Katerina Zima Volkova opened her eyes to darkness. An oppressive, and overwhelming darkness. It was only because she could hear breathing that she knew she wasn’t alone. Even though they were all jammed into the small space, there was no light anywhere, so she couldn’t see the body closest to hers no matter how much she strained her eyes.

"Nadja," she whispered, digging her elbow into soft flesh. "Nadja." She elbowed her neighbor again.

"Ukhodi!" Nadja mumbled, slapping at Katerina’s elbow. Go away.

"Nyet. Vstavay," Katerina replied. Wake up.

Nadja cursed and moved. Katerina could feel her friend sitting up next to her.

"What do you want?" Nadja snapped as someone across the room shushed them both.

"We need to try to get out of here," Katerina whispered. "This may be our only chance."

Nadja sighed, and the resignation in that one small sound sent Katerina’s anger spinning to the surface.

"We’re not giving up," she grit beneath her breath.

"Katya," Nadja answered softly as she placed a hand on Katerina’s arm. "They are too powerful, too strong. They will find us and it will be so much worse."

"Worse than being forced to service filthy men in an even filthier brothel?" Katerina snapped. "Worse than being told when we can and can’t eat, bathe, use the bathroom? Worse than never seeing friends or family again?"

Nadja snorted softly in the pitch black. "It’s already too late for that."

Katerina tried not to think about the moment earlier in the day when the men had chosen Nadja to take away. Every day they chose a handful of women in the room and took them away, bringing them back several hours later. Sometimes the women were beaten, sometimes they were crying. Some hadn’t spoken since they’d returned. And Nadja had come back with glassy eyes and slurred words. She’d mumbled something at Katya then fallen asleep on the bare, dirty mattress they shared. When she’d woken a few hours later she’d pasted on a big smile, and said to Katya, "Now get the cards back out because you’re going to owe me money."

Katerina tentatively put her hand into the dark void, meeting up with Nadja’s knee. She gave it a quick squeeze, then whispered, "If we get away it doesn’t have to happen again."

"Katya." Nadja cupped the back of Katerina’s head and drew their foreheads together. "I’ve seen these men. There is no getting away."

Then she lay back down, murmuring for Katerina to get some sleep because they never knew when the men would come back.

Katerina stared into the darkness, hearing the women around her as they slept, dreamed, cried. Some prayed quietly to themselves, others whispered to one another like she and Nadja. She breathed deeply of the odor of sweat and fear. How long would they be kept here like this, she wondered? And how many more opportunities would they have to escape before they were taken someplace even worse?

Something in Katerina’s gut told her a window was closing, but she wouldn’t leave Nadja, no matter what. They’d planned to move to America together, filling out the applications that their friend Jakob had given them for jobs as hostesses. They didn’t know what hostesses were, but Jakob said it was working in restaurants, making the diners feel comfortable. "It’s easy work," he’d said. "They like pretty girls who can smile."

Katerina and Nadja had been thrilled. They were young, they were pretty, they could smile. And with the hostess jobs, Jakob told them, they would get a one room apartment to live in, plus some wages to pay for other things. So for months Katerina and Nadja had planned, waiting to hear if they’d gotten the jobs. Jakob said not to worry, it was a sure thing. But it took time to get the immigration paperwork, and they should count their blessings the company that was hiring them did all that for them. Most employers wouldn’t.

Then the day had come when Jakob knocked on the door of Katerina’s small apartment she shared with her mother.

"The paperwork is done," he’d said. "Get your things because you need to go to the airport right away."

She’d left a note for her mother, not that it mattered. Paula Volkolva hadn’t cared much about anything Katerina did in years. The older woman spent her days working as a washroom attendant at a private luncheon club before she’d move on to her other job as the second shift housekeeper in the home of a wealthy government official. By the time Paula came home at midnight she didn’t care where her daughter was or what she was doing. And Katerina imagined Paula wouldn’t be terribly distressed she’d run off to America either. Although she’d miss Katerina’s contribution to the rent.

It had all seemed so perfect those first few hours. Katerina and Nadja had been taken by bus to the airport with a group of other young women. There were twenty-five of them and they waited in a special lounge at a private airstrip for a small jet that they were told was owned by the company they’d be working for.

Katerina had never been to an airport, flown on a plane, or lived outside her mother’s neighborhood in Moscow. She had been in awe of the sight of the jet sitting on a darkened runway when they were finally allowed to board late at night.

They’d spent the next twenty hours flying. First to Istanbul where they boarded a different plane, and then to the city that was supposed to be their new home—Chicago. She’d watched the sun sparkle off the mirrored windows of the skyscrapers as their plane had swung over the city on its descent. It had been morning when they’d landed, and even as exhausted as she was, Katerina had felt a surge of hope unlike anything she’d ever felt before.

Finally, she’d thought. Finally her life was going to change. She’d stepped off the plane, taken a deep breath, and opened herself to all the possibilities she’d never allowed herself to consider. A beautiful home, a safe neighborhood, a family that loved her.

Then a large man named Sergei had grabbed her arm and muscled her into the pitch black back of a generic van, and her entire future had crumbled like the bricks of her mother’s apartment block.

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