I feel anger rise in my chest, and I set the coffee cup on the small table next to his bed. I cross my arms and stare down at him.
“What did you do? Tell me what happened.”
“I owe money.” He wipes at his face with trembling hands, smearing his tears across his bruised cheeks. “Two hundred gold.”
The floor seems to drop out from under me. For a moment, I can’t breathe. Two hundred gold is more money than I could make in a year, even if I worked every single night. My hands clench into fists, and my nails dig into my palms.
“Two hundred gold,” I repeat. “How did you manage that?”
“I thought I was feeling lucky.” He still can’t meet my eyes, staring down at his hands instead. “The bets kept going wrong, but I kept thinking the next one would pay off, that my luck would turn around. It never did. I borrowed money from some men, bad men, and now they want it back with interest. They gave me a week, Tressa. Just one week, and if I don’t pay them, they’re going to kill me.”
I want to scream at him. I want to shake him until some sense rattles into his hollow skull. Instead, I stand there and let the rage pour out of me in words.
“Why do you do this? You have no idea what I must do to put food on the table, what I have to endure just to earn enough for us to survive. Every penny I make, you gamble it or drink it away like it means nothing. I can’t do this anymore, but I have to keep doing it anyway, because no one else will take care of you. Why do you have to ruin yourself and ruin us both?”
He cries harder, his whole body shaking with the force of his sobs.
“I’m wretched, I know I am. I’m a horrible man, and you deserve so much better than this. You deserve a father who takes care of you instead of the other way around. I’m the worst father in the world.”
The anger drains out of me as quickly as it came, leaving me hollow and exhausted. I’ve heard these same words from him dozens of times before, always after he’s made another terrible mistake. They never mean anything, because he never changes.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and take his rough, cold hand in mine. I stroke his thinning hair the way he used to stroke mine when I was a child, and he was still whole.
“It’s all right. I’ll figure it out. Like I always do.”
“You’re too good, Tressa.” His voice is thick with tears and shame. “I don’t deserve a daughter like you.”
I stay with him until his breathing evens out and the tears finally stop. I pull my hand free carefully, so I don’t wake him, then I stand up and look down at him for a long moment. The bitterness settles over me again. He always does this, always ruins everything and apologizes, and promises to change, and then the cycle starts all over again. It’s been years of this pattern, years of me picking up the pieces while he breaks himself apart, and I’m so tired of it that I can barely breathe.
I leave his room and close the door softly behind me.
My bedroom is a mess, because I barely have time to tidy up anymore. The vanity is covered in scattered bottles and pigments, brushes and ribbons, and all the tools I use to make myself look presentable for the men who pay for my time. I ignore the clutter and pull open the wardrobe, reaching for the dress I need.
The fabric is deep blue. It’s made of rich velvet, and the corset is cut to show off the swell of my generous breasts. I strip out of my bloodstained shirt and dirty pants, and pull the dress on, lacing the corset up the front.
I sit at the vanity and start working on my hair, pinning up the brown waves in a style that makes me look older and more sophisticated than my twenty years. I dust blush across my cheeks to give my face color and make myself look fresh and healthy instead of exhausted and worn down. When I’m finished, I stare at myself in the old, scratched mirror.
I look good, beautiful even, and I hate it with everything in me. I hate that my looks became the thing that decided my fate, that this face and this body turned into the only currency I had left when everything else was taken from me. I hate that men will pay to touch me and use me, and that I’ve learned to smile and pretend I enjoy it.
I grab my cloak from the hook by the door and wrap it around my shoulders.
The walk to the Velvet Angels takes half an hour through streets that are mostly empty at this hour. I pass a few people here and there, other night workers and drunks stumbling home, but no one bothers me. Everyone in this neighborhood knows what I am and what I do, and there’s no point in pretending otherwise.
The brothel is a flashy building painted in garish red, with golden trim that catches the lamplight. Lascivious music spillsout into the street, and the sign above the door glows crimson against the darkness. I push the door open and step inside.
The air is thick with the competing smells of perfume, wine, and unwashed bodies. Men sit at tables scattered throughout the main room, with barely clothed women perched on their laps. Hands wander freely over exposed skin, while laughter rings out too loud and too forced. The lights are low and warm, casting everything in a golden haze that’s meant to make the whole scene look romantic instead of desperate.
I scan the room until I spot Alana near the back, talking to a client but not yet committed to taking him upstairs. She’s tall and pretty, with dark hair that falls in waves down her back, and when she catches my eye over the man’s shoulder, I motion toward one of the side rooms. She says something to the client, then makes her way over to me.
Alana closes the door behind us and reaches for my hands.
“Tressa.” Her eyes search my face. “What’s wrong? Are you working tonight?”
“No.” I squeeze her hands and try to find the right words. “I came to say goodbye.”
Her face goes pale, and her grip on my hands tightens.
“What do you mean, goodbye? What’s happened?”
