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Chapter four
Lyla
Thecomplexwaslarge, a gated piece of land in the middle of nowhere with four buildings. One building housed security personnel and the handlers on site, the remaining three housed girls of all ages. Building A had dormitories and training areas for girls under ten, Building B had the same for all girls aged ten to eighteen, and Building C—the one where she lived—had slightly larger dormitories and one medical room. Though it was a normal room, it had been dubbed so by the girls because that’s where they were sent if one of them came back too injured. It was the nicest room she had ever slept in, with a proper bed instead of the bunk beds they were given, and a soft mattress and two pillows. Her mattress was hard and her single pillow harder. Although it didn’t matter because usually when someone went to the medical room, they were in too much pain to notice any of the nice things.
She had been there once since she’d come to the complex—the night she’d met him.
She swallowed, shaking herself out of the painful memory, one that had sent her to the room for weeks to heal, one that had almost convinced her she was going to die.
Getting out of the car as the security people closed the gates, she made her way toward her housing and watched her handler, Three, come down the stairs from Building C. The girls didn’t know the handlers' real names. Most of them didn’t even know their own real names. They were all given names, and that’s who they became. Three had been her handler since she came to the complex at sixteen, for eight years. The woman was usually not as bad as handlers One and Two were. She was fair to the girls, wanted them fed and rested and looking good, and had simple rules for her dorms. As long as one toed the line, she was decent. But Lyla wasn’t fooled by the charade. She knew how quickly the switch flipped, how little time it took for calm to become cruel.
The older woman, at least in her forties, looked down at Lyla with a frown on her face. “Again?”
Lyla nodded. The question hadn’t even needed to be fully asked. After six years, they were all aware of the bad luck she brought her buyers. Everyone knew someone targeted them, but no one knew who.
Three shook her head. “Idiot men, they never learn.”
Lyla stayed silent, waiting for instruction. She didn’t have to wait long.
“Go, get rest.”
Without waiting for more, Lyla quickly skirted the other woman and climbed the stairs to the building. It was a few decades old, the paint peeling in some places and the furniture cracked in some, but it was still the nicest house she had been in. Complexes like these were many, and Lyla had lived in five different complexes—the most unusual for any girl—for some bizarre reason. Usually, a girl stayed where she was initially sent, getting familiar with the location and the handlers. She might be moved once, or maximum twice, but never five times, and Lyla didn’t understand why she had been. She’d been a compliant child, a quiet adolescent, and it just didn’t make sense. She was just glad she’d been steady for the last eight years.
Climbing the stairs to the second floor where her room was, she passed a few girls loitering on the landing, talking to each other about their customers or masters, whichever they had. There weren’t as many girls in this building as the others, mainly because a lot of girls were contracted for long-term and had to stay with their contractors. Just like her friend Malini had been for a few months.
She and Malini hadn’t been close, not until the night that had changed her life and the other girl had stood by her, letting her scream as she held her hand. In the aftermath of that event, Lyla had found the closest thing to a friend for the first time, and it had made breathing a little easier for a while.
Opening the door to her room, she walked in to find both of her roommates locked in a heated kiss, pulling apart when she entered.
“Sorry, I’ll come back later,” she told them.
“Nah, it’s fine,” the taller one of the couple, Reina, spoke. “We heard you got bid on again.”
Lyla hesitated before entering and going to her small bed in the corner, collapsing on it. “Yes.”
“Is he dead?” the other roommate, Millie, asked.
“Yes.”
“Damn,” Reina muttered, climbing the bunk bed to get on the top. “How?”
Lyla pointed to her forehead. “Bullet to the head.”
“Girl, I’d just about give anything for your stalker to be obsessed with me right now,” Millie remarked, the tinge of envy clear in her voice. “Any man near me dying? No fucking anyone? The best kinda life.”
“It’s not just any man,” Reina reminded her. “He's a killer. Sorry, but I’d take rich pricks any day over him. With rich pricks, I know what I’m getting. I can handle that.”
“But can you imagine...”
Lyla tuned out the conversation, closing her eyes and lying flat on the bed, not wanting to hear what they had to say. They didn’t like her. They lived with her, tolerated her, but she wasn’t their friend. They didn’t look out for her like they looked out for their actual friends. She didn’t know why, but that was just the way it was. For some reason, nobody had wanted to be her friend in all the years. The one friend she'd had in childhood had left her behind and run away, and Malini had left now too.
And she was tired.
Without changing, she simply climbed under her thin sheet and turned to the wall, giving her back to her roommates.
The wet sound of kissing filled the room like it did a lot of the nights, and Lyla simply tuned it out. All the girls got trained with both men and women, and many of them found companionship with each other as they grew up. It was perfectly natural in her world, and she was glad that Reina and Millie had each other. In the fucked up world they lived in, it was a boon to find something like this.
For her, there was nothing.
