The cards were cracked, edges bent, faces faded from too many hands. But in the basement of a half-dead bar, they were worth more than gold.
Lucia leaned forward, chin propped on her fist, studying the pile of chips in the center of the table. Sweat dripped down the neck of the boy across from her. He was twice her size, maybe twenty, and he didn't like losing to a seventeen-year-old girl.
She flicked her gaze to Aaron beside her. Her twin had that blank, calculating stare,the one that meant he'd already run the numbers a hundred ways. He gave the tiniest nod. The bet was theirs.
Lucia grinned, tossed her last chip into the pile, and flipped her cards. Full house. Gasps, curses, a chair scraping back hard enough to topple.
The boy surged up, fists curling. "You little,"
That was when the basement doors slammed open. Flashlights, boots, the sharp bark of police orders. "Hands where we can see them!"
The room scattered. Chips hit the floor, cards flew, gamblers vanished into shadows. But not the twins. Heavy hands shoved them against the wall, cuffs snapping cold around their wrists.
Lucia twisted against the grip. "Seriously? It was just a game."
"Illegal gambling," the officer spat. But his eyes held something else. Something calculating.
The officers wore police gear, but the uniforms were wrong. No badges. No precinct logos. Just black fabric meant to look official.
They were dragged up the stairs and shoved into the back of a black van. No rights read. No booking at the station. Just silence and the low hum of the engine.
Aaron whispered, "This isn't jail."
Lucia tried to joke, but the knot in her stomach said he was right.
The officer leaned in as they were hauled toward the gangplank. "You should be grateful," he muttered. "Most kids like you rot in a cell. You two get… opportunity."
Lucia spat at the ground. "Doesn't feel like a choice."
The officer just looked. "It never is."
The van jolted as it turned, metal groaning, chains rattling. For the first time, Lucia realized she and Aaron weren't alone. Across from them, three other teens sat cuffed and silent.
One boy's knuckles were bruised raw. Another had dried blood along his temple. The third a girl maybe sixteen, kept her eyes glued to the floor, lips moving like she was praying under her breath.
Lucia raised her brows. "Friendly bunch."
No answer. Only the low growl of the engine.
Aaron leaned back, wrists tugging lightly against the cuffs as though testing their strength. "Look at the uniforms," he whispered. "No badges. No precinct logos. They're not local police."
Lucia snorted. "So… what? Discount mall cops?"
His silence told her it wasn't a joke.
The van slowed. A hiss of brakes. A moment later, the rear doors banged open and a flood of cold air swept in. A man in black gear barked, "Out. Move."
They were herded down a ramp, chains clinking, and the world opened up to the docks.
Lucia froze. She'd been expecting a patrol boat at most. Not this.
The ship was massive towering, gleaming, alive with floodlights. Silhouettes moved across its decks, guards with rifles slung casually at their sides. And in the shadows at the base of the gangplank… more vans. More kids being shoved out, lined up, funneled forward.
It wasn't just her and Aaron. There were hundreds.
Lucia swallowed hard, her bravado catching in her throat. "Aaron…"
"I see it." His voice was steady, but his eyes stayed fixed on the ship like he was already dissecting its blueprints.
One of the guards shoved her shoulder. "Keep moving."
Lucia stumbled, then straightened, smirk snapping back into place like armor. "Fine. But I better get a window seat."
The guard didn't even blink.
As they were moved into the crowd, the low thump of music spilled out from the ship's belly. Not grim, not military something slick, pulsing, almost like a club.
It made no sense.
But nothing about this night did.
The dock was alive with shouts, boots against concrete, chains clinking. A sea of teenagers, all different faces and languages, funneled toward the glowing ramp of the ship.
Lucia let herself be pushed forward, scanning faces the way she always did cataloguing, ranking. Most were terrified, some half-asleep from whatever sedatives they'd been given. But a few stood out.
one boy with tattoos and swagger, a blonde girl who seemed to know exactly how much attention she drew
Lucia smirked. Cocky bastard.
Aaron nudged her. "Don't."
"I'm just looking," she whispered back.
Lucia blinked. Great. A temptress and a tattooed gladiator. This place is going to be a circus.
Aaron's voice cut through her thoughts. "We're surrounded, Lu. Hundreds of them. Think of the odds."
She tilted her head at him, grin spreading. "Odds are my specialty."
A guard barked at the line, forcing them onto the gangplank. The ship's belly yawned open, music thudding louder now, surreal and wrong against the night air.
Lucia rolled her shoulders, smirk firmly back in place. Whatever waited inside, she wasn't about to let it swallow her whole.
Not yet.
The gangplank groaned under the crush of bodies as the line surged forward. Guards barked orders in clipped tones, rifles gleaming under the floodlights. The smell of saltwater mixed with sweat and fear until it clogged the air, thick enough to taste.
Lucia slipped closer to Aaron, nudging him with her elbow. "If this plank snaps, I'm blaming you."
Aaron shot her a sidelong glance. "Statistically, the load-bearing capacity-"
"Don't ruin my dramatic moment with math."
He pushed his glasses higher on his nose but the corner of his mouth twitched.
The interior swallowed them in stages. First the heavy metallic clang of boots against the steel floor. Then the sudden wash of warm, perfumed air, a stark contrast to the biting sea breeze outside. Music thudded louder, pulsing with a beat that seemed to sync with Lucia's heartbeat. Neon strips lined the walls, bathing the corridor in shifting blues and violet.
The recruits fanned out as they were herded through. Some craned their necks, dazzled by the spectacle. Others kept their eyes down, clutching their thin bags like lifelines. Lucia clocked it all the cameras hidden in the ceiling vents, the guards stationed at every junction, the way the ship's luxury was just a skin stretched tight over steel bones.
The beat followed them inside, too loud for a prison, too slick for safety. But the décor had changed: chandeliers, marble, bar counters.
It was surreal,part prison, part nightclub,and then it changed again.
They spilled into a wide atrium where the illusion reached its peak. Chandelier lights glittered above, reflecting off polished marble floors. An open bar gleamed at the center, staffed by attendants in sharp uniforms. Too lavish, too intentional. Like someone had pressed play on a fantasy meant to distract them from reality.
"Welcome aboard," a woman's voice purred over hidden speakers. Smooth, practiced, rehearsed. "Your new life begins here."
Aaron stiffened beside her. "New life," he muttered, low enough for only her to hear. "Sounds like they plan on burying the old one."
Lucia bumped his shoulder gently. "Guess we'll just have to be hard to kill."
That's when Lucia noticed him tall, broad-shouldered, curly brown hair falling into his eyes. Tattoos licked down both his arms like winding flames. He walked as though he owned the floor beneath his boots, shoving past smaller kids without apology. His grin was razor-sharp, the kind of grin that made people either follow you or hate you.
A few steps away, a girl leaned against a pillar, watching everyone with half-lidded eyes. Her pale blonde hair caught the chandelier light, spilling over tanned shoulders. She twirled the stem of an empty glass between her fingers, lips curved in the faintest smirk. Everything about her from the arch of her brow to the deliberate tilt of her hip radiated someone who knew how to pull attention like a magnet.
Lucia's pulse quickened. She didn't know their names yet, but she knew their type. Dangerous. The kind who could ruin you with fists or smiles.
The crowd buzzed with awe, confusion, and something sharp beneath it all fear.
Lucia tightened her grip on Aaron's wrist, grounding herself in his familiar presence. "Stay close, hermano," she whispered.
"Always," Aaron said. His green eyes flicked across the room, already dissecting exits, threats, patterns.
And together, swallowed by the crowd of nobodies, they stepped deeper into the ship.
The atrium buzzed with too many voices. Kids whispering in awe, some already daring to laugh, others clutching themselves tight like the marble floor might crack open and swallow them whole.
The illusion didn't last.
"Let me out!" a voice bellowed above the din. A boy maybe eighteen, maybe younger shoved his way through the throng. His face was pale with terror, sweat soaking the collar of his shirt. "You can't keep us here! This is kidnapping!"
He bolted toward the entrance, toward the gangplank they had just crossed.
The music cut. Lights dimmed. For half a heartbeat, the ship held its breath.
Then came the gunshot.
Sharp. Deafening. Final.
The boy crumpled mid-stride, a bloom of red spreading across his chest. The guards at the door didn't even flinch, rifles still smoking as they resumed their posts like nothing had happened.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Someone screamed. Someone else started sobbing.
Lucia froze. Her mind was racing, screaming at her to move, run, anything but her body was stone. Beside her, Aaron's jaw tightened, green eyes blazing behind his glasses, but he said nothing.
The smell of gunpowder clung to the air, acrid and metallic, clashing with the fake perfume still pumping through the vents.
"Disobedience," the same smooth female voice purred over the speakers, calm as if nothing had happened. "Will not be tolerated. You are here because you were chosen. You will play by the rules. And if you do…" A pause, velvet-slick. "You will be rewarded beyond imagination."
Two guards dragged the body away, boots squeaking against polished marble. The crowd shrank back, pressed tight, as though the floor itself had grown teeth.
Lucia's nails dug crescents into her palms. Her smirk was gone, but not her fire. Her pulse hammered, rage and fear colliding in her chest.
Aaron leaned in, voice low. "This place is worse than prison."
Lucia's eyes stayed on the crimson smear fading across the marble floor.
"No," she whispered back. "Prison doesn't try to pretend it's paradise."
The music surged alive again, louder than before, drowning the silence. The show must go on.