Acella is seventeen. Every day, she wakes at six to drag herself to school. At three, she tiredly slumps over to the seedy building on ninth street; the one that has bright lights that flash everywhere. The one that never sleeps. The one where screams are muffled, where tears are hidden, where girls are held. She lets Karmen, a twenty year old veteran with the eyes of the dead, coat her face in makeup- bold blacks and sultry reds. She lets Karmen pick out lace trimmed bras, satin thongs. She lets the woman coo at her when she wears them, like they both don't know what comes next. Like they're innocents, instead of the defiled. Like they'