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I reach back down my skirts and find the head of the strip of teeth. I jerk, wincing as the epoxy pulls off half my skin with it. Holding the strip in my hands, I pull the pliers from my shoe.
With all of them watching, I stick the pliers in my mouth, secure the iron bits to my second back molar, and jerk hard. The tooth doesn’t come out straight, but I saw Victra plop out a baby standing up without a single yelp. I rock twice and jerk again, using both my arms. The blood pours down the back of my throat as the tooth and root burst out. I hold up the pliers, o
pen my mouth so they all see, and then I swallow the blood. I take another one of Fig’s teeth from my strip and shove it against the wound. There’s a sizzle, a pain that shoots through the root, through my nostril, into my eyes and brain. It’s the second I’ve put in. I wipe the blood from my lips and smile.
Tails gives a little gasp. The rest of the girls look terrified except Freckles, who tilts her head, and the little one with the mane. We’ll call her Lion. She claps her hands together until Freckles shushes her.
“I ain’t from here. Where I’m from, these fucks killed me whole clan,” I say. “I ain’t here to be no brood sow. I ain’t here to be no grayline whore. I ain’t here to be saved. I’m here to kill those bastards. Any of you sisters got similar intentions, you better speak up, or you’re gonna be a slag toy till you see the Vale.” I hold up the pliers. “So, who wants to save themselves?”
Little Lion bounds forward.
We swallow our pulled teeth so they don’t find them hidden under the mattresses. After I explained what Fig’s teeth do, Freckles got all but two of the girls to get in line. She held them down when I pulled the teeth, and made sure they were quiet. One wailed so hard the guards outside beat the door with their rifles. After their teeth were stripped, I secured each of Fig’s devices myself and Freckles helped Lion clean up their blood. I find out from the others that Lion is Mora—Brea’s sister. Only Tails and another smaller girl refused my offer.
I sit down next to Tails as Freckles cleans up the last girl. She’s murmuring under her breath how we shouldn’t do this. How they’ll hurt us. I put an arm around her. “Listen, you don’t have to join in. All I need is you to be quiet, right? We’ll get you home.”
“Y-you’re gonna get us all killed,” she says. “You’re crazy.”
“Yeah,” I say, realizing nice isn’t gonna work. “Yeah, but you remember what I do to rats?”
“She stabs their eyes out,” Lion says from behind me. Her hands are balled into tiny fists as she glares at Tails.
“She stabs their eyes out,” Freckles adds. Several of the girls repeat it around Tails until she covers her ears. I lean in front of her. “Remember.” I bring my finger to my lips. “Shh.” I leave as dramatically as I can, but a thought catches me. “Can you read?” I ask her.
She shakes her head.
And now I’ve got a backup plan.
They collect us midmorning when a rumble comes through the walls. A transport waits outside. Some of the relatives of the girls come to see them off, the rest hide from their own shame in their chores, making up the boats and chiseling snow off the roofs. Some of the girls cry as we’re pushed onto the transport, but none as loud as poor Tails. Others tongue their gums till I shoulder them. Lion and Freckles glare at the Red Hand militia as we board up. I slump forward and sit on the freezing metal bucket seat, keeping my eyes down as the door clamps shut. The guards don’t chat much to us. They just smoke their burners. Some few women are with them. They think they’re men, or at least they think they’re better than us dumb sows because they’ve got guns and knives and pants, and we’re in skirts.
A few of the girls are nauseous by the time the shuttle sets down. Freckles pukes a little in the corner. There aren’t any windows, so the first time we get fresh air is in some cavern hangar that was carved ages back by clawDrills.
This is their fortress? After seeing the Citadel of Light, I almost laugh.
Ambient light dies as we’re led away into the main of the mine. Maybe I thought the Red Hand was something big back when I was in 121, but next to the Citadel Lionguards or Barca Sols and especially the Ascomanni, these louts are a joke. We spot maybe a couple hundred as we are led down an ancient gravLift into the township. A few boys whistle at us as we go. A few run up and pinch our cheeks before getting clouted by Picker and Duncan, who smiles at us as if being nice will save him from bad dreams.
They dump us in some old barracks for Grays. Everything’s rusted except the small sad affectations they added for the sake of us womenfolk. There’re beer bottles with wildflowers. HCs playing old comedies. And a couple old hens who introduce themselves and inspect our armpits. They check our teeth for cavities, and when they see our irritated gums they murmur to themselves about gum disease. Then they bring in an old Yellow man with a limp to check between our legs for lice and other maladies, as if we’re the ones who’ll have them.
It’s all I can do not to crumple the Yellow’s skull with a beer bottle when the cold forceps spread me so he can look inside. He pats me gently on the knee and looks at me in sorrow. When we’re done and I’m confirmed not-diseased, they let us alone with the other newcomers from other towns along the coast. No one mingles. Freckles eyes the other girls like intruders. I see Tails taking a step toward them and click my tongue. She stops and stares at the ground.
They give us a precious pack of burners for being “honorable lasses” and treat it like it’s Venusian chocolate. The girls look like idiots smoking them down. Most have never even had tobacco. A few puke. I take the burner from Lion’s fingers and tear it apart.
“How old are you, even?” I ask.
“Eleven.”
“Going on forty,” Freckles says. “She’s crazy, that one.”
“I ain’t crazy,” Lion protests. “You’s the one in love with a Gray.” Of the other girls, she seems to respect only Freckles’s opinions. I raise an eyebrow at Freckles.
“Grays are risky business.”
“So mind your own. When we gonna do it?” she asks.
“Like I said, when they pair us off. We’ll be alone then and able to get their guns. Make sure the other girls remember.”
“We gotta wait that long?” She glances back at Tails. “Known her since I was five. She’s gonna tell them soon as we split up. Soon as we can’t see her rat.”
“You know that for a certain fact?” I ask.
