December 2nd
Chapter 2 — The Others
Kateryna stood under the shower and scrubbed until her skin was red and raw, like it would make a difference. It never did. She could still feel the man from earlier, as if he’d left a film coating behind. No amount of soap could wash off the memory of his breath on her shoulder.
She wrapped herself in the towel and padded back into the flat, where the others were already slouched around the heater. The radiators never worked. A cheap fan heater had been set up instead, buzzing like an angry insect. The draughty window was sealed shut with duct tape. The stink of sweat and perfume hung in the air.
Tanya lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Her eyes were glazed, her cheeks hollow.
“Three this morning,” she said without looking up. “One pissed himself. Another wanted me to pretend I was dead. The third one just cried. Paid extra for that.”
Kateryna gave a faint nod. She didn’t have words for this anymore.
Tanya was the longest here. Thirty, perhaps. Maybe older. Addiction had eaten into her like acid. Her arms were speckled with tiny burns from the foil. She had been pretty once. You could still see it in flashes, but the drugs had blurred everything.
Across the room, Marta was curled in the corner, arms folded, eyes sharp. She rarely spoke. She’d come from Slovakia and never cried, not once. Her silence was like a weapon. She refused to give in, even if her body had. Kateryna admired her, though she’d never say it out loud.
Then there was Alina.
The new girl.
Seventeen, at most. She sat on the edge of the armchair, hands clasped between her knees, rocking slightly. Her eyes darted like a trapped animal’s. She hadn’t eaten since she arrived, and the bags under her eyes were already forming.
Kateryna crossed the room and sat beside her. Not too close. Just enough.
“They told you it would be different, yes?” she said quietly. Alina flinched but didn’t reply.
“They told me I would be in a hotel,” Kateryna continued. “Work in reception. Good English. Good wage. That I would send money home.”
Still no reply, but the girl’s lip trembled.
“We all heard something like that. It is how they catch us.”
Suddenly, a door slammed downstairs. There were heavy footsteps. Voices. The girls stiffened.
“Another one?” Marta muttered.
The sound came up the stairs. Arguing. A girl’s voice, shrill with panic. “No! No, let me go! Please!”
Then the thud. A single punch. A scream cut short.
The flat fell into silence, like air sucked from a room.
Kateryna felt her stomach twist. She didn’t need to look. She knew the sound of a girl being broken. Remembered it vividly.
Tanya inhaled deeply and exhaled smoke through her nose. “New meat,” she said. “Won’t be long before she stops fighting.”
Kateryna stared at the wall. Someone had scratched a message into the wallpaper ‘You don’t get out. You don’t get home.’
She didn’t know who had written it. Maybe they were still here. Maybe they weren’t.
Dressed in the cheap satin robe, Kateryna made her way to Room Three to await her next client. That was when she noticed the newspaper. Folded, forgotten, wedged between the bed and the nightstand.
She tugged it free. Her eyes caught the headline. A photograph. A name.
MSP Alastair Grant. Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee.
He was a regular, and he’d been here this week. Had spanked her and told her to call him “sir.” And then gone home to his wife. To Parliament.
Kateryna stared at the paper, heart thudding.
They thought she was nothing. That she didn’t understand. But she did. Every word. Every name. Every filthy secret.
An idea began to form.
