“Aw, poor baby. You actually had to get your hands dirty for once?”
Nova, his face already red, opens his mouth to respond. But before he can, Scooter slams his hands down on the table. He turns around to glare at us.
“Enough of this shit,” he says. “What’s in the past is in the past. Each of us is st-st-still alive, which is all we can ask for after a job. Now the only thing left to ask are two questions both Nova and I have been asking ourselves for the past half hour. Just who the f-f-fuck is that woman and why the f-f-f-fuck did you have her brought here?”
I’ll admit it—Scooter’s intensity catches me off guard. Very rarely does he raise his voice like this. Normally he’s the easygoing one, the guy who’s always cracking jokes, looking on the brighter side of things, sometimes even making fun of his own stutter. Not the guy who has venom in his eyes.
The girl is standing off in the corner. Apparently she hasn’t said a word to either Nova or Scooter this entire time. She hasn’t even let them near her. But when I first arrived she ran over to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, murmuring in Spanish how happy she was to see me. Then when Nova came over and started up with me she slipped away to the spot she’s standing in right now.
“Well?” Scooter says, and when I glance at him I see his jaw is still and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him not chewing his bubblegum.
“She saved my life. I needed to repay the debt.”
“That doesn’t answer the questions, Holly.” Nova still has his arms crossed, glaring at me. “Who is she and why is she here?”
“She’s a prostitute,” I say.
“No shit.”
“But I don’t think she’s any ordinary prostitute.”
“What makes you th-th-think that?” Scooter asks. “The fact that she’s an illegal?”
I ignore him and walk past Nova to the girl. I hold my hand out to her and smile and tell her my name. I ask her what her name is. She says it’s Rosalina.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Rosalina. Thank you again for your help back at the hotel.”
She shrugs and looks away, embarrassed.
I push on. “Rosalina, you mentioned something about men and a ranch. What did you mean by that?”
Still looking at something near the ceiling, Rosalina shakes her head.
“Please,” I insist, “I want to help you. But you need to tell me about them.”
Her eyes shift to meet my own, and I can see tears are threatening. In a very small voice, she says, “They will kill me if I tell you.”
“No, they won’t. I promise they won’t. Now please. Please tell me.”
And so she tells me. Not a lot at first. She’s vague and I have to keep asking questions, and when she speaks her words are slow and thoughtful. Then, the more questions I ask and the more she answers, her words begin to increase. Soon she’s frantic, telling me everything, every terrible detail, her arms waving around, tears streaming down her cheeks. Then she falls silent. She holds her hands to her face, begins sobbing.
I place a hand on her shoulder, squeeze it, tell her that it will be okay, before turning away and walking back to where Nova and Scooter now stand together.
“So what’s the deal?” Nova asks.
“The deal is that she is one of at least twenty women kept prisoner in a place out in the desert.”
Scooter is already shaking his head, knowing exactly where this is going. “Don’t even th-th-think about it. Our job here is done. Now it’s time to go home.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Holly—” Nova begins.
“The girls at this ranch only get five percent of what they make. Until they earn five thousand dollars each, not one of them is free to go. They’re slaves. Their whole purpose is to be a whore. They fuck and suck and most times they get beat by the men that request them. Apparently that’s what the place specializes in—very rough sex.”
Both men are silent, staring back at me. I glance over my shoulder and see Rosalina standing right where I left her, still sobbing. Now in brighter light and away from danger, it’s clear just how emaciated she is. That was another thing she said, something I don’t bother mentioning to the boys because I’m sure they already know the truth: the men who run the place starve the girls, get them addicted to drugs, sometimes beat and rape them if they’re bored.
When it’s clear neither of the boys is going to say anything, I shake my head in disgust. “You both are cowards.”
Nova keeps his arms crossed, his face impassive. “Holly, this isn’t our problem. If you want to call the police, be my guest. But we can’t get involved.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“Yeah, but this time I mean it. Remember what happened in Berlin? I do. We almost got killed working on one of your fucking crusades.”
“One of my fucking crusades,” I say, nodding. “That’s nice, Nova. Thanks for that.”
“Holly”—Scooter now, his voice back to normal—“just th-th-think for a moment. Just one moment. I’ve said this to you before and I’ll say it again: You can’t save the world. It’s just not possible. Yeah, I feel bad for this girl—for all the girls there—and yeah, those men no doubt deserve to pay. But let the police handle it. Our time here is up.”
I stare back at them for another long moment. I’m thinking about Rosalina, of course, and the rest of the girls back at what she calls “the ranch.” But I’m also thinking about another woman I once knew, someone I’d called a friend, someone who had something terrible happen to her and then killed herself.
It’s her face I see now as I stare back at Scooter and Nova, her ragged, sorrow-filled face, and before I know it I’m turning away from the boys.
“Don’t,” Nova says, and I
