“A sobber,” the girl with black hair corrected. “Ugly one. Kept calling memommy.”
“Who sold you?” The girl with the braid asked me, tossing it over her shoulder.
“A friend.” I swallowed. ”Well, not anymore I suppose.”
Hana nodded slowly. “You’ll hate him eventually.”
Then I felt something strange creeping into the room. The air thickened and my head began to swim again.
I pressed a hand to my temple. “What’s happening?”
“We call it the mist.” Hana said. ”It’s in the air. Keeps us calm.”
My stomach clenched. They were drugging the girls. Keeping them docile and obedient, too weak to fight back.
I glanced down and saw thin white lines etched across Hana’s thigh.
“Are those… scars?” I asked as mist started to fog my mind.
She didn’t answer right away. When she did, her voice was hollow.
“This isn’t a normal brothel, you know. It’s the worst kind. There are no rules here.” Her eyes met mine. “They can do whatever they want.”
My voice dropped. “They hurt you?”
“They did,” she said softly. “And they’ll hurt you too.”
The mist curled tighter around me, thick and slow, like warm smoke in my lungs, and my limbs began to soften.
“Rest now, sweetheart,” Hana whispered beside me. “You’ll need your strength.”
I tried to stay upright, tried to keep my grip on the world. But it blurred, edges softening, warping, slipping sideways. And before I could fight it, darkness reached for me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was on my side.
Panic flared. I shot upright, heart pounding as my gaze swept the room. No one stood over me. There were no strange hands. No unfamiliar faces. Across the room, Hana caught the movement, she rushed to me in quiet, urgent steps.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “No one’s been here. Just us. She leaned in closer. “Are you scared? You’re not a virgin, are you?” Her gaze searched mine, sharp and critical. “You could tell them you are,” she said. “They might go easier on you for a little while.”
“Ready in ten,” A man shouted through the door.
“Shit,” Hana muttered. She scrambled toward a vanity, grabbing powder, patting down her robe, smoothing her curls with her hands. “Sorry, we’ve got to go.”
One by one, the other girls slipped out, the low pulse of music bleeding through the walls. I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore, then I slipped out of the room. My head was still spinning, getting used to the mist, but I still recall glimpses.
I passed an open room. A round table sat at the center, crowded with men laughing over cards and piles of coin. One of them raised a glass, another slammed his hand on the table with a bark of victory. Laughter, shouting, the clink of glass. And at their feet, barely noticed, a girl knelt. Her hands fumbled clumsily with the belt of the man closest to her, shoulders trembling as she kept her head bowed, herlong hair hiding her face. He barely looked at her, only leaned back in his chair and sipped from a crystal glass, candlelight flickering off the gold of his cufflinks. One of the other men tossed a card onto the table and made a joke aboutkeeping her mouth full.
The table erupted with laughter.
I kept walking, fighting the urge to incinerate the men. Behind a half-shut door came quiet sobbing, muffled and strained. And I remember a man in a long coat, walking past me without sparing a glance, reeking of cologne and wine. I rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of a girl wiping something red from the corner of her mouth. She turned away when she noticed me watching.
I moved like a shadow through the corridors, silent and compliant, trying not to be seen. I had to find Licia. She was somewhere in that place, and I wasn’t leaving without her.
I pressed forward, peeking into every open room, praying for a flash of strawberry-blonde hair, and a familiar face. But none of the girls were Licia. None of them even looked like her. Just painted strangers with hollow eyes drifting through the haze.
I turned a corner and nearly slammed into a man.
“You!” he barked, sharp and sudden.
