One of Us by Iain Rowan Page A

wearing a bra underneath. The straps would have cut too hard into the dark marks that blossomed across her skin like ugly flowers. She sat on the bed, held her arms up so I could look at her properly, and I heard her make a little cry when she raised them even though she tried not to let me hear it.
    “Corgan?” I said, and she shook her head. “One of his men?” The same. “Then who did this to you?”
    “Men,” she said, as if she was spitting something unpleasant from her mouth. “But it is nothing. It goes. You look after it for me, it goes.” But she did not look at me, in case her eyes said something different to her mouth.
    There were bruises and bite marks, and down her stomach a series of small circles that were puffy and red. A couple were weeping clear fluid.
    “Are these cigarette burns?”
    She nodded.
    “And these?”
    “Those are different,” she said. “Old. Not what you are here for.”
    I looked at her for a moment, and she looked away. The needle marks were not recent. Not as recent as the rest, anyway. I placed my hands on her gently, checking for a broken rib, not finding enough space that wasn’t hurt in some way already.
    “You have been tortured,” I said, applying iodine dressings, cleaning scratches and bite marks. “This is torture.”
    “This is money,” she said. “See, here, these bite marks? That is more than a teacher would earn in a month at home. These scratches, food for a week on the table for my son, some winter clothes. These bruises, some new boots.”
    “And how much of the money do you get to keep?”
    She said nothing.
    “I hope he teaches them a lesson,” I said.
    She frowned, not understanding.
    “If you work for Corgan’s men, then they will do something,” I said. “To the men who did this to you. They pimp for you, yes, take your money? Then this is what they do for you in return. They protect you.”
    She laughed, and the sound made me feel as if a cold wind was blowing through the room.
    “Do something? Oh yes, they will do something. That is why I get treated better than the other girls. Because I am special. For now. They will call my clients when I am fit to work again, that is what they will do. That is why you are here, doctor. To patch me up, heal me quick, because they don’t want to be handling damaged goods. That’s what Corgan says. No damaged goods. The men, they want to feel like it is them who damage for the first time.”
    I blinked, looking at her, hearing the words but not understanding them. It was not my language, it was not her language, and I was not sure if I had heard her right. But I looked at her, and I understood. I felt sick. “I am not going to do this. I am not. I am a doctor.” Or something near that. “I am not going to make you well just so beasts can pay to do this to you again—I cannot, I will not allow it, you must not allow it, it is wrong—”
    She rolled her eyes, pushed my hand away.
    “I will not do it for much longer,” she said.
    “You can not do it any longer,” I said. “You cannot. They will go too far, they will beat you to death. You will get an infection, you will puncture a lung, you do not know all the ways, I have worked in hospitals, I have seen the ways a body can be hurt, you do not know them—”
    “Oh, I do. I do know them, better than you do. Believe me. Listen, you are not like them.” She smiled then, for the first time, and put her hand over mine, gently, and squeezed. “I can tell, because you are stupid.” She did not say it in a mean way. “Corgan works with people, in my country, the people who bring girls like me here. That’s what they do. They take girls from there, fill our heads with dreams, a man called Lomax brings us here and then Corgan’s men fill us with heroin, and beat us until we are broken. And then put us to work. This is who you work for, doctor. And this man knows I have a son. I have no choice, I have no choice, he knows I have a son. So I save what