InkHeartAn overturned chair. The lingering stench of my father’s cheap cologne, sharp and cloying in the stale air of his apartment. That was all they’d left of him.
I slammed a fist against the door across the hall, the one with the peeling green paint. Mrs. Petrova’s door. The chain held, a sliver of darkness between the frame and the wood. A single, watery eye regarded me from the crack.
“It’s late,” she rasped, her voice thick with a lifetime of cheap cigarettes.
“My father, Marco,” I said, my own voice a tremor. “Two men took him. A big one, a small one.”
Her eye blinked, slow and reptilian. “I saw. They put him in a black car. No plates. Headed for the cannery.” She paused, the chain rattling as she shifted her weight. “That is not a place for you, little bird.”
She was right, but the police were not an option. Not for my father. Not with his history.
I ran. The cannery district was a graveyard of industry, the air thick with salt and the rot of old fish. The skeletons of warehouses loomed against a sky the color of a bruise. Only one leaked a jaundiced light from a side door, a beacon in the decay. Muffled voices drifted out, the quiet click of chips.
The den reeked of stale beer and desperation. Men hunched over warped tables, their faces illuminated in the sickly lamplight, oblivious to my entry. Their focus was singular, pinned to the turn of a card or the roll of dice. At the far end of the vast room, a door stood ajar. A muffled thud, then a groan that twisted my insides. Dad.
I shoved the door open. He was backed into a corner of the small office, held up by the collar by the larger of the two thugs. His lip was split, a dark line of blood tracking down his chin. The smaller man leaned against a filing cabinet, polishing his nails with a pocketknife.
“Stop!”
They turned. The big one grinned, showing stained teeth. The smaller one looked up from his knife, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. “Look what dragged itself in. Come to pay the bill?”
“Brynn, run,” my father choked out.
“Let him go,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “I’ll get it. I told you I’d get the money.”
The big one just laughed and shoved my father to his knees.
“She won’t.” The voice was calm, cutting through the tension from a shadowed corner of the room. A man stepped into the light. He wore a tailored suit, a stark contrast to the grime, and swirled amber liquid in a heavy glass. Silver threaded his dark hair. “Because he has nothing left to give.”
He had to be the boss. “I’ll work,” I said, my words tumbling out. “I’ll do anything. Please.”
The man took a slow sip, his eyes assessing me, not as a person, but as a sum on a ledger. “He is a bad investment. A waste of my resources.” He gestured with his glass toward my father, a whimpering heap on the floor. “But you…” He took a step closer, his cologne smelling of money and something cold, like winter. The two thugs straightened, their casual menace hardening into readiness. “You are an entirely different asset.”
“No,” my father sobbed from the floor. “Not her. Please.”
The boss ignored him, his focus absolute. “He pays with you.”
Instinct took over. I spun to flee, but the smaller man was a blur, blocking the door. A hand clamped over my mouth before I could scream, another pinning my arms. I thrashed, kicking back, but the big man’s grip was absolute.
“Quiet her,” the boss ordered, his tone bored.
A cloth was pressed over my face. The sweet, chemical scent flooded my senses. I held my breath until my lungs burned, until a single, desperate gasp was all my body would allow.
The world dissolved. The scrape of my own worn-out sneakers on the concrete floor sounded a mile away. My father’s cries warped into a long, mournful echo. Through a darkening tunnel, I heard the boss’s voice, distant and clear.
“She’ll fetch a high price. Clean her up.”
My body went limp. I was thrown over a shoulder, the world a dizzying, upside-down smear of the gambling den. No one looked up.
The cold night air was a brief, sharp slap of reality before the rough floor of a van met my cheek. The last thing I knew was the slam of a heavy metal door, plunging me into a final, suffocating black.