Chapter 1
Keandra
Iwake before the light cycle finishes shifting. Hunger wakes me up again. It always does.
I lie there for a second, staring at the ceiling, trying to pretend my body isn’t already feeling the effects. My stomach hurts, and my head feels fuzzy. My limbs are heavy in that weak, floaty way that comes after too many days of not enough food and too many nights of restless sleep.
The room is cold. I can feel it with every breath I take, in the floor under my feet, in the sleeves of my coat. Nothing in this room ever feels warm for long.
I push the blanket back and sit up slowly. My room is very small. One narrow bed. A metal shelf. A sink with a crack running down the side. I have one single heater that rattles and coughs like it’s dying right along with the rest of this derelict building. Everything is gray. The walls, the floor, and even the weak light coming through the window slot.
Mars is gray, especially in the poor sectors. Dust, metal, recycled air. Old grease. Hunger. Too many people packed together, all trying to survive on scraps. I press a hand to mystomach and breathe through the ache. Tired or hungry, the hunger wins. It always wins.
I stand and go to the shelf, even though I already know what’s there. Almost nothing. Half a packet of dried grain meal. A cup with a little water left in it. No fruit, no protein tabs, and no medicine. I have nothing tucked away or hidden and saved for later. Still, I stare. Maybe this time there will be more. Maybe I missed something yesterday. I didn’t.
I use only half the grain meal because I have to. If I use all of it now, then tonight there’s nothing. The paste it makes is thin and pale and barely warm. It sticks to the sides of the cup more than it fills me. I eat it anyway, slowly, scraping the sides of the cup and getting every last bite I can.
For one stupid second, I close my eyes and think about real food. Eggs, bread, butter, and warm milk. The food my mother used to talk about before the shortages started getting worse. I think about the time before the clinics started turning poor families away, before medicine got harder to find, before sickness swept through my family. My throat tightens.
I swallow the last sip of water and force myself to move. Standing still is dangerous. Standing still means thinking and remembering. My father coughing so hard his whole body shook. My mother smiling anyway, telling me to eat when there was almost nothing left. The screens at the clinic. Being turned away. The payment notices. The way people look at you when you can’t pay.
I grab my coat from the chair. It’s thin. The elbows have gone shiny where the fabric has worn smooth. I braid my hair back with stiff fingers, then turn toward the small mirror bolted to the wall beside the sink. For a second, I just stare at myself. I hate that part.
The face looking back at me is still mine, but it doesn’t feel like it used to. Too pale. Too thin. Eyes too big now in a face that hashollowed out over the last year. My face looks tired even when it’s still. I’m young. Still pretty, apparently. Pretty enough that men have started looking a little too long. Pretty enough that I’ve started noticing it. That scares me more than hunger.
I leave the room and step into the hall. It smells like bleach, damp metal, old grease, and something sour I don’t want to identify. Doors slide open and shut. Somewhere a child is crying. Somewhere else, two people are fighting in low, angry voices over food. I keep my eyes down and walk fast. In this district, everything can get you noticed. Looking weak and being alone is dangerous.
By the time I reach the market strip, it’s already packed full of people. Vendors shout over each other. Workers shove crates across loading platforms. Security drones hover overhead, useless as always, pretending to watch for trouble while people like me get picked apart in plain sight.
I head straight for the temp labor board. Cleaning stalls. Sorting salvage. Kitchen rinse work. Cargo tagging. I scan the list fast, my pulse beating a little harder with every line. Most of it is already gone.
The decent jobs disappear first. Men stronger than me take them. Women more desperate than me take lower pay. What’s left is almost always the same. Bad wages. Bad conditions. Men who let their eyes drag over you like they’ve already decided what else they’d take if you got hungry enough. I put my name down for kitchen rinse work anyway.
Then I wait near the loading bay with a cluster of other bodies trying not to look too desperate. The man taking names barely looks at me at first. When he finally does, his gaze moves too slowly up and down my body. I fold my arms tighter over myself and look past him.
By midday, I’m turned away.
“Too many workers. Come back tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. They always say that. Tomorrow, when I’ll still be hungry. Tomorrow, when my rent will be due. Tomorrow, when the same men will still be standing here, deciding which kind of desperation they prefer to profit from.
I spend my last credits on the cheapest food I can find. A fried protein strip that tastes like oil, salt, and old metal. I eat it standing beside a vent because the heat spilling out of it feels better than the food does.
That’s when I notice the girls across the walkway. Bright makeup. Short clothes. Blank faces. A man stops in front of them, says something, and then laughs. One of the girls touches his arm, smiles just enough, and lets him lead her inside. I look away fast.
I know what that building is. Everyone does. It isn’t even the worst place in the district. That’s what makes it feel uglier somehow. Clean front. Better lights. Girls who still look fed. For women with no family, no protection, and no contract worth anything, brothel work waits like it has all the time in the world. It doesn’t chase you. It waits until hunger starts doing the talking for it.
“You keep turning jobs down, you’ll end up there anyway.”
I jerk at the voice and turn. Marai stands beside me, arms folded, face tired in that hard, flat way older women get when life has spent too many years using them up. She lives two floors below me. Maybe ten years older. Maybe more. It’s hard to tell with women here. She tips her chin toward the building across the strip.
“I’m not turning jobs down,” I say.
She snorts. “No. You’re turning men down. Different thing.”
Heat climbs into my face. I hate that she’s right enough to say it. I say nothing. Her eyes move over me for a second. My coat. My face. The protein strip in my hand. The kind of look that counts your chances and doesn’t like the number.
When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Pretty girls don’t stay invisible forever.”
