Free Asking For It by Alyssa Kress

no!" A jabber of excited Spanish followed, none of which Griffith could understand. She waved her arms at him, waving him off.
    Griffith cheerfully ignored the warning. "You gotta take me with you," he told her, and pulled open the passenger side door. "I'm a prisoner here. Prisonero." He had no idea what the word was in Spanish. " Peligro ," he said instead.
    " Peligro !" Unfortunately, the daft woman seemed to think Griffith was the danger. She hit him with her purse, an assault Griffith could have withstood blissfully given the benefit of getting to Sagebrush Valley City, but when she saw the purse wasn't having its desired effect, she whipped out of it a huge can of pepper spray. " Véte !" she said.
    Griffith didn't have to know Spanish to understand that one. Out on the asphalt drive, he held up his hands. "Nice, cook," he murmured. "Nice one."
    Snarling, she reached across to close the passenger side door, set her pedal to the metal, and roared away, spraying Griffith with road gravel.
    Spitting sand, he turned around to find a tall, thin boy watching. Griffith straightened, gave a brush to his T-shirt, and endeavored to look dignified. "Having a good time?" he asked. "Enjoying the show?"
    The boy continued to look at Griffith. His hair was very dark, and long enough to brush his shoulders. His clothes hung long and loose, as if they'd been handed down from an older, larger relative. His eyes, nearly dark enough to be black, glittered with a sardonic amusement far beyond what a child should own.
    "You want to leave?" the boy asked.
    Griffith blinked and paused. "You know the way?" Hell, it hadn't occurred to him to query any of the campers .
    Looking even more amused, the boy inclined his head.
    Hopeful as he was, Griffith held onto enough common sense to question this. "It's not an easy trail down."
    "I know." The kid grinned. "But this is my fourth year here. Up and down. That's seven times so far. I can show you the way."
    Griffith squinted. It was possible.
    "I've done it," the boy went on, evidently smelling suspicion. "My first year I ran away. Got as far as Bert's place, too, before they found me."
    Bert's place, Griffith recalled Kate telling him, was at the bottom of the hill. He regarded the child with renewed interest. "Well, then," he said, and started to smile. This could work. This could work nicely.
    "I heard you offer Bill five hundred dollars," the boy said.
    Griffith's smile faltered.
    "I want a thousand," the boy declared.
    "A thousand!" The kid was a total operator.
    "You won't be able to find anyone else who'll take you," the boy pointed out, with an accuracy Griffith grimly acknowledged.
    "You're just a kid." Griffith knew he was fighting a losing battle. "What, eleven years old?"
    "Fourteen," the boy said, his smile freezing.
    "Okay, fourteen." Going on forty. "Sorry. Still. What the hell do you need a thousand dollars for?"
    The fourteen-year-old camper lifted his shoulder, his expression eerily hardened. "What do you need it for? Do we have a deal, or don't we?"
    Griffith actually hesitated. Arnie had said some of the kids were connected . He didn't want to imagine what this fourteen-year-old might intend to do with a thousand dollars.
    On the other hand, this might be his only chance.
    "Fine," he told the kid. "A thousand dollars for taking me down the hill. We have a deal."
    The smile on the boy's face widened. For a minute his pleased triumph made him look like an actual child. "Great. Tell you what. I'll take half now, half when we're at the bottom of the hill."
    Griffith laughed. "I don't have any money now."
    The boy's smile started to fade. "You don't?"
    "Of course not. But as soon as I get to Sagebrush Valley City and my people come to pick me up, I can hand you the cash. How's that?"
    The kid shook his head, his smile twisting into a smirk. "No way."
    "Come on. You can trust me."
    The boy gave Griffith a look that said he had to be kidding.
    "All right, I'll make it five thousand, how's