Livia Lone (Livia Lone #1)(8)

When she was done, she hurriedly pulled up her pants and stood. She glanced at the men. None of them said anything. But she didn’t like the way they were watching her.

Some of the other children, realizing it was okay, followed suit. But most of them, it seemed, didn’t need to go. They had already lost control of their bladders—and some, of their bowels—in the van, or while the man had been whipping the boy.

The other men relieved themselves, too. Then they smoked cigarettes while the children squatted on the ground, most of them softly moaning and crying, the only other sounds the buzz of insects in the trees and the call of birds in the distance. Then the tall man looked at his watch and nodded to the others. They gestured to the van and kicked the children to make them move. Livia got up quickly, Nason clutching her arm. She wanted to go before the other children so she could be next to the window. If she could see outside, she might learn something, something that could help them. Despite the kicks, some of the children remained frozen in place, crying helplessly. The man who had whipped the running boy pulled off his belt and drew back his arm, and the stragglers hurried forward, too.

Back in the van, Livia found herself next to the boy who had been whipped. She touched his arm and whispered in Lahu, “Are you okay?”

It was a stupid question, she knew. Of course he wasn’t okay. None of them was okay. But she had to do something.

The boy looked at her, his eyes red. His lips were swollen and bloody, probably from when the man had clubbed him to the ground.

“Are you okay?” Livia tried again, this time in Thai.

The boy said something Livia couldn’t understand—Hmong, she thought, but it was slurred because of his lips and she wasn’t sure.

“Thai,” she said. “Do you speak Thai?”

The boy looked left and right as though searching for something, then said in Thai, “Where? Where we go?”

Livia shook her head helplessly.

They were quiet for a moment, then she pointed to herself. “Labee,” she said. “I am Labee.”

The boy nodded and pointed to himself. “Kai.” Then he added, “Where we go, Labee?”

She shook her head again. She wanted to tell him he was brave, but couldn’t remember the word.





4—THEN

They drove for hours past sprawling fields and terraced paddies, by streams sparkling in the harsh sunlight, through small towns with wires strung on poles along the road. Livia leaned against the metal side of the van. The bumps made it uncomfortable, but this way Nason could use her as a cushion. At some point, she woke and realized she’d been dozing. The bumping was gone. She looked out the window and saw the road was paved. She had only seen one paved road before—the narrow, winding one connecting her village with those of the other hill tribes—and she was amazed to see how long and straight this one was, going on and on for what must have been kilometers.

They stopped twice more. At one of the stops, the men handed out rice crackers, which the children devoured, and then bottles of water. No one tried to run. Livia told herself she would have if she hadn’t needed to take care of Nason, but she wasn’t really sure.

As night fell, they reached the edge of a giant city. Livia had never seen so much concrete, so many cars, such massive buildings. Even from inside the van, she could hear the noise of the place, feel its swirling energy. She was pretty sure this was Bangkok, which she of course understood was the capital of the country, but which until that moment had existed in her mind mostly as a kind of dreamland described in schoolbooks, not a real place she might ever actually see. A part of her was fascinated, amazed, by the sheer density of it all. But more than that, she was just frightened. She thought this must be where the men were taking them—where else would there be to go, after a city so enormous? What would happen to them here, in a place with so many people, of whom she and Nason knew none? A city this big could swallow them whole, and no one would ever even know.

And then, in the distance, against the violet and indigo of a darkening sky, she glimpsed a line of giant monsters lit from below and looming over a vast body of water. Everywhere there were enormous boats and rectangular metal boxes bigger than the van, bigger than two vans. Then she saw a sign in Thai: Laem Chabang Port. Was this the ocean, then? And were those monsters actually . . . machines, of some sort? Yes, they were. She saw some of them holding the metal boxes aloft with strings, moving them to and from the boats. The sides of the boxes were marked with huge white letters in languages Livia didn’t know. And then a wave of terror stole through her: were these men taking them to another country? She had barely gotten over her fright at being swallowed up in Bangkok. She couldn’t even comprehend what might lie beyond it.

Nason must have sensed her fear because she squeezed her arm and whispered, “What is it, Labee?”

Livia put an arm around and her and pulled her close. “Nothing, little bird. Nothing.”

They drove on, finally stopping alongside a wall of the giant metal boxes, stacked seven high and lined up as far as Livia could see. A single box lay in front of the others, displaced from the wall. One of the men got out. He opened a door on the box, looked around, then nodded to the other men. One by one, they began taking the children off the van and pushing them into the box. Livia was terrified—what was in there? What would happen to them? How would anyone ever find them in one box out of thousands? But there was nothing she could do. She had to be brave for Nason.