They’d worked there long enough to not mistake the pulsing in their chests for fearful heartbeats. The work didn’t scare them anymore to pretend the banging of their hearts were the soundwaves of the music bouncing within ribcages.
But the bass drop couldn’t conceal the loud hiccup coming from one of the recent workers.
“Nothing we can do about it, sweetheart…” Gina reminded her. The little thing was only seventeen and been there two weeks.
“H-he almost…” she wailed, “I-I-I-”
Almost. It was always almost with whoever told their tale.
Mika was glad the girl had gotten away. She experienced the same thing two days ago and made a run once the guy got distracted by a crash in the hallway. It seemed as if there was a gang in town, and Kylie voiced out just that.
“I don’t think we should be providing our services to anyone tonight…” she said tentatively, “What if those guys get to us on the streets? Amna only got lucky.”
“I have debts to pay off,” Mika rolled her eyes, “I’ll be fine. I handle myself well in such situations.”
“I don’t get why-”, she hiccupped, “can’t they stick to what’s been decided.”
“That,” Gina started bitterly, “requires respect. And we deserve none, do we?”
The room was silent. Mika sighed and got off her chair, heels clicking towards the dispenser as she grabbed a glass on the way. Filling it up with water, she handed it to little Amna. “It’s not that we don’t,” she gave Gina a stink eye, “It’s because people are shit.”
Amna mewled despairingly with a sip, “I didn’t have a choice…”
“Respect?” Kylie chuckled bitterly, “These guys out there are respected plenty when they’re the ones begging us for a good time. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those shits not giving us jobs and paying well in it. Men take our lives away and we are the ones who don’t deserve respect?”
“Calm down, guys,” Mika sighed, “The only real respect is the one for our own selves. Others don’t matter.”
Gina laughed giving Mika a pat on the shoulder.
“You chose to be here, though,” Kylie sneered.
“Oh, and that makes me any less deserving, does it?” Gina smirked, “How about you decide what’s better. Paying jahez in lacs to get married to a guy who can fuck you whenever with nothing to receive in return, or earn in lacs every few days for the same thing? I think I made a wise choice, pet.”
Mika knew the others wouldn’t understand. Gina had grown bitter from the constant abuse she had been through by the men in her life. After all that, being paid for doing it willingly sounded a lot better than having it forcefully taken and left behind in absolute pain.
“Enough talk now,” Mika announced firmly as she spread the final strokes of gold eye shadow and black eye-liner, “We have work to do. Kylie and I’ll take the streets this time.”
He smelled her before he saw her, eyes following to an elegant raven head. The gold bounced off her eyes and skin gleamed like melted chocolate under sunlight. Her eyes were never ending, a vacuum that pulled him in as their eyes met.
She’s worth diamonds, a sinister voice whispered into his blackened heart, It would be a prize to hear her pretty music.
He could almost hear it as he followed her out. Her pleas for help and the tears dripping onto the floor like shards of glass. Fragile. Helpless. Weak. And no one would help them because it isn’t like they’re all that innocent. It’s the red-light district. They take a banging every hour. What’s once not being paid for it? A few pictures wouldn’t hurt. Or a video. He’d be paid big money for that.
Something isn’t right… his dark conscience whispered. He stopped for a moment. The air had grown cold. Too cold. But he was losing the beauty, so he started walking, feeling the subtle soft brush of his hand against anothers.
The streets were empty.
With a confused look over his shoulder, he picked his pace after the woman turning into an alleyway, leaving a glint of her sparkly red dress to memory. He broke into a jog to turn around the corner.
A child.
He stopped with a stumble in his step before he crashed into the little girl.
“Bhaiyya?”
His heart leapt into his throat as he recognized her for a bare second until he blinked. That wasn’t his little sister… but what was a child doing in the red-light district?
Maybe he’d imagined it, seeing his little sister’s face underneath the hood. Backing away slowly, he turned and broke into a run. He couldn’t get distracted. The beauty was getting away.
He was panting, wondering how she was so fast. But he saw her up ahead, her hips swinging and chains glittering under the lamp posts. Tempting. He reached out, grabbing her and pushing her up against a wall.
Thrashing, flailing, trying to pin her up and cover her mouth to conceal the screams.
“Bhaiyya…” he heard the timid call again.
He froze, slowly looking over. His arms fell limp as the life faded from them into thin air. He couldn’t believe it was real.
“You’re going to do to her what you did to me, right?” the child asked past her cut lip still bleeding from years ago…
“W-what?”
“Why would you do that to me, bhaiyya?” she whispered as her eyes sunk into her sockets, blood pooling like tears and sliding delicately down her cheeks.
Mika watched the man fall, not understanding what was happening. She saw nothing.
His heart leapt into his throat, esophagus closing around it tight and constricting his airways. The fear, his nightmares, his injustice had embodied itself in front of him in the cruel form of his dead little sister stepping towards him. His first victim. His first crime.
