Livia Lone (Livia Lone #1)(46)

Rick had come to visit again—and he brought the photograph with him. The Thai police had questioned Livia’s parents, who claimed they thought the girls were going to get jobs in Bangkok and denied taking any money for them. Rick promised that her parents didn’t know where she was or how to find her, but also told her he could get word to them if she changed her mind. She knew he meant well. She also knew her mind would never change.

Rick had asked her again if everything was all right. The way he looked at her when he asked, the concern in his expression, made her sense he had suspicions about Mr. Lone. But Livia was afraid to tell him. She didn’t know what would happen if she did. Maybe it would be bad for Nason. Maybe it would be bad in some other way. And besides, Mr. Lone was probably right—no one would believe her. They would just say she was having nightmares about her “ordeal” and attributing them to Mr. Lone, or something like that. Better to endure what happened in the bathroom, and not take chances.

Lying in bed when her studying was done, she would think about what Rick had told her, about how Weed Tyler’s gang or whoever hired his gang had buyers in Llewellyn or farther east. Buyers. That explained the food and the blankets, and why they hadn’t harmed the children. They’d whipped the Hmong boy, Kai, when he tried to escape, but they hadn’t really harmed him, at least not as a product they planned to sell. And it was the same for her. What they had been making her do on the deck of the ship at night didn’t leave visible marks. No one would know how they’d used her on the way to Portland.

But they had hurt Nason. Badly. Why? Why would they have harmed their own merchandise?

To punish you, she thought. Because you attacked them. You cut Skull Face’s eye.

She covered her face and sobbed silently into her hands. Please not that. Please.

But what else could it be? Probably the men hadn’t intended to harm Nason, only to use her, the way they had used Livia. But they had been drunk, and Livia had enraged them. It was her fault. What had happened to Nason had been her fault.

Most of the time, she could push that thought away. When she couldn’t, it made her want to not be alive anymore. To stop eating, the way she’d considered on the boat.

But by the morning, the horror would have receded, and she would find a way to eat breakfast. She’d been a coward about so many things. To stop eating, to make herself die, when Nason might still need her would be beyond cowardice. It would be a crime.

She held on to jiu-jitsu like a drowning person clutching a life raft. She and Sean trained harder in the summer—four hours instead of two, and sometimes longer. Livia would go to his house after lunch, where they practiced together until Malcolm came home, and then they would train with him until it was nearly dark. Sometimes Malcolm asked if she wanted to stay for dinner. She did want to—very much—but she also knew Mr. Lone wouldn’t like it. So she told them the Lones liked her to be home for dinner, and Malcolm didn’t press.

Sometimes while Livia and Sean did drills, Malcolm punched and kicked the various leather bags, including a smaller one shaped like a teardrop that he punched really fast. Livia told Malcolm she wanted to learn those things, too. He showed her how to generate power, and how to hit with her elbows and knees because they were smaller and harder than hands and feet and could do more damage with less risk of injury. Livia overdid it at first, turning her skin raw and bloody. But the raw spots healed and then covered over with callouses, just as her fingers had from gripping and twisting the heavy cotton gi, and soon she could hit as long and hard as she wanted.

By the end of the summer, Livia could consistently beat Sean in free training. The first time it happened, Sean had been uncharacteristically sullen afterward. But maybe Malcolm had talked to him, because after that he was always gracious when she won. Sean was stronger, but Livia had become more technical—and, as Malcolm had frequently assured them both, sufficiently good technique could overcome strength.

“But if you want to keep getting better,” he told them, “you have to start mixing it up with new opponents. I think this fall, you should both go out for the wrestling team. It’ll be different than jiu-jitsu, but that’s a good thing.”

Livia was doubtful. “But . . . are there girls on the team?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Not that I know of. But that doesn’t mean they’re against the rules, right?”

Livia nodded. The idea made her nervous. Jiu-jitsu was so private. It was just the three of them, in Sean’s and Malcolm’s garage. If she wrestled, there would be a whole team. Matches. Audiences. People would notice her. And she didn’t want to be noticed. It was safer not to be.

“Livia, you’d be a hundred-and-one-pounder,” Malcolm went on. “And Sean, you’d be at a hundred-and-eight. You’d have to learn takedowns, different rules, new habits. But I could teach you the basics. I think even as freshmen, you could both make the high school team. Experience in wrestling would make your jiu-jitsu stronger.”

That was all Livia needed to hear.





31—THEN

Malcolm was right: even though they were only freshmen, Livia and Sean both made the wrestling team. Sean was good, but Livia was better—undefeated at 101 pounds in the regular season, losing only to a stronger and more experienced senior in the semifinals of the state tournament, and placing third in the state overall. People stopped making fun of her, and somehow even the word “Lahu,” which the bullies had originally used to taunt her, became a kind of trademark, with the Llewellyn fans in the bleachers chanting, “La-hoo! La-hoo!” to cheer Livia on when she took the mat.