Hiliana Inez – Years Before the Prison
The city never slept.
Not for girls like me. Not for anyone who couldn't afford to lock their doors or pretend tomorrow might be different. It breathed in smoke and metal, hissed with leaking steam from broken pipes, choked on neon signs that blinked like dying fireflies above alleyways slick with old rain and piss.
And me?
I survived it.
Not because I was lucky.
But because I knew how to read the streets better than I could read a book.
I was twelve when I learned the first rule: Kindness gets you killed.
I was holding my sister's hand the night I learned that one. Mila was only five. All bones and bruises, with a cough that sounded like it came from someone three times her age.
We'd spent the day scrounging through dumpsters behind the bakery on 5th Street. The trick wasn't in finding the good scraps—it was in knowing when they threw them out. After dark, but before the night manager came for his smoke. I timed it perfectly.
I always did.
But that night, I gave my half of the bread to a boy I knew from an old squat. He'd been bleeding. His lip was split, eye swollen, hands shaking too much to open his can of beans.
Mila watched me do it. She smiled, proud.
Fifteen minutes later, that same boy led three older teens right to our blanket under the bridge. They took everything—my boots, Mila's coat, even the crushed mint tin where I kept the cash I hustled from subway dancers.
Kindness gets you killed.
After that, I stopped being kind.
I learned fast.
How to spot cops before they spotted you.
How to read dealers' body languageby the way their fingers twitched or their shoes pointed.
How to sell lies better than anyone else—a lost tourist, a hurt girl, a mute child with teary eyes and a shaking hand.
Mila hated when I used her like that.
But food was food.
Shelter was survival.
If I had to wrap her in my hoodie and carry her into a soup line claiming she was sick so they'd give us seconds, I would. I did.
Every day was a new hustle.
One time I conned an entire church into thinking I was the daughter of a soldier who'd died overseas. I memorized his name off a rusted plaque outside a war memorial and cried in front of the deacon like I'd been rehearsing it for years.
He gave us a week in a shelter. Warm meals. New socks.
I left the next morning before the lie could catch up.
Mila never asked why I lied so well.
She just held my hand and followed.
There was a rhythm to surviving the street.
Mornings were about finding safe water and counting how many usable hours you had before dusk. Afternoons were for schemes—small ones. Pickpocketing if the crowds were thick enough. Charm if the marks looked soft. Threats if they didn't.
And nights?
Nights were the worst.
That's when I kept my screwdriver clutched in my sleeve.
That's when Mila curled into my chest, small and trusting and warm. I used to stroke her hair and hum songs from our childhood. I can't even remember where I learned them anymore. Probably our mother. Or a memory of someone who felt like her.
Our real mother?
She left.
Our father?
Don't ask.
We were our own world.
.....
One night, everything changed.
We'd found a place under a condemned apartment building. A maintenance closet that locked from the inside. Dry. Hidden. Ours.
It was raining hard that night. Mila had developed a fever. I gave her the last aspirin I'd traded for with a fence. Sat up while she slept, just listening.
Then I heard it.
Voices outside.
Boots.
Flashlights.
I peeked through the slat in the door and saw three men. Not cops. Not bangers. Private contractors.
Clean clothes. High-grade tech. Military boots that weren't cheap.
They weren't looking for drugs.
They were looking for people.
I held my breath and curled over Mila, heart pounding.
They walked past us.
But I saw the emblem stitched into one of their sleeves.
OPUS.
I didn't know what it meant then.
But I would.
Three weeks later, Mila vanished.
We were staying in an abandoned daycare at the edge of Southpoint. I'd left her for Five minutes—Five—to steal a first-aid kit from a clinic trash bin.
When I came back, the blanket was still warm.
Her shoes were there.
But she was gone.
I searched for three days without sleeping.
Every whisper. Every lead. I threatened dealers, offered myself to creeps for information, followed a rumor to a warehouse that reeked of chemicals and burnt ozone.
But Mila was gone.
And that OPUS symbol?
It kept showing up.
Graffiti in alleys. Faded signs behind busted fences. Stories about missing kids, junkies who were "transferred," and "ghost arrests" no one talked about.
Eventually, I stopped asking.
I stopped crying.
And I started preparing.
The first time I fought back, it was clumsy.
I tried to pickpocket a guy who wore the OPUS logo on a ring.
He caught me.
Dragged me into an alley.
Started talking about programs. Rehabilitation. Voluntaryenlistment.
So I stuck my screwdriver in his thigh and ran.
After that, I changed my face. Cut my hair. Started going by Hiliana instead of just "Lil Inez." Took the name of a woman I once saw in court, defending herself without a lawyer and walking free with fire in her eyes.
I studied people like her.
I learned real power didn't need permission.
I didn't get arrested by accident years later.
I walked into a trap on purpose.
Because I thought OPUS had a presence in Salrex.
Because I thought maybe, just maybe, Mila was still alive.
...
And now, here I was.
Inside the monster's stomach. Clawing at its ribs from the inside. Watching girls like Mira stripped and strapped down like she didn't have a soul.
And I remembered Mila.
So small. So curious. So trusting.
And I knew—
If these people hurt her…
There wouldn't be a corner of this prison left unburned.