Chapter 2

My heart went completely, utterly cold.

Late that night, I crawled out of the sweatshop’s moldy dorm.

An agent stopped me in the alley and asked if I wanted to make real money. Free housing, free meals, and $25,000 a month.

My brain was foggy from the fever, but I still muttered out of instinct, "How much is the agency fee?"

He stared at me, shocked, and said, "No fee. Actually, I’ll give you a $300 advance right now."

I took the cash and, without a single shred of hesitation, stepped onto the bus heading toward the border.

I squeezed the three hundred dollars tightly in my hand.

This was the first time in my entire life that I actually held money that belonged to me.

Before this, my paycheck was automatically routed to my mom’s bank account the second it hit my card.

The bald man sitting next to me, Frank, kept eyeing me up and down with a greasy, creepy smile.

"Hey kid, you look pretty young. What’s a girl like you going to a place across the border for?"

I ignored him, burying the cash deeper into my jacket pocket.

"That place eats people alive," Frank muttered, leaning in. "Once you cross over, your life isn't yours anymore."

I wasn't afraid of dying.

In fact, that place sounded like heaven to me.

Because the agent said they provided free food and housing.

I wouldn’t have to drink tap water to fool my stomach just to save fifty cents on a piece of bread.

I wouldn’t have to collect plastic bottles in the freezing winter in thin canvas shoes just to buy my brother limited-edition sneakers.

"We're here," the driver barked, slamming on the brakes. The metal door rattled open.

In front of us was a towering barbed-wire fence. A few heavily tattooed men carrying rifles walked toward the bus.

The passengers started panicking. Some cried; some wanted to turn back.

Only I stood up quietly. I was the first one to step off the bus.

The smuggler in charge was a guy with a nasty scar across his face. People called him Scarface Nick.

He gave me a surprised look.

"You aren't scared?"

I shook my head. I flashed the three hundred dollars in my hand and tucked it back.

"I took the money. I’ll do the work."

Nick smirked. It was the kind of look a merchant gave to a cheap piece of cargo.

"Great. I love the ones who know their place. Take her to Zone C."

Zone C.

Even though I had never been here, I had heard the whispered rumors on the bus.

That was the holding pen for the "hostages."

If you didn’t meet your quota, you were beaten, forced to sell your blood, or worse—harvested.

I was shoved into a damp, mold-smelling room.

There were only a few filthy, stained mats on the concrete floor.

A terribly thin girl, Lily, shivered in the corner. She looked at me with terror-filled eyes.

"Run... run while the gate is still open..." she whispered, pointing a trembling finger at a small, half-welded window.

I walked over, looked out at the pitch-black jungle outside, and then shut the window tightly.

I lay down in a corner.

"I’m not running."

Why would I go back?

To keep earning medical bills for a father who faked cancer?

To keep buying houses and cars for a brother who did nothing but drain my blood?

To listen to my mother scream at me about how I was a useless, worthless daughter?

My fever was still raging, making my skin burn.

Before my consciousness drifted away, I touched the cheap phone in my pocket.

There was a scheduled text message I had drafted a long time ago but never dared to send.

Now, I could finally send it.

###