It didn't matter whether Taiisha called them "tasks" or "lessons."  The terms seemed to be interchangeable.  Had Nikki expected any kind of reprieve after committing two mindless, random murders at Taiisha's behest, she would have been disappointed.  But she knew better.  No sooner had she dropped the knife, still wet with blood, than Taiisha threw her down the basement steps, jumped down after her, and handcuffed her to a water pipe.

"Get loose," Taiisha had said.  "Come upstairs.  I shall set this house on fire in a quarter hour, whether you've come or not."  And then she was gone.

Nikki lay still for several minutes, taking in the unfamiliar basement. The floor beneath her was carpeted, and the walls partially finished with wood paneling.  There was a small television and an orange couch, both looking like castaways from the more expensively furnished den upstairs.  A rickety bookshelf full of book club selections slouched against the wall behind the sofa.  Where the carpet and paneling ended, there were a washer and dryer, and a workbench.  Tools were neatly hung on the wall, and a worn-out three-speed bicycle as well.

None of that was much use to her.  Lying almost prone, with both hands manacled to a pipe, Nikki's five-foot-nothing height didn't allow her much chance of dragging a pair of bolt cutters down off of the wall, which was a good twenty feet away.  She could barely reach the television with her toes. 

The pipe she was locked to came out of the floor, made a ninety-degree bend just above her head, and then entered the wall, lead ending in concrete at both ends.  Too bad; she might have been able to kick a hole in a PVC pipe.  Nikki closed her eyes to think of a solution, ignoring as best she could the imaginary clock in her head that counted down the seconds until immolation.  The death wouldn't be permanent, but it would be excruciating.  And the punishment for failing, which would no doubt follow, would be worse.

It was easiest to do what Taiisha had told her to do.  Just doing as she was told was easy.  Even the killing.  Asking questions or refusing incurred a host of terrible repercussions.  Nikki had learned to stop thinking, if she didn't have to.  It was easier.  Open this door?  Okay.  Cut this woman's throat?  Okay.  Block my attacks?  Okay.  Get free from these handcuffs?  Okay.  Taiisha had showed her how to do everything.  All Nikki had to do was perform when commanded to.

Her eyes went to the paneling on the wall, tracing the seam that started just below the pipe.  That was it.  The wood had to be attached to something.  Nikki lay on her back and turned her feet toward the wall, arms twisted uncomfortably over her head.  How much time had passed?  Didn't matter.  Get free from the handcuffs and go upstairs, that was what mattered.  Nikki kicked the paneling, hard.  She was rewarded with a heel-shaped dent in the wood.  Several more kicks resulted in a good-sized hole, and the wood framing that held the paneling in place showed through.  Pieces of the paneling had broken off and hung loose, revealing what she wanted--finishing nails.  The two-inch long, narrow-headed nails made acceptable lockpicks.

Up on her knees, she was able to hug the pipe and get her hands close enough to the wall to pry a nail free.  The cuffs were off in seconds.

She ascended the basement steps as quietly as she could, but Taiisha was looking directly at Nikki as she entered the kitchen.  "Good," she said, not smiling.

Her legs ached, but Nikki didn't sit down.  Taiisha sighed, stood, and poured the rest of her coffee into the sink.  "Juice?" she offered.  She had already poured a glass.  Nikki took it, although the offer made her nervous.  Any expression of kindness from Taiisha did.  Unpleasantness invariably followed.  She asked no questions.  She knew that obedience was what was expected.

Taiisha resumed her spot by the kitchen window to watch Nikki drink.  The girl's black hair was cut short with scissors and conspired with her slight frame to make her resemble a preadolescent boy more than a nineteen-going-on-twenty woman.  With her big midnight blue eyes, just-barely-upturned nose, and a perfect little oval of a face she was somewhat less anonymous than Taiisha.  That was just as well; Taiisha didn't expect anyone in a position to remember the face to live long enough to identify it.  Either way, she tried to keep Nikki slightly scruffy and dirty; it made her more forgettable.

She collected Nikki's juice glass and put it in a trash bag.  "Hungry?" she asked.  Nikki shook her head no.  "Your sack is on the steps, Kerry," Taiisha told her.

Taiisha knew that Kerry was Nikki's middle name--Nicole Kerry Saxen, the name felt good on her tongue--but renaming her had been a simple enough task.  The girl answered to "Kerry" just as readily as she did to the other.

Without a word Nikki went to the foyer of the house that didn't belong to them, picked up the battered, oversized leather purse from where it rested on the cream-carpeted stairs, and hugged it tight to her chest.  It held all of her worldly possessions, and she hadn't seen it in several months. 

Taiisha heard her sigh of contentment from two rooms away.  She was giving the bag to her because the girl's traveling things were in it.  She'd need them.  She'd also need better shoes; when Nikki returned to the kitchen, Taiisha handed her a pair of battered blue Doc Martens she had been saving for the occasion.

Nikki recognized them instantly, and gave Taiisha a questioning look.  "Retrieved from the girl who stole them from you," Taiisha told her.  Nikki nodded mutely, and put them on.  The battered tennis shoes she has been wearing Taiisha added to the garbage bag.  Nikki wished she could have put the rest of her clothes in there as well; like the shoes they were streaked with dirt and elderly blood.  Taiisha rarely gave her a chance to wash them.

"Fifteen minutes," Taiisha announced.  Time to start the fire she had promised.  "Go to the car.  I'll be along."

"People will know they were dead before the fire," Nikki said.

"Don't care," was the reply.  "I'm burning away your lovely little fingerprints."