Wearing a different though equally inappropriate costume, the woman who’d been assigned Table #2, Brooke, threw Eugenia a look. It was anything but mean. More of an I get it; believe me, I do look. “Every night before dinner is served, a game is set up to entertain our guests in the hall. The winner pulls the ball that decides which women are selected for the end-of-dinner cleanup.”
“Which means?” Because scrubbing the floor didn’t sound half bad.
“It means that the girls from that table have to stand still as the men dump all their uneaten food and leftover beer on us while they laugh and we… take it.”
“You’re joking…” Not only was the concept of uneaten food beyond grasping, but why on God’s green earth dump it on poor, captive women?
With a sigh, her tablemate tossed glossy, dark hair over her shoulder. The pin-straight strands swung, as she continued, “As you’re new, the game will be rigged. They’re going to call #2, and you and I will be tonight’s dumpster.”
“None of this is making sense to me.”
“It will. There’s a reason for all of it. I’m two-hundred thousand tickets away from getting out of here, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t cause trouble and up my price.” Pretty, Korean-American, petite, and perfect, Brooke plumped her breasts and adjusted her skirt.
“Jesus.”
“You nailed it.” Brown eyes far too old in a face so young held hers. “We didn’t pick this world, but we’re stuck in it. But us girls should stick together.”
Eugenia opened her mouth, only for the petite beauty to interject. “If you correct me one more time, newbie, you’ll lose the only ally you have tonight. Girl? Woman? It doesn’t matter. All that matters to me is getting off this boat.”
“I’m sorry.” And she truly was. It seemed no one was here by choice, save Joan. And Brooke had already worked this life for over a year. “I won’t cause you trouble.”
“Thank you.” Brown eyes darting side to side, Brooke leaned closer to whisper, “Which is why I’m going to warn you there will be glass shards in your food. Don’t eat it.”
“What?” Swallowing shards of glass might puncture the stomach and require immediate surgery that did not exist in the shithole new world! “You’re joking, right?”
“Not all the girls are happy you’re here. More competition for tickets, favors, comforts… you know?”
And though she’d had three days to think it over, to recall how close she had been to the reaper on that stone bridge, Eugenia felt reality sink deeper than any witty tenacity. “I’m going to die on this boat.”
“Probably. So make the best of things. Lift up your skirt and just take it, as many as you can before they are bored of you.” And with that final proclamation, the doors opened, and the guests arrived.
Boisterous and loud, they poured in. The cleanest group of men Eugenia had seen since the bombs fell. Hair combed, shirts pressed. Scrubbed, smiling, and aware of the system, they found their seats with little trouble—their prize for saving and hard work achieved.
And though not every last one of them was staring right at Eugenia, the majority were.
At red curls that fell without frizzy tangles. At skin too fair to withstand sun. At defiance.
She met their intrigue with a sinister curl to her lip. Because fuck tickets.
That game was for the desperate. Which of course she was. But she was also smart. Top of her class. Knew where every last artery pulsed and the exact amount of time it would take a man to bleed out from a minor puncture wound.
And it burned to know that she would have made an amazing pediatric surgeon yet never would achieve that attainable goal. Not in this world where women shared a razor and the lord only knew how many STDs were spread each night at these parties.
A bony elbow nudged her ribs. “Smile, goddammit.”
No. There was nothing here to smile about. But Eugenia did it out of solidarity.
The smile of a stray warning off a pack of hungry wolves.
Chapter Three
Rules, rules, and more rules. Turns out there was more to the captain’s way of things than just winning the chance to be serviced by the ladies. There was rank in the order the men arrived. In seat placement. In the absolute absurdity of the baking sheets two men waved to signal they were the hosts to their hostesses.
Booths that sat five large men—men grown strong on regular feedings and hard labor—had no room for the women. So, where did the ladies go? On the cookie sheet, on the men’s laps. Preventing the inevitable erection from gaining purchase where it was not yet welcome.
Because rules.
“I’m supposed to sit on that?” It was all too silly to grasp. She wasn’t a pastry.