“You mean . . . you’ll be more fun?”
Livia was so relieved that Skull Face seemed to be listening, she was barely aware of her own terror. “Yes. I more fun. Please. Please take me.”
Skull Face nodded to Square Head, who released Nason. Nason stumbled into Livia and clung to her, crying. Livia looked at Skull Face. He shone his flashlight on the ceiling and gestured to the door, smiling.
“It’s all right, little bird,” Livia whispered. “It’s all right. I have to go with them, but not for long. I’ll be back very soon.”
Nason clung harder. “Why, Labee?”
“It’s too much to explain. Just a little while, and I’ll be back.”
Nason shook her head and cried helplessly. “I want to go home.”
Livia thought of their parents, and almost said, We don’t have a home. But that would be needlessly cruel. So instead she whispered, “So do I, little bird. So do I.”
“Why can’t we?”
“I’ll try to find a way. But for now, I need you to be brave and wait for me to come back. Will you do that?”
“But I’m not brave, Labee. I’m not.”
“No, that isn’t true, little bird. You are brave. You just don’t know it yet. But you are.”
Livia tried to pry herself away, but Nason clung to her.
Livia’s heart was pounding. She didn’t know these men. She had no reason to trust them, and every reason not to. They weren’t even Lahu. And even if they had been, look at what her own parents had done.
What if you do what they want, and they break their promise? Their promise not to hurt Nason?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t even fully acknowledge the possibility. She just had to try. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t.
Kai came and put his arm around Nason. Livia disengaged and nodded to Kai. He nodded back. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Nason continued to cry, but at least there was someone with her, someone who cared enough to try to comfort her.
Livia straightened, clenched her jaw to keep her lips from quivering, and walked through the door to whatever was outside the box.
The first thing she noticed was the wind—cold and strong and clean. It made her realize how rank the air inside the box had become. The sky was dark, but there must have been lights on the boat somewhere because she could see well enough. She looked around, trying to learn something that might be useful, anything. They were standing in a long, narrow space, with a high metal wall to one side and more of the boxes stacked opposite. On either end of the long space, she could see nothing but darkness. On the other side of the wall was a tall post, like a tree with lights up and down it. Maybe if she could get to it and shimmy to the top, she could see more? But she couldn’t see how she would reach it, even if she could outrun the men. And besides, what would happen to Nason if she tried?
She couldn’t be sure, but a boat this big, and the port, and the foreign letters she had seen . . . they had to be on the ocean. The thought was as terrifying as it was bewildering.
She watched while the men closed the door and secured the bolts. It was a simple mechanism, but she saw no way it could be opened from inside.
The men motioned that she should come with them, and she obeyed. They wanted her to cooperate, and she had to give them what they wanted. Or they would take it from Nason instead.
They walked toward what she thought from the direction of the wind was the side of the ship, the boxes to their right, the wall to their left. A short way down, there was a gap among the row of boxes, as though one stack had been removed, or left out. The men motioned. Her heart pounding, her throat constricted, Livia walked into the gap, the men close behind her.
She stopped in the center and turned. The light was dim and the space felt like a cage. There were stacks of boxes to three sides. The floor was covered in some kind of fake grass—she could just make out the color green in the faint light, but the feel under her bare feet was scratchy. She wondered absently why someone would want to make fake grass. What kind of world was this?
One of the men came toward her. Square Head. His face was silhouetted and she couldn’t see his expression. For some reason, she felt glad of that. She didn’t want to see their faces.
The sound of the wind was deadened inside the space, and Livia could hear the man breathing heavily, see it in the rise and fall of his chest. He said in Thai, “Get on your knees.”
Livia didn’t understand. She had been terrified the men were going to do to her the thing that made babies. The thing she and all the Lahu children saw dogs doing, and sometimes heard their parents doing. But then why would he want her on her knees?
She knelt and started to cry. She hoped the men couldn’t see it.
Square Head pulled open his pants. Livia shook her head, not understanding.