Chapter 6

Jesse tossed her a hoodie from the duffel—black, frayed at the cuffs, smelling faintly of diesel and sweat. “Wear this,” he said, his voice rough as sandpaper. “Vic’s scouts look for girls who smell like they’ve been sleeping in bus stations.” Marcy caught it against her chest, the fabric rough against her still-bare skin. The hoodie’s lining was stiff with something that might’ve been dried blood.

“Do you know your new name, Marcy?” Vicki’s voice cut through the motel room’s stale air.

Marcy blinked at the ceiling, where a water stain spread like a Rorschach test.

“Lola Gutierrez, age fifteen. Ran away from Albuquerque at thirteen. I got picked up by a traveling carnival for two years before hopping freight trains east. Should I wear a bra?”

“No, bra, you’ve been on the run for 6 months, and you don’t need one anyway,” Vicki said.

“Thanks a lot,” Marcy said, pulling it over her head, letting the oversized fabric swallow her frame whole. The cuffs were frayed, the hem uneven where it had been hastily repaired with black thread. She pressed her nose to the sleeve and inhaled deeply, committing the scent to memory like it might be the last familiar thing she’d have for months.

Marcy tucked her hair into the hood. “Remember,” Vicki said, her voice stripped of all warmth, “when Vic asks where you’re from, you hesitate before answering. Look at the floor first.” She reached out, adjusting the hood to shadow Marcy’s face just so. “Not too much, just enough to sell it.”

“Okay, I will,” Marcy whispered.

The motel bathroom mirror flickered under the faulty fluorescent light as Marcy leaned in, her breath fogging the glass. She touched the mole just below her left cheekbone, just like Lola has on her cheek. It was raised, dark, and unremarkable, except for the microscopic lens embedded beneath its surface. “Testing,” she whispered, watching her reflection’s lips move on the TV screen across the room. The grainy image showed her face in perfect clarity, every freckle and blemish rendered in stark black-and-white.

A man’s voice crackled through the tiny earpiece hidden in Marcy’s cartilage piercing. “The audio’s clear.” The agent sounded closer than the diner two blocks away.

“Remember, if you scratch it, we lose visuals. If you pick at it, we’re blind. Now, again, what’s your name?” Vicki asked, her fingers pausing mid-air where they’d been adjusting the hidden camera in Marcy’s hoodie drawstring.

Marcy blinked slowly, her tongue pressing against the back of her teeth—a nervous tell Vicki had cataloged during their first interrogation. “Lola,” she said, but the name came out too crisp, too rehearsed.

“And how old are you?” Vicki’s voice scraped against Marcy’s eardrums like gravel in a tin can. She leaned forward across the sticky diner table, her shadow swallowing the weak yellow light from the overhead lamp. Her fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the Formica.

Marcy counted the cigarette burns on the table’s edge before answering. She made her voice waver just enough. “Fifteen last month.”

Vicki said, “Good,” before she kissed her, the word muffled against Marcy’s lips as she pushed her tongue into her mouth. Marcy gasped into the kiss, her fingers twisting in the hoodie’s fabric as Vicki’s palm slid up underneath the rough material, finding bare skin. The agent’s hands were warm, her thumbs brushing over Marcy’s nipples with deliberate pressure that made her arch off the chair.

Vicki bit Marcy’s lower lip hard enough to sting before pulling back, her breath coming fast. “Remember that,” she murmured, her fingers still rolling Marcy’s nipple between them. Her other hand pushed the hoodie higher, exposing the jagged scar along Marcy’s ribcage, a souvenir from her first pimp’s belt buckle. Vicki bent her head and licked a stripe across the raised flesh, her tongue rough as sandpaper.

Marcy plucked at the hoodie’s frayed collar, sweat beading along her hairline. Outside, the July sun baked the pavement to a shimmering haze. “If she wears tank tops,” she muttered, jerking her chin toward the grainy surveillance photo of the real Lola pinned to the motel wall, “why am I sweating my ass off in this fucking oven of a hoodie?”

Vicki didn’t look up from the duffel bag she was packing. “Because,” she said, tossing a pair of battered combat boots at Marcy’s feet, “Lola Gutierrez got picked up in November.” Her fingers flicked toward the photo—Lola mid-stride outside a 7-Eleven, her bare shoulders glinting with sweat under a neon sign. “You’re Lola after eighteen months on the run. After sleeping in bus depots where the ACs were always busted. After learning that layers hide needle marks better.” She zipped the duffel with a sound like teeth snapping shut. “You’re the version of her that knows better.”

“Okay, I understand,” Marcy murmured, pressing the hoodie’s fabric between her fingers like a rosary. She watched Vicki’s reflection in the mirror—the way the agent’s shoulders didn’t relax at her assent, how her right hand stayed near her hip where the Glock rested in its pancake holster.

Jesse kicked the duffel toward the door with his boot heel, the sound like a body hitting pavement. “Clock’s ticking,” he said, not looking at either of them. His jaw worked the words like gum.

The kiss lingered longer than it should have—wet, desperate, tasting of nicotine and the spearmint gum Vicki always chewed before operations. When she pulled back, her thumb dragged across Marcy’s lower lip, smearing the spit between them like a promise. “Be careful,” Vicki murmured, her voice stripped of its usual razor edge. “We love you.” The words sat strangely in the motel’s stale air. Marcy swallowed. The hoodie’s collar scratched her throat. “Yeah, I love you too,” she said.

Vicki’s fingers paused mid-air, the cigarette between them casting a slow curl of smoke toward the water-stained ceiling. “And to let you know,” she said, her voice dropping into that gravelly register she used when the truth needed to sound casual, “I had been with a dog once. It’s not too bad.” The confession hung between them.

Marcy blinked. She pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth. Marcy said, “Maybe we can do a dog together?” before she could bite her words back.

“Maybe we can,” Vick said. “Now, from now on, you are Lola and only answer to that name, ok, Lola?”

Lola sat at the bus stop and looked like she’d gotten dressed in the dark. An oversized hoodie swallowing her frame, neon pink leggings clashing violently with scuffed combat boots, and a backpack covered in peeling band stickers from groups that had broken up before she was born.

She saw a woman who kept shifting her weight and glancing at her phone. It looked like the lady was taking pictures. She was carrying a grocery bag.

“Hey,” she said abruptly to her, “mind if I sit down?” Sure.” Lola said. “Do you know what time it is?”

The woman in her mid-forties, in a sensible coat, holding a reusable grocery bag. She sat down and said, “It’s... 10:17pm,” glancing at her watch. “Are you—”

“Sweet.” Lola popped her gum loudly, cutting her off. Lola hoisted her backpack higher, the straps digging into her narrow shoulders. “The bus is late again. Figures.”

The woman with the grocery bag hesitated, then sighed. “You shouldn’t be out here alone this late,” she said, adjusting her grip on the bag. “It’s not safe.”

Lola snorted. “What, like you’re going to kidnap me?” She tilted her head, her dark eyes glinting under the streetlight. “Because I have to tell you, lady, that’d be the most interesting thing that’s happened all week.”

The woman’s face tightened, her grip on the grocery bag shifting. Funny,” the woman said flatly. “But I wasn’t talking about me. There’s a reason parents don’t let their kids hang around places like this at night.” She jerked her chin toward the neon glow of The Club’s sign two blocks down, its garish pink letters flickering like a bad omen.

The neon glow from the club’s sign reflected in Lola’s eyes as she followed the woman’s gaze. “Parents?” She let out a sharp laugh that sounded practiced. “Yeah, well, mine stopped giving a shit when I turned twelve.” She kicked at a crumpled soda can on the pavement, sending it skittering into the gutter. “Besides, that place doesn’t look so bad. Heard they pay decently if you can handle weirdos.”

The woman’s fingers twitched around the grocery bag handle. Too tight. Too controlled. “You’re not that desperate,” she said, but her voice lacked conviction.

The woman exhaled through her nose, slow and measured, like someone deciding whether a chess move was worth the risk. Her fingers loosened on the grocery bag handle. “Have you ever been a waitress before?”

Lola shrugged, chewing her gum louder than necessary. “Diner in Albuquerque for, like, three months. Got fired for telling a customer his breath smelled like ass.” She grinned, sharp and unapologetic. “Not my fault he tipped like shit.”

The woman’s gaze sharpened, her eyes flicking down to Lola’s combat boots—too big for her frame—then back up to her face. “How old are you?” The question came out clipped, like she already knew the answer would be inconvenient.

Lola blew a bubble with her gum, letting it pop dramatically before answering. “Old enough to know better, not old enough to care.” She smirked, but her fingers tightened around the frayed strap of her backpack. She’d practiced this exact line in front of her bathroom mirror seventeen times last night.

The woman’s nostrils flared slightly, almost imperceptibly, as she took in Lola’s slouched posture, the way her oversized hoodie bunched around her waist like she’d stolen it from an older brother who’d outgrown it years ago. There was a pause, deliberate and weighted, before she spoke again. “You look to be 12 to 14 years old,” she said, not unkindly, but with the clinical detachment of someone assessing merchandise.

Lola rolled her eyes so hard they strained her muscles. “Yeah, well, try living with it.” She tugged the hoodie sleeves down over her knuckles. She spat her gum onto the sidewalk and ground it under her boot heel, watching the woman’s lips purse at the act of petty destruction.