The compound was mostly empty of occupants, and Karina had a rare afternoon off. The others were off working housekeeping shifts at the Emerald Hideaway, a luxury hotel that Vicky owned in Destin. Karina’s respite from work would be brief, though. Tonight, she would be “entertaining” at the strip club.
“You are all entertainers,” Vicky liked to tell them.
Bitch.
Karina half sat, half lounged on the steps leading into her quarters. She took a languid puff on her cigarette and blew smoke in the air. Before coming to America, she had never smoked, but now that seemed the least of her sins.
A door opened in the hut across from her, and the American emerged. She blinked at the sun. Draped over her hunched shoulders was a coat. It was a hot day, but the American looked cold. Karina was only wearing a T-shirt and shorts and was still sweating. The girl moved her head and took notice of Karina. Karina felt as if it were Nataliya looking at her.
Andrei, their escort for the afternoon, had fallen asleep while sitting in a chair near the American’s hut. The girl silently bypassed the big man and made her way over to Karina. With a slight tilt of her head, Karina directed the girl to sit down on one of the steps.
Keeping her voice lowered, the American asked, “May I have a drag?”
Karina handed over the cigarette and said, “Finish.”
The girl nodded, accepted the cigarette with trembling fingers, and took a puff. “I needed that,” she said. Her trembling became less pronounced.
Karina spanked her pack of smokes, loosened a cigarette, and extended it toward the American. She shook her head and said, “If they find it on me, they’ll just confiscate it, like they did the rest of my stash.”
In a hopeful whisper she added, “Got any drugs?”
“No drugs.”
“Shit,” the girl muttered under her breath. “They’re giving me some kind of pain reliever with codeine, but it’s not doing the job.”
She took another deep drag of the cigarette, blew out some smoke, and said, “I don’t know what their game is, but they’re forcing me to get clean.”
Although Karina only understood about half of what the girl was saying, she offered a nod. That was enough encouragement for the American to keep talking.
“What is this place?” She gestured to the fenced-in enclosure with its concertina wire. “Is it like a prison?”
“Tak,” Karina answered, and then remembered to say it in English: “Yes.”
“So, where is everybody?”
“We work hotel. And strip club at night.”
“You’re a stripper?”
Karina didn’t want to fully answer, or even answer at all, but she could not deny the American with Nataliya’s eyes. “Stripper, hooker,” she said.
“Sucks, don’t it?” The American tried to take another drag on the cigarette, but her hands began trembling anew, making it difficult. “I keep asking myself what the hell happened to my life, but the only thing I can figure out is that hell happened.”
The American turned her green eyes Karina’s way, almost as if she expected her to offer up some answers. Karina looked away. She didn’t have any answers. And she didn’t want to be hypnotized by the other’s eyes.
“I’ve been a zombie, you know, like the living dead. It was easier when I could just check out with drugs. It was like I was there, but not there. That was the only way I could deal with all those pervs. I kept thinking about killing myself, but it just seemed like too much effort. You sure you don’t have a stash? I just need something to tide me over.”
“No drugs.”
“I can find some way to pay.”
Karina shook her head. “No have.”
“Shit. What do they want with me? Why am I here?”
Karina offered a shrug.
“You ever do really, really stupid things for a guy? My boyfriend, Carlos, played the love card on me, and I was crazy enough to believe him. That’s how that asshole Lie-o controlled me at first. I thought I was saving Carlos’s life, and that the two of us would get back together. Lie-o would pass on a message to me that he said was from Carlos. And I was stupid enough to believe him. Then, after two or three months of that bullshit, I realized it was all a big lie.”
“Big lie,” Karina agreed. It was the story of all their lives.
“That’s when I fell into this hole. It was like I died. Lie-o gave me zombie drugs. It was like I wasn’t really alive. And then a few days ago, that scumbag Lie-o sold me for a big bag of money. What kind of world is this that you can sell someone? Bastard.”
The hate showed itself in the girl’s features. Her anger must have warmed her. She stopped trembling and looked more focused.
“In this life we go from slave to grave,” Karina said.
The American didn’t seem to hear her, which was just as well. “What month is it?”
Karina didn’t know the name for it, but counted out on her fingers. “Nine,” she said.
The American thought about that and said, “September. I’d be a junior. A year ago, I thought school was so lame. I was too stupid to know how good I had it.”
The girl was even younger than Karina had imagined. “How old?” she asked.
The question seemed to catch the American off guard, but then something approaching a small smile came over her face. “What’s today’s date?”
It took Karina a few moments to remember. “I think twenty-two.”
“The twenty-second,” the girl mused. “If you’re right, in two days, I’ll be sixteen.” And then she whispered, “Feels like seventy.”
“Tak.”
“What’s your story?”
“Story?”
“Why are you here?”
“Came from Ukraine on H2B visa. Supposed to be one year. Vicky now try to extend for all of us. She say might be three year.”
“Do you want to stay?”
Karina shook her head. “Want home.”
“Me too.” Her sad voice sounded like a little girl’s. “Do you have a phone?”
“No phone.”
“Can you borrow one from somebody at the strip club?”
“They watch.” Karina pointed to a nearby security camera to make sure the girl understood what she was saying. “At club, eyes always watch.”
“I need to call my mom. I need help.”
Karina shrugged. For the likes of them, there was no help, and little hope, but she didn’t have the English to say that.
“Where are we?”
“Florida.”
“Where in Florida?”
The question wasn’t an easy one for Karina to answer. She couldn’t really say where the compound was. It wasn’t near any city she could name, but was off by itself on a private road.
“Here I no know. But hotel I work in Destin. Strip club Panama City. Hour drive from here to each.”
The American seemed excited by that news. “My mom’s house is outside Tallahassee. That’s like a three-hour drive from Panama City. She’ll help. She’s probably going crazy. I need to get ahold of her.”
The girl looked expectantly—and beseechingly—at Karina. It was almost like Nataliya was looking at her.
“Your eyes like Nataliya, best friend of me. She gone. Taken, I think. Don’t know where is now.”
The girl was still looking at her, hoping she would agree to help. That made it hard for Karina to say no.
The words came reluctantly out of her mouth. “I try help you.”
Karina would have said more, but a loud voice yelled, “You!”
Andrei had awakened from his nap and was angrily gesturing to the American. “Here! Now!”
As big as Andrei was, the girl didn’t look intimidated by him. In her short time sitting with Karina, she seemed to have gotten some of the fight back into her. The American inhaled the last of the cigarette and then tossed the butt to the ground.
Blowing out a plume of smoke, she said, “About time you woke up. Spare me your roid rage and give me my codeine.”
“Not time yet,” Andrei said.
“Is that so? Tell me that while you’re cleaning up my puke, because that’s what’s going to happen if I don’t get my dose.”
The prospect of doing that kind of cleanup clearly didn’t appeal to Andrei. “Come here for pills.”
As the girl got to her feet, Karina was treated to the green flash of her eyes. “Later, gator,” she said, and began walking away before stopping to turn around.
“What’s your name?”
“Karina. What yours?”
One last glance, a glimpse of green, and a single word: “Lily.”