I drifted between darkness and light, caught in memories I'd tried so hard to forget. A small, cramped room. The smell of mold and unwashed bodies. Children whimpering in the corners. And him—the boy whose name I never knew but who gave me the only kindness I'd known in my young life.
"Eleven," I whispered, the childhood nickname he gave me feeling strangely warm on my lips despite the coldness of the memory.
I was four years old again, huddled in that dingy room where the traffickers had kept us after Genevieve sold me. Most of the other children were older, scared and silent. But one boy—maybe ten or eleven—had noticed me trembling in the corner.
"Hey, small one," he'd said, his voice gentle despite the bruise darkening his left cheek. "What's your name?"
I hadn't answered. Names were dangerous things in the Dubois household.
He'd smiled then, a crooked, gap-toothed smile. "That's okay. You're the eleventh kid they've brought this month. I'll call you Eleven."
