“Welcome back to the world of the living,” she says through a wry smile. Her eyes are the color of chestnuts. A simple patterned duku is wrapped around her hair. She is tall, pleasant looking, her husky voice reminding me of a warm desert breeze.
She brings me a bowl of light soup, urging me to eat. “The spice will revitalize you.”
It is the hottest meal I have had in—again, I try to recall how long we have been here. I yearn to ask, but I refuse to speak just yet. If she is here tending to me so freely and without guards, then she must work for Paul. She looks too well to be one of us—the captives. My first instinct is to trust those kind eyes because to trust is all I ever learned before the attack, but I am learning hard lessons about trust and good and evil. The only girls who flourish here are the ones who have become amenable to the guards’ wiles, thinking it will keep them alive and off the sales rack.
“You’ve been here for two days.”
Abayis?m. Witchcraft. She must be using her juju powers to read my thoughts.
I do the calculations in my mind. Two days here, plus two in the box. Before that, how long in this wretched place? A fortnight? Three weeks? A month? Eternity? There is no sense of time in this place, and it destabilizes me. The soup slides down my throat. I relish the burn all the way to the bottom of my stomach and immediately feel better. An angry rumble erupts in protest. My hand flies to my belly. I hope I do not get sick.
“My name is Essence,” she says. “I was here when you arrived.”
I chew my bottom lip, considering whether to converse or continue my stony silence. There is nothing I have to say, but my mind is a cacophony of questions. There are things I need to know.
She leans in, her voice conspiring. “They tell me I’ll go to America. Maybe that is not so bad. America is full of rich people, o? Land of the free.”
Of which she will not be. Does she jest or truly believe what she says?
She waits for my response, and when it does not come, she continues. “You need to get well or get dead or find something to contribute that they can use.”
“I think—he said there is a Frenchman for me.”
Essence’s eyes widen as she claps softly. “That’s good, o! France is the country of lovers. I’ll have a rich man, and you will have a loving one. You won’t be so bad off, eh? Anything is better than here.”
“We are being sold,” I hiss, my anger untethered. “Like animals.” That she would try to find a positive aspect in this black hellhole of ours is confounding. “Or maybe you have already sold yourself out.”
Her eyes flatten as she peers at me. She leans back, unimpressed with my accusations. “I do what I have to do to survive. You would do well to follow the same plan.” She turns in a huff, leaving me to eat the rest of my soup and contemplate my future.
I am content to spend the rest of my recovery in solitude and silence, but Essence is not built for silence. She inches near, sending me furtive looks.
“Is it true?” she hedges.
“Is what?” I gaze forlornly at the empty bowl, wishing I could grab it and lick it clean.
“About the guard. Is it true that you bit his ear off? For true bit his ear off? Like this?” She mimics what she thinks I did, gnashing her teeth against an imaginary ear. I nearly laugh at the look of her. She has her answer.
She whistles, dropping back into the chair. She is impressed with me now, but I still see the warning in her eyes. “You should be careful.”
“Why?” Being careful in this place is an oxymoron.
“That guard—Paul had him killed as punishment for you ending up in here. Because of you, one of theirs is dead.”
Her words tumble around in my mind. Because of me, one of theirs is dead. There is no guilt at this discovery like there is for my family.
“They will seek retribution.”
I am okay with being the reason their numbers are minus one. I would subtract the whole lot of them if I could.
The thought becomes my fantasy, making me giddy. Visions of killing each one of these bastards, especially Paul, bring me immense joy, though I know I will not be given the chance. I will either die here or die at the hands of whatever trash Paul sells me to. Essence leaves the medical building, but I am too far into my fairy-tale world to notice.
I would save Paul for last. I would make him watch as I dismantled his life and everything he holds most dear—money, power, respect. He is nothing but a covetous man who takes from others to make himself feel big. He will try and try and never achieve what he wants more than his own humanity.