[out of game]

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina was losing track of time. How long had it been since these superstitious idiots had figured out that her hands were somehow dangerous? She stared down at her arms, which were bound together, from her elbows to her fingertips, like she was praying, with duct tape and rope. When she'd tried to bite through the tape around her fingertips, they'd put some over her mouth. It hurt, and she couldn't even heal herself like this. She could offer no comfort to her fellow prisoners.

She noticed that their number dwindled, too. Men would come, take someone, and leave. Nina imagined they were selling them off. They were saving her, she could only imagine for who or for what. She tried not to think about it too hard, just tried to wait for a chance. Maybe if they sold her, they would pass on a warning. Maybe they wouldn't.

She didn't know. The not knowing ate at her.

One night - and she wasn't even sure if it was night time - something woke her from a dead sleep. The cells all around her had been empty for days. She heard noises: men yelling, gun shots. The door burst open and someone fell through it, scrambled across the floor to get away from violence happening in the other room.

What was happening?

Comments

[every_blossom_blooming]

"Frank," she repeated quietly, realizing he'd said it to her once already. Nina shook her head a bit and ate more, because the food was good and it would help her focus, help her recover.

"What are you going to do with me, Frank?"

[onebatch_twobatch]

Frank leaned against his counter and ate. He watched her picking at her food, more slowly, but that was alright. It was a slowness of pacing herself rather than finding the food off putting, and he could appreciate that.

"Let you use my shower and put you in some clean clothes? Get you a burner phone so you can track down anyone you might need to?" He shrugged one shoulder. "I'm not going to do anything with you."

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina shook her head. "I have no one to find," she answered. "There is no one here with me. And who will I go back to in Ukraine? The boy that sold me? No."

She had no family to speak of, nothing left behind. She'd wanted to leave and make a new life, and she'd fallen for someone that spoke convincing sweet nothings. Silly girl, Zoya's voice said in her ear. She looked down at her bowl, she ate more.

[onebatch_twobatch]

Frank nodded a little bit. This little hovel of a flat was not built for two people to share it. It wasn't really built for a single person to squat in it like he was.

He had the distinct, itching suspicion that he should get in contact with some people he knew and see if they could get her safely out. Not back to the Ukraine, but somewhere. Somewhere safe. Curtis could do it, probably. Billy, maybe--he'd read he'd just established a private military contract group. There were people on the outside of all of this. But none of them knew Frank was still alive, going after the gangsters and cartels and shit, and now traffickers.

He looked at Nina speculatively. "You're still gonna need clothes," he said.

[every_blossom_blooming]

"I can get clothes and money, as long as you don't have too many questions about where or how I got them."

Nina pushed her food around. She had few options, and he was not offering her a place to stay, as far as she could tell. There was one bed, and it was clearly his-- whatever it was. She wouldn't call it a home, there was nothing homey about it.

[onebatch_twobatch]

He didn't particularly like the sound of that, the implication. It smacked too close to what he'd just broken her out of, and the remarkable fact that she could stumble right back into it again. Not with the same men, but with different ones this time. There were a lot of really shitty guys out there. Frank was doing what he could, cleaning up the messes of the world. Sometimes, it meant dealing with the big fish. Sometimes, it meant the little ones.

"You're welcome to a roof over your head until you figure yourself out," Frank said with a shrug, looking at his bowl. There was only one bed, but Frank didn't sleep much anyway. It was no skin off his nose to move to a chair instead, or the floor next to the dog.

The dog, he noticed, that had gravitated toward Nina's feet, sniffing up at her bowl like she might slip him some of her dinner. He gave a quick little hiss to get him to back off.

[every_blossom_blooming]

Nina said something sweet to the dog as Frank gave it a hiss. "Go on, pup," she said, turning a little as if she meant to protect her food from him. Maybe she'd slip him a treat later.

"I promise nothing will come back on you," she said, wondering if that was what caused the furrow in Frank's brows. "I need to find some way to be legal in this country, or look like I am, if I have any chance."

She finished her soup and set it aside as she turned her full attention on Frank again, studying him.