"Is that why they wouldn't want you to have a sewing machine, I wonder," says Bella dryly.

"Kind of icing on the cake as far as things Delaney Hammond Junior is not supposed to wanna do," he says with a shrug.

"What's your plan?" she asks. "Do you have the grades to get into college without being financially dependent on them, when I'm told you don't even show up to class? Have you considered getting a non-hooking job? How old are you now, for that matter?" She looks at the ceiling. "Or is it your life's ambition to do something just scandalous enough that you can't be bought out of jail, and you're on a long hunt for where that line is so you can poke a toe over?"

"If I wanted to be in jail, I'd walk into school and kill somebody," he says, like it's so obvious he doesn't have to think about it. "I don't wanna be in jail. I don't wanna be dead, either. Killing yourself's easier than killing somebody else; you're guaranteed one less person trying to stop you." He shrugs again. "Shit, if I had a plan, I'd be out of here by now."

"Well, it looks like you're better at those than I am," Alice observes.

She shakes her head. "Not specific enough. What does out mean? What outcomes qualify?"

"Okay," he says. "If, like, my fairy godmother showed up and whacked me in the face with her magic wand, my three wishes would be: never see my dad again, live by myself until I don't want to, and get to spend all my time making clothes or cooking or, you know, doing fun things."

Bella taps her chin. "You never told me how old you are, did you?"

"Eighteen."

"Age of majority makes a difference," explains Bella, "for some possibilities. If those are really your three wishes: what would happen if you told my dad how your ribs got broken - and suffered through the mess that a trial would admittedly be?"

He closes his eyes and, moderately gently, whacks the back of his head against the wall behind him.

"Was that a demonstration of what you think would happen, or an expression of some manner of emotion?"

"...Little from column A, little from column B... look," he says flatly, "what I think would happen is, it would turn out I'd told your dad a really bad joke. Ha ha. Isn't that funny. Kids these days. 'Cause what you think happened, well, that doesn't happen. Not in families like mine. Not to kids like me. So it didn't. You get what I'm sayin', here?"

Bella rubs her forehead with her thumb. "Well," she says. "You have less reason than I to think highly of my dad's professional capabilities, and perhaps I'm biased anyway. But look, there are other options. You're eighteen. If you want to buy a bus ticket to Nevada and get a job at a brothel, he cannot actually stop you. I'd loan you bus ticket money, if you don't have even that much socked away. Does that count as 'fun'?"

"I tried the running away thing," he says. "It's pretty easy to run away in New York. Not so easy to stay gone."

"It's not running away, when you are eighteen, although you could separately get in trouble for vagrancy or similar and you might be dumped at your parents' house if no one has a better idea of what to do with you. If he is hiring private goons to kidnap you, that is also a matter for the police."

"Look," says Alice. "Illegal stuff isn't magically impossible just because it's illegal. And you know what really, really helps people do illegal stuff and get away with it? Huge. Piles. Of. Money."

"So," Bella says. "What does the scenario in your head look like? Step one, you borrow some cash from me and you buy a bus ticket to Nevada and board a bus that is traveling to Nevada. We don't tell anyone where you're going and because it is January in the Pacific Northwest you can use my ugly knitted face mask that I made when I was nine without arousing particular suspicion. Step two?" she inquires. "Does your dad hire a private investigator and learn your location and hire someone to kidnap you? Does he let out that you're fleeing across state lines after having committed some horrible crime for which there will pretty much be no evidence? Does he bribe all of the brothel operators in the state of Nevada to turn you away, and then all the restaurants in case you look for work as a short-order cook? If you would be specific about the failure mode it is not impossible that it could be patched, but you've already given up."