Page 14 of Darkness I Become
“A privilege of my status,” she replied. “I live here with my little sister, Cassie. It’s the safest place we’ve lived.”
Asha carefully kept her face neutral, not letting herself consider what Lana’s previous homes must’ve been like if she considered this the best one.
“So, you and the other women all live here together?”
“Yep,” Lana said, cleaning under her fingernails. “All the unattached women, anyway. A few of the men have claimed women, and they live with their men. But the rest of us live here, and we serve the single men.”
“Serve…how?” Asha asked carefully.
Lana shrugged. “How ever they need, really. We cook, wash clothing and linens, sort the packages that come from the Settlements.”
“The Settlements?”
“Where we get the things we need—food rations, clothes, and such,” Lana replied, sounding surprised. “Where did you think it came from? Someone’s gotta grow and make that stuff.”
Asha frowned. “What do you trade for it, then? I haven’t seen anything that—”
Lana’s tinkly laugh contained a note of disbelief.
“Where’d you say you came from, sweetheart?” she asked, then moved on without waiting for an answer. “We don’t trade. None of the big gangs like us do. The Settlements give us stuff in exchange for protection.”
Like the mafia in an Old World movie. I should’ve guessed.
“So, when you say youservethe men,” Asha continued slowly, “do you—”
“Fuck them?” Lana asked, sounding amused. “Geez, you don’t have to be so precious about it. Yeah, it’s part of the arrangement. Unattached men can ask for a girl for a night. Usually, they give gifts to their favourites.”
Asha couldn’t help but make a face. “Gross.”
“Nothing gross about it,” Lana said sharply, and Asha could practically hear her eyeroll in her voice. “Don’t know where you lived that made you so judgy, but there are worse lives than this, sugar. The girls who live here have a community of women around them. They never go to bed hungry, and they’re safer than anywhere else they could be. For many of them, opening their legs is a small price to pay for that.”
“I didn’t meanyou’regross,” Asha replied, a little stung. “It’s just…it’s barbaric that the men here expect that of you. Treat you like slaves.”
Lana chuckled. “And just where are the men that expect any different? If they exist, I don’t know them. It’s only by accepting how they are that I got to be in the spot I’m in now.”
“What spot is that?”
She flipped her strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder. “In charge of the women and children. I help make sure they have what they need. And I’m Angel’s first choice, which has its privileges.”
Must be why she’s the best dressed one here.
Still, Asha only just managed to avoid wrinkling her nose. Beingthatman’s favourite didn’t seem like much of a prize to her…but then, she didn’t know what Lana’s options before this had been. Maybe there were people even worse than him.
“There are kids here?” she asked instead, mildly appalled.
“Of course,” Lana replied, as though it were a silly question. “We do our best, but sometimes pregnancy happens to unclaimed women. The kids live here with their mothers.”
She gestured for Asha to follow her, and in a small room across from the dormitory, there was a children’s room. They had the same bunk beds as the women’s dorm, but there were small wooden toys here and there, and childish drawings on the cracked concrete walls. It all looked a bit forlorn—worn and torn by the hands of time, put together as an afterthought for these accidental children.
It struck Asha as a depressing place for a child to grow up, but unfortunately, sad childhoods were not the exclusive province of extreme poverty. As she knew from personal experience, nothing impoverished a child quite like a lack of love.
“It’s not so bad,” Lana said quietly, watching Asha survey the room. “At least they’re with their mothers. That’s more than I had, growing up.”
Asha bowed her head. “Sorry to hear that.”
Lana brushed her off. “It’s fine; I’m over it. But it helps to remember that things can always be worse.”
“Fair enough. Thank you for showing me around, and giving me the clothes.”
