Black Iris

The shoes

After the men left, the room fell quiet. I focused on my feet, on the feeling of the cold linoleum floors. If I focused, I could make out the sounds I'd heard before, the distant yelling voices, thrum of music.

What was it that Blake had said? Moving the girls with paying customers on the floor... but he hadn't been talking about Gwen, Jordan and I. He'd been talking about what Gwen had said in the silo.

Girl on girl cage fights. Bloody. Awful. The thought made me shiver.

It was then that I heard Jordan calling out.

"Ollie?"

It had come from the opposite corner that I'd been curled against before. I walked towards it and called back.

"Jordan," I replied, reaching out and touching the wall. "Are you okay?"

I heard a sniffle, then her weary voice replied. "Yeah, I'm ok. Scared, though."

I looked down, fiddling with a broken piece of the cork wall. "I know, baby," I said quietly.

If we weren't in this situation, with everything stretching between us, I never would have used that word. But it leaving my lips gave me some comfort, so I hoped it did the same in reverse.

After a long moment, she spoke again. "Ol, do you think they're going to hurt us?"

"I don't know," I said quietly.

"What if they make us fight, like Gwen said?"

So, it wasn't just me that was thinking about it.

Then, she asked, in a more horrified voice.

"Or, what if they're going to traffic us or something? Didn't Blake threaten to do that to you at some point?"

Her voice was horrified, and I wanted to comfort her, but that wasn't what I was caught up on.

"How do you know he said that? Did you read my book?"

"No!" She said, her voice kind of hurt. "I would never betray your trust like that, Ol. You told me not to. So I didn't."

I immediately felt guilty. "Sorry. I know. I just... yeah. It's just hard to think about, I guess."

"You mean, hard to think about... getting trafficked?" She asked, her voice quieter.

I nodded, then quickly realised she couldn't see me so murmured a quiet, "Mmmm."

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

And once again, we fell into a heavy silence. We sat like that for a while, before I leant back against the wall and realised I didn't want to think about it anymore.

"Can you tell me something about your siblings?" I asked.

"My siblings?"

"Yeah," I said quietly. "Something funny. Or sweet. Or annoying. Or, whatever, just something to distract us from... all of this."

She was quiet for a few moments before speaking.

"Last week, scar ate the entirety of one of Mon's eyeshadow palettes," she said, and I could hear a slight lift in her tone.

"Oh my god, really?"

Scar was their four year old golden retriever, and he was, by all accounts, an absolute hurricane.

"Yeah," she said through the wall. "She left it on her bed, and he found it and managed to pop it open. Licked and chewed on the whole thing. Thankfully it was a vegan, natural one, but we were worried anyway. Took him to the vet and everything, but they said he'd be ok, just to keep an eye on him."