I stared at him, absorbing his words. He was right: Antonio Rasili was a monster, and it would take another monster to defeat him. I was ready to do anything to save my sister, so I finally nodded. Esteban smiled and leaned in to kiss me. Yes. Esteban was going to help me save my sister. I trusted him.
The next day we arrived in Capitol Hill, and he parked in front of a club. I pressed my lips together as several young girls laughed near the entrance. They were barely dressed, far too made up for my taste. “I don’t like this place,” I said as he unbuckled his seatbelt, “I know, sweetheart, but it’ll be fine. Trust me,” hereplied, stroking my cheek. I sighed and unbuckled too, reaching for my backpack in the back seat, my school bag, emptied and filled instead with everything valuable Selina and I owned. Esteban had said it would take a lot of money for this man to agree to help.
“You put everything you have in there?” he asked, nodding at the bag. I nodded, opening it slightly, he approved and got out of the car. He opened my door and helped me down, then held out his hand for the bag. I handed it over without hesitation and followed him inside, leaving the blue sky behind. The first thing that hit me was the smell, smoke, sweat, and perfume. Even though it was still daytime outside, the club pulsed as if it were the middle of the night. I’d been to a nightclub once, when a friend lent me a fake ID and I lied to my sister, saying I had an evening workshop at school. But that place and this one had nothing in common. This club was three times, no, four times bigger, and people weren’t here just to dance and drink. Bodies moved everywhere, barely clothed, men and women. Women danced in cages above the crowd, wearing almost nothing. I even saw one who wore nothing at all.
The music was loud, but other sounds reached me too, laughter, cries, and sounds that made my stomach twist. When I finally dared to look toward the couches, heat rushed to my face.
Oh God.People were doing it right there. In front of everyone. I clung to Esteban, squeezing his hand. “I don’t like this place,” I whispered. “Let’s leave. We’ll come back when it’s calmer.” He only smiled and pulled me deeper into the club, we entered a dark corridor where couples laughed, whispered, kissed, where the music was more muffled but still made the walls vibrate.
We stopped near a door guarded by two men. When they saw Esteban, they exchanged a frown; one of them went inside. A few seconds later he returned and motioned for us to enter. We did.The door closed behind us without a sound, the music reduced to a distant echo.
The first thing I noticed was the absence of windows. No daylight. No sky. It felt underground. A sudden pressure tightened in my chest, as if the air had grown scarce and the feeling worsened when I found myself facing the man seated behind a desk.
There was something rotten about him. Something dark. Something wrong.
He was solidly built, with a thick beard and dark hair threaded with gray, worn long and slicked back. But it was his eyes that made me tremble, the way he looked at me. His gaze landed on Esteban first, then slid to me, and a slow smile stretched his lips, revealing yellow, crooked teeth.
“Esteban! Finally here to pay your debts!” he boomed in English with a heavy accent, spreading his arms wide, sweat stains visible beneath his armpits. I frowned, trying to process his words. Debts? “Master, I told you I would settle what I owe,” Esteban said with a smile a smile I didn’t recognize, one that made my skin crawl. “I doubt your little bag is big enough for that,” the man behind the desk chuckled, then winked at me in a way that turned my stomach. Esteban released my hand suddenly, laughing as he stepped toward the desk, leaving me alone in the middle of the room. “No, Master! Of course not,” he said, still laughing. “The bag is mine. I brought something else for you.” He raised his arm and pointed at me, "let me introduce you to Sienna Master, she's sixteen years old, pure Italian with a temperament to match, and above all, she's still as pure as the first day!"" he exclaimed, and my breath caught in my throat as an icy chill began to grip my limbs. I felt as if the finger he was pointing at me was actually a gun and he had riddled me with bullets. "Esteban?" I gasped, wanting to take a step toward him, but my legs wouldn't respond. I was completely frozen in place.Why... what was he saying? "She's worth much more than fifty thousand dollars, Master! I assure you!" He continued, ignoring me, turning his back on me as if I no longer existed, as if I were nothing. The Master slowly rose from his seat and began to approach me, his eyes now fixed on me, sliding down my body before he nodded. "A virgin, you say?" he asked in a dark voice, and Esteban quickly confirmed it, while I suddenly felt like vomiting.
"Esteban," I repeated, finally managing to raise my hand to touch him, so that he would remember I was here, so that he would remember who I was, so that he would... but the Master's hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me toward him, and I bumped into his rounded belly as he lowered his face toward mine and the smell of rot seeped into my nostrils.
"Krasivyye glaza" (beautiful eyes), he said in a language I didn't understand, and I grimaced, trying to pull away. No! What the hell was this?!
"It's okay, Esteban, your debt is paid. Go," said the Master in English, smiling at me as the fear that gripped me took my breath away. "Thank you, Master," said Esteban, turning toward the door, his back to me, my bag containing all of my sister's and my valuables on his back. He walked away... abandoning me? "Esteban!" I called out to him, but he didn't even look at me. "Esteban! Don't leave me, Esteban!" I shouted, struggling against the Master's grip, but it was no use. He didn't let go. He smiled even more when he saw my terror, "Esteban! Esteban! Don't leave me here, Esteban! I beg you, Esteban!" He left the room and before the door closed, he looked at me. "Sorry, Sienna, nothing personal, okay?" he smiled as I continued to struggle and call out to him, begging him with tears streaming down my cheeks. "No! Let me go! Let me go! Esteban! Selina! Selina!" I wanted my sister, the one who had always protectedme, the one who had always looked after me after our parents died, the one who had always forgiven me.
The Master turned me toward him, grabbing my arms to hold me in place. "Come on, sweetheart, don't get so worked up. You'll see that it's not so bad being here," he said as I trembled in his hands, shaking with sobs, petrified with fear. "It's been a long time since we've seen such freshness. Larr, go get the Mother," he continued, signaling to the bodyguard who had let us in, Esteban and me. But Esteban was gone. He had abandoned me. He had... sold me?
"Let's not waste any time, shall we, Stella? Get on your knees so I can begin your education," he said, pressing his big hands against my frail arms, trying to bend me to his will. Stella? Why was he calling me that? I shook my head as another wave of nausea washed over me. I screamed and struggled, again and again, trying to hit him, to bite him, but he was so much stronger, so much bigger. He was a man and I was a girl, just a child. "No! No!" I spat in his face and froze when he raised his hand. I had been slapped only once in my life, by Selina, when I stole her bright yellow car to go to a party a year ago. I had crashed it and almost flipped it. It was the only time I had ever been hit, and I deserved it. I was ready for her to slap me for hours if she had to, as long as she was close to me again.
I waited for the blow to fall, I waited to feel the pain, but nothing came, "I have a golden rule, Stella," he whispered against my forehead, making me tremble, "I never hit women. Why hurt my stars like that? There are much more painful and effective ways to make you fade away."
The door opened again and the hope that Esteban had returned made me sob, but it wasn't him, it was a woman, an elderly woman despite her efforts at cosmetic surgery and her choice of clothing. She wore leather clothing and high heels, her dyed redhair tied up in a high ponytail on top of her head. "Khozyain, ty menya zval?" (Master, did you call me?) she said in a light voice, her hands on her hips, her gaze shifting from me to the man who was holding me prisoner. "Katy, eto nash novyy sotrudnik. YA pozvolyu tebe yeye obuchit', ya khochu, chtoby ona stoyala na kolenyakh i byla gotova dobrovol'no udovletvorit' menya cherez tri dnya" (Katy, this is our new recruit. I'll let you train her. I want her on her knees and ready to satisfy me willingly in three days," said the man, pushing me toward the woman and I fell to my knees at her feet. I didn't understand what they were saying. I didn't understand what was happening. I was scared. I wanted to go home. I had to save my sister.
"Please, let me go," I sobbed, lifting my head, she was a woman; surely she would understand me, wouldn't she? She leaned over and gently cupped my jaw between her slender fingers. "Vy dali yemu imya, Khozyain?" (Did you give her a name, Master?) she asked in what sounded to me like Russian. "Stella," said the man, sitting down behind his desk before lighting a cigarette, repeating the same name he had called me. "This is your mother, Stella. Be good and obey her. The better you behave, the less you will suffer," he added before lowering his eyes back to the papers on his desk, ignoring us completely.
"Let's go," said the woman, letting go of me before signaling to the two men behind her. They suddenly grabbed me by the arms and dragged me after the woman into the hallway despite my protests. "No! Let me go! Please, no! I don't want to! I don't want to! Selina!" I felt like my throat was going to tear apart from screaming so much, but they couldn't hear me. She couldn't hear me. Esteban couldn't hear me. Selina couldn't hear me.
The couples in the hallway glanced at me but did nothing more, as if they were used to it, as if I were just another one of them. We went down the stairs and arrived in a basement, a basement where it was so cold that my breath was visible as I screamed,cried, and begged. The woman unlocked a door and opened it, and the men threw me inside. By the time I got up, the cell door was already locked, leaving me in complete darkness. There was no light, no air, nothing. I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face.
I banged on the door again and again. "Please," I sobbed. "Please, I have to save my sister." I banged again and again, I cried again and again, I begged again and again, but no one answered, no one came, no one.
Darkness and cold were my only companions during the days that followed. The loneliness drove me mad, sometimes I begged to be let out, other times I talked to myself, trying to reassure myself. Nine days and nights I slept on the floor, the cold seeping into my bones, nine days without water or food, only the bare minimum to keep me from dying with my diabetes, nine days Selina had spent with that monster.
Nine days was how long it took for me to kneel before the Master, for him to rape me and turn me into a prostitute.
"Clean her up and get her ready, she has to hit the road quickly," said Katy, Mother, from the bedroom door. The last time I had seen her was two days ago, when she had come to fetch me from my cell to take me to the Master after nine days.
Everything was blurry. I remembered the cold, the hunger, and above all, the thirst. I remembered my sobs and cries, which had turned into moans and then silence. I remembered dreams where Selina stroked my hair, where my mother's scent and my father's laughter lulled me to sleep. I remembered the sudden awakenings with the Mother's voice, which wouldn't let me sleep, torturing me. I remembered the same question she asked me every day. "Who are you?", over and over again, until I answered what she wanted to hear, until I gave up, until Isubmitted. Until I became Stella, a prostitute and slave at only sixteen years old.
I felt hands straighten my naked body, my aching and painful body, my body covered with fingerprints, hickeys, and bites. My body that was no longer mine. I was cleaned, dressed, and led to a car that took me far from Seattle, far from my apartment, far from what could have been a peaceful new life with my sister. The fresh air after twelve days of confinement made me shiver. I lifted my face toward the sky, which was gradually turning blue. It was dawn, a new day was beginning, but not for me.
Hours later, maybe days later, I had no idea, I was like a puppet being controlled, I hadn't eaten anything substantial yet and my insulin levels were playing tricks on me. I felt cold and hot at the same time, I was shaking and sweating at the same time. The Las Vegas sign caught my eye, but I couldn't react. An hour later, we arrived at a gate and very high fences. The gate opened and the car turned onto a dirt road that made the car shake. I grimaced as I felt the pain in my lower back, remembering the pain of the last two days in that bed with the Master, my cries and pleas that had been useless. "Get out," said the man sitting in the passenger seat suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts. He was the one who had accompanied me from Seattle to here, I didn't know him. It was the first word he had spoken to me since we first met. "Where are we?" I asked in a hoarse voice. The last time I had used it was when I had screamed in pain with the Master, when he had... I closed my eyes and held back a retch. "Get out and you'll see," said the man without looking up from his phone, as if I were an insignificant insect. I looked again at the building outside. I could read the sign above the entrance: "Training Institute for Young Girls."
"Come on, damn it! I don't have all day!" the man suddenly shouted, startling me. I opened the door and got out with only the sweater on my back. I had nothing left, no belongings, nophone, no bag, no wallet, I had nothing. I was nothing. The car drove off, leaving me alone in front of the entrance, alone, trembling and lost. I was scared. Where was I? What was going to happen to me? Tears welled up as I wrapped my arms around my trembling body, my lips quivering. Hesitantly, I climbed the first few steps, still wearing the little white sneakers I had bought with my sister a few months ago. We had spent the whole day together, eating, shopping, having fun like crazy. My sister, who was now in the clutches of a monster. I froze in the middle of the stairs, my empty gaze fixed on my shoes, my trembling hand slowly rising, sliding under my collar to grab the pendant against my skin. My icy fingers wrapped around its familiar presence, warming my heart, and I closed my eyes, letting out a trembling sigh. So this was how the Floros family would end? Our parents dead, my sister a slave to an Italian mobster, and me a prostitute under the Russian mafia?
I shook my head, refusing to accept this reality, refusing to bow to the will of the sons of bitches who thought they could decide for me, refusing to bow to fucking fate. The pain in my body gradually turned to anger as I looked up at the building. I couldn't give up, I couldn't abandon my fucking sister! What I had experienced over the last two days with the Master, my sister had to experience every day with Antonio, because of me. Esteban, the man I trusted most, had sold me out. I had been locked up, starved, psychologically tortured, and finally raped. I had been stupid, my sister was innocent, and Esteban was a son of a bitch, but he had been right about one thing: Antonio Rasili was a monster, and only another monster could defeat him. No matter what was behind those walls, no matter what monsters they harbored, I was going to survive. I had killed once before, and I would do it again. I was going to become a monster, the worst of them all. I was going to save my sister, I was going to make Esteban pay for what he had done to me, and I was goingto kill the Master. And if I had to go through hell to succeed, then I would do it. They would think I was Stella, that I was bending to their rules, that I was submitting, but I would remain Sienna, Selina's little sister, Amelia and Marco's daughter, and I would remain so until my last breath.
I finally pushed open the door of the old building and entered the place that would become my home for the next few years, where I would experience pain and joy, where I would taste blood and tears, where I would lose myself without ever losing sight of my goals. I was in The Halo now.
