The man walked down the line, examining each of them like merchandise, and when he got closer, Mattie lowered her eyes and kept them fixed on the floor. She heard him make approving sounds at some of the other women, his grunts and murmurs making her skin crawl.
Then he reached her, and she heard his sharp intake of breath.
"Turn around."
She did.
"What the hell happened to you?"
Mattie didn't need to ask what he meant. She knew what he was seeing—the scars that covered her legs from mid-thigh to ankle, the mottled, uneven skin where grafts had taken and where they hadn't, the patches where nerve damage had left her flesh permanently numb.
"Fire," she said. Her voice came out flat, empty.
"Turn back around."
She turned.
He stared at her face for a long moment, at the features that had always attracted attention—the blond hair, the blue eyes, the upturned nose, and the bone structure that people called striking. Then his gaze dropped to her legs again, and his lip curled.
"Get dressed," he spat. "No one wants to see this when they are promised the best of the best." He shook his head. "It's a shame, really. A waste of such a pretty face." He let out a breath. "You'll do as a maid or a waitress, so it's not a total loss."
Mattie nearly cried with relief as she reached for her clothes with shaking hands. For the first time since the fire, she was thankful for the disfigurement. Around her, the other women were still standing naked, waiting to learn their fate if they hadn't guessed it already.
She dressed as quickly as she could, pulling on her shirt, her trousers, her shoes.
The implications of what had just happened were solidifying, and they were terrible, but not as horrific as what awaited these other poor girls.
They'd been trafficked for sex slavery. Kidnapped and drugged and transported to God knows where, sold like a commodity. Thankfully, she'd been rejected, cast aside because her body was too damaged to be worth violating.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up in her throat, but she choked it back.
The fire that had killed her parents, leaving her scarred and traumatized, had just saved her from a fate worse than death.
Some blessings came in the most horrific disguises.
"Get dressed," the man told the others. "You'll be shown to your rooms and given instructions for your assignments."
Mattie tried not to look at the other women as they reached for their clothes, tried not to see the despair on their faces as they realized what their assignments would be. She'd been spared. They hadn't.
The familiar survivor's guilt twisted in her chest, sharp and bitter, and as before, she asked why not her rather than why her.
Why had she been spared while the others hadn't?
The man, who had not yet told them his name, opened the door and waved someone in. "Take her to Nuri. She's not suitable for the brothel, but she can work in the hotel."
The other man glanced at her and then arched a brow, but he didn't ask why she was being sent away.
"Come with me," he said.
She followed him out of the room and into the corridor. The music was louder here, and she could hear other sounds too—laughter, moaning, the clink of glasses. A bar at the end of the hallway was bustling with activity, men in expensive clothes were being served drinks by women wearing next to nothing.
Mattie kept her eyes on the floor and walked faster.
She still needed a bathroom desperately, but she was afraid to ask.
As the man led her out of the building into the night air, the humidity and heat hinted at the tropical location. The other hint was the lush, tropical vegetation interweaving the buildings of the resort complex. In the distance she could see the dark shimmer of the ocean, and above, more stars than she'd ever seen in Sydney's light-polluted sky.
Was this an island?
