Page 176 of Spoils of war
“A wall with pointy things on top,” Aran muttered. Will rubbed a hand down his face, and I saw it, beneath the weariness—the fear.
“There’s no way of getting her out,” he said. “Not without getting ourselves killed.”
I swallowed. “But you saw her?”
Aran nodded. “She didn’t seem to recognize us, though.”
The words hit something in my chest. Maybe she was drugged, or worse. Maybe she was too far gone to remember. Kalani had said that she’d been talking about us, but it wasn’treallyus she remembered. Not who we were now. She remembered nine-year-old us. And we… we remembered nine-year-old Licia.
Kalani shot to her feet, the scrape of her chair harsh against the stone.
“Then let’s go get her.”
Will’s hand was already raised.
“Wait,” he said. “There’s more. It’s not just a building. It’s a whole estate. A mansion, surrounded by high walls, a courtyard, guards at every exit.”
My temples throbbed. The sky seemed too wide. The sun too sharp. I couldn’t look anywhere without feeling like I might unravel.
“Even if we get in,” he said, “we won’t make it out.”
“Then how do the girls get in?” I asked.
Will looked at me, almost in awe of the fact that there was still a trace of innocence in me.
“They don’t,” he explained. “They’re brought in. Sold or traded.”
I blinked, but the word echoed.
Traded.
“We’re nothing but silver and gold to them?”
“That’s how they see it.”
“Wait…” I said. “Traded how?”
”Some men lose everything at the tables. When they’ve got nothing left… they offer a girl. Bring one in, and the debt disappears.”
Kalani froze. Then she lifted a hand to her mouth, eyes wide with horror.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she whispered.
I felt it too. That sour bile rising up from somewhere deep.
The truth struck us all hard. The theater, the gentlemen’s club. Brothels and slavery. It wasn’t corruption, it wasn’t a glitch in the system.
Itwasthe system. And if we wanted to break it, we couldn’t charge in through the front. We had tobethe offer. The trade. Thesilver.
“That’s the kind of man you need to be.” I said.
He frowned. “What?”
“What if you owed them?” I said, looking at him and Aran. “What if you gambled, lost everything, and the only thing left to offer… was me?”
Aran sat up straighter, blinking. “I’m not following.”
But Kalani had gone still. Staring at me. She knew what I was saying before said it.
