Page 27

Abby

SK Compound

Present Day

“ O h, look. Noodles. Just for something different.” I twist the noodles around my fork and waggle my brows at Yrsa, trying to make her laugh.

She doesn’t, though. She just sits there, staring vacantly into the distance, her food untouched.

“Yrsa.” I exchange a worried glance with Lucky. “You haven’t eaten in days. Come on, just take a few mouthfuls.”

“Why?” She turns to me, her voice flat and emotionless. “Why should I eat? We’re not leaving this place, Abby. None of us are.”

I look around covertly for the supervisors. Between us, Lucky and I have been taking Yrsa’s place with her contacts, just so she makes target. We’re both worried that if she runs the Loop while she’s so weak, she’ll just drop to the ground and never get up again .

We’ve both seen it happen. Some die from dehydration.

But others, those the guards suspect of having given up, are shot where they fall.

I’m determined that Yrsa won’t be one of them.

We may not know each other well, but there’s something about crossing an ocean inside a shipping container that has a way of bonding people.

And that means I will fail my own targets and run the Loop a hundred times if it means saving Yrsa from falling or being shot.

“You don’t know that, Yrsa.” I force myself to smile at the Danish girl. “You never know what might be around the corner.”

Who are you trying to convince, Abby? I push my doubts away as I put the best meat from my plate onto hers.

“We never know what tomorrow brings, my friend,” Lucky adds, touching Yrsa’s arm. “To refuse life is to deny a gift.” She nods at the plate. “Eat.”

“There’s no point.” Yrsa turns away from the food listlessly. “Nobody is waiting for me anyway. There’s no reason for me to get out of here, even if I could.”

“Then find a reason.” Mary, the Filipino girl from our bunk space, hardly ever speaks.

Now her eyes glow with something almost like anger, which is so rare it gets everyone’s attention, even Yrsa’s.

“I have a three-year-old daughter, back in the Philippines,” she says fiercely.

“I came to Thailand to earn enough money to give her a better life. Now she thinks I have forgotten her. And perhaps she, too, has forgotten me. But whether she waits for me or not, she is still why I eat. Why I live. Because I am determined to get back to her.” She holds up a forkful of noodles. “You must find your reason, Yrsa.”

Dimitry’s face flashes through my mind, as clear and devastating as if it were right in front of me. I feel it like a knife through my heart, so sharply painful it takes my breath away .

Yrsa sniffs, a slow tear trickling down her face. “My little stepsister,” she whispers brokenly. “She was only two when I left Denmark. Not even old enough to remember me. And I was so mean to her...”

“Regret is suffering.” Lucky kisses Yrsa’s cheek. “Think of how much you love your stepsister,” she says, “not of how you hurt her. Focus on all the wonderful things you can do when you meet again, yes?”

Regret is suffering.

Lucky’s words pound through my brain like a mantra as we finish our noodles. The truth is that I should take her advice myself.

I’ve been stuck in regret for days now. Torturing myself over the mistakes I made.

For drugging Dimitry. For not trusting him.

And after he woke up, for not being honest about my own life. Or not nearly honest enough.

I’m sorry , I think brokenly. I’m so fucking sorry, Dimitry.

Yrsa looks at me, and I nod encouragingly, forcing myself to smile.

“Now see, when it comes to me,” I say, reaching through the dangerous cobwebs of memory for humor, my old standby, “I just focus on that first tall, chilled glass of delicious white wine. Then another. And another after that...” I heave a dramatic sigh as the other girls giggle.

“And even better,” I say, winking at Yrsa, “after all those Loop runs, I’m super fit and smoking hot.

I could make a fortune selling the Scam Farm Diet program when we get out of here. ”

By now they are all laughing, and suddenly Yrsa is talking again, telling us all about the little half sister she left behind.

I hide behind my funny-girl mask as we chatter our way into the dormitory, marveling that I can manage to pull it off.

The truth is that the last few days have been some of my darkest, and it shows in my results.

Between my endless self-recrimination and covering for Yrsa, my own performance has suffered.

I haven’t made any significant progress with my own scams for days now.

I’ve been keeping my head down, hoping that my past achievements might lend me a little leeway. But tonight, it’s clear that my luck has run out.

“You.” The supervisor appears just as I’m gathering my towel and toiletries. “You no make target today. Not yesterday either.”

Fuck.

“You lazy.” The unsmiling supervisor prods me with the gun. “Run Loop until I tell you stop.”

I force myself not to react. Reacting only earns extra running time.

Lucky shoots me a sympathetic glance, and I force myself to smile.

Yrsa gives me an agonized look. It’s fine , I mouth to her.

Mary touches my arm as I pass her.

This is how we survive this place. A silent touch, a forced smile. Caring about the person next to you more than about yourself. In an inhumane place, our own humanity is the one thing that means we are surviving.

I walk out of the compound, into the stifling heat, and take my place among the miserable faces of the others who earned punishment.

We’re gathered in the square outside the multistoried building that houses our offices.

One of the triad guards holds his machine gun in the air, then releases a burst of fire.

He smiles coldly. “Run.”

We run.

I settle into an easy pace. The first few times I ran the Loop, I truly thought I’d die. Five miles would have been a decent run for me under any circumstances. In the thick Myanmar heat, it felt like hell and took me well over an hour to complete .

These days I can knock it out in fifty minutes, but tonight, with the threat of unlimited miles in front of me, I take it easy. It’s a fine balance between running fast enough that they don’t shoot the ground behind me and not so fast I make myself pass out from fatigue.

If I’m honest, a sick part of me has almost begun to relish these runs. They’re as close as I get to freedom.

I glance at the thick foliage beyond the wire fence as I run.

As a programmer, Lucky is able to access more on the internet than we can, since we’re limited to the dating sites, social media, and messaging apps we need for our job.

She told me the compound is located deep in Myanmar’s mountain jungle, far from any big town.

The tall fence is electric, and guards in towers patrol it at all hours of the day and night.

There’s an internal fence, too, which divides us from the commercial part of SK.

The other side of the fence is like a different world.

There’s an entire city, complete with lavish hotels, a casino, strip clubs, and bars.

It’s where the triad bosses bring people they want to impress, where cartel members come to do business, a place of such luxury and decadence it seems unimaginable it could exist so close to our dull gray dormitory lives.

It’s a criminal playground, one where a politician can take a bribe unseen or a government contract can be discreetly traded amid naked girls and high-stakes bets.

I catch glimpses of the city on the other side of the fence as I run. If there’s anything to be grateful for, it’s that I’m working on this side and not the other. The scam farm might be mentally and emotionally sickening, but at least I’m not having to lie on my back for strangers.

Not yet, you aren’t.

I push away the terrifying thought. There’s no point dwelling on those possibilities. Like Lucky says, we cause our own suffering .

Instead of my swamp of regret, I try to think of the good times.

Don’t think of how you deceived him, Abby. Think of how he forgave you.

Of how he loved you . . .

Malaga, Spain

Two years ago

It’s close to midnight, and Pillars is packed.

Work has the sole advantage of taking my mind off my argument with Dimitry.

I’ve picked up my phone a hundred times to apologize.

Every time, I’ve chickened out. Partly because I know that the best thing for us both is to walk away and stay away.

Mostly, though, I’m just scared.

And not just of his life, his bratva world.

I’m scared because, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want Dimitry Stevanovsky. And it’s not just the sex, although to say that it is transcendent is an underestimation. I’ve never known anything even close to the intensity of sex with Dimitry.

But it’s more than that.

It’s the way he makes me laugh. His quiet consideration, the way he noticed the wine I like on one of our first nights together, then always brought that bottle over with him.

The way he holds the door for me, scans the street before I step onto it, or straps me into my seat.

All small gestures, but every one of them telling in their own way .

Just like the scars on his body are telling, or the way he angles himself in public, scanning every face for danger.

Maybe those things should scream danger to me. Instead, they really do make me feel safe.

And I’m scared of that, too , I think as I serve up a bundle of drinks to a particularly rowdy English bachelor’s party.

I hope the backup security Gregor mentioned gets here soon. This crowd is getting hectic.

Then the door to the club swings open, and I freeze.

The security reinforcements are here, alright. They’re so here it takes my breath away.

Usually I see Dimitry when his workday has ended and his formal wear is disheveled, or during the daytime, in casual clothes.