A train bound for Rugby from London, October 1918

Lupe fiddled with the railway ticket in her gloved hands, ignoring the silence from her travel companions in favor of periodically asking the conductor in polished English when the Rugby stop would be next. While the anxiety of traveling unaccompanied through the British countryside would have otherwise rendered her to peel her gloves off and wear at her nails, she did her best to still this less than attractive impulse. The last time she'd been caught, the madames had torn into her palms 'till they were raw as a warning.

Cuifen had made herself clear; Lupe and the rest of the girls were to travel from London to Birmingham, switching trains at Rugby. At Birmingham Station, they'd be promptly collected by Cuifen and two guards and packed off to the few establishments Green Gang held north of London; a brothel and a bar in Birmingham's scarce Chinese Quarters.

Guadalupe had asked why the Gang thought to send some of their best workers away from the bustling Chinatown on Limehouse Causeway they had all lived in since they were little. Cuifen's last words to her echoed in her mind.

"The war's ended and they'll be sending the boys home soon. There's no better customer than a man who's seen the blood and gore of war. Gods willing, they'll be coming home with a new appetite for morphine and we'll have them by all their balls. Mr. Du wants us to establish a foothold in the North. Not a better way to do that then whores. You keep an eye on the rest of the birds, Xiu Jia. You're the only one I trust."

The madame must have anticipated an escape attempt or two from the younger brothel-sisters on their first unminded trip beyond Limehouse. Lupe knew she'd do them a favor by seeing them all to their destination. Their fate would be far worse at the hands of disgruntled triad enforcers than it would be in Birmingham. A few years past she might have had empathy for their wide, scared eyes and trembling shoulders, hardly able to understand a word the strange men around them spoke. Now she could only find pity within herself. Her sisters would learn and adapt, just as she once did.

The sentiment reminded her to quickly flit her eyes around the car to ensure there were four girls still sitting where they ought to be.

Huiyin sat directly across from her with her head bowed and flinched every time she met another person's eyes. Liangliang held Huiyin's hand in her own, staring out into the passing European countryside with the vacancy that came with laudanum bottle she kept in her silk purse.

Across the aisle, Shulan and Xiaoyu pressed their curl-crowned heads together in what looked to her like restless sleep, their linen hats sitting askew.

To be fair, Lupe thought to herself, they would all have to adapt. The last time she'd traveled had been her first. The sound of the steam engine as it drove its' wheels across the tracks echoed the sound the waves made against the hull of the ship that bore her to London, all those years ago. The crisp taste of the ocean breeze she'd not inhaled in many years and for once in a very long time, she found herself missing the home she'd left behind in Shanghai.

Cuifen told them all their new home would be Birmingham. Landlocked and farther north than London, Lupe wondered if she'd die there without ever seeing the sea again.

London hardly counted as a real home, the English Channel more a stream than a true branch of the Atlantic.

She would not miss the thick industrial grey fog that bore that cursed city down like shackles, nor would she miss the leering of the sailors docked at Canary Wharf, hoping to get serviced for free. The rundown workhouses, the sprawling tenements that stunk of consumption, the streets trod with mud and shit. She figured that at the end of days, God was as like to send London ablaze as he was to save it.

By no means did Lupe think Birmingham would be the Heaven to London's Hell; she was called dreamy frequently, but never called stupid. She expected the same coppers who spat curses at her as she walked past, daring her to give them a reason to cart her off to a cell, the same shopkeepers and chemists who barred her from their stores with a glare and a muttered "chinkie".

As the train pulled into Rugby station, her same dreamy nature allowed the tiniest flutter of hope to bloom in her chest that her life could be different.

Chinese Quarters, Birmingham, January 1919

Truthfully, the only thing different so far was the gawkers who looked at her like they'd never seen a Chinawoman before. She painted the same carmine slick on her mouth every morning, lined her almond-shaped eyes in the same fine soot they made back in Limehouse. Even the porridge tasted the same, salt, ginger, and garlic contrasting the comforting starch of rice.

The madame's footsteps trotted briskly towards the cramped room Lupe shared with Xiaoyu. Their floors were strewn with fresh straw and their window was roughly tacked over with cheap linen that barely softened the bite of the cutting winter breeze.

"Quickly girls. We've got a new shipment of men coming in today and there's not a moment to waste. Xiu Jia, take the red qipao. Leave the cream one for Xiaoyu." As suddenly as Cuifen burst in, her wrinkled arms laden with freshly laundered dresses, she disappeared. Black rayon stockings with red seams were liberated from Lupe's trunk, along with a red brassiere and knickers. The dress fit far more snug over her frame than it would over Xiaoyu or Huiyin. There'd been plenty of complaints from the women in Chinatown who'd stitched the dresses but none from the men who frequented her company.

She drew her hair from the curled rags she slept in and pinned it up in a way that could be undone quickly and with that, her night began.

It seemed like the trains ran every hour that day, pouring war-weary soldiers out of the cars like ale. Those with and without wives to greet them swarmed every pub, den, and whorehouse in town.

Lupe remembered that England was supposed to have won the war. The men that were brought back could not be called victors by any stretch. Young boys tread frequently underfoot, carrying bags filled with laudanum and morphine with them out into the Birmingham streets. The hospital had run out, and the soldiers who were well enough to return home nearly matched the hospital's demand with their own.

Many of the boys rejoiced in the comforts of home. Just as many quietly nursed drinks and pipes with their heads down or looked at nothing at all. Every single one of them looked at her with the same sick, haunted, nightmare gaze. Like the stare of the dead rabbit that her mother brought home from the market long ago. Like when she was twelve and found Bingyan underneath the bed, raw bruises around her neck and no breath in her lungs.

The scent of gunpowder, blood, sweat, and primal fear almost overpowered the drowsy, cloying poppy fumes.

Lupe's cheeks ached from smiling but she dared not stop. The nameless man from whose lap she perched upon looked at her like a drowning man does land, glazed over muddy brown eyes begging her to make the burdens he came back with (and his pockets) lighter. She let her hands linger delicately on his uniformed chest and briefly turned her head towards the doorway so he might follow the line of her jaw and smell the faint traces of Chinese perfume on her neck.

For one, brief, shining moment, she could smell the sea.

Guadalupe had never seen eyes like that before. Eyes that washed over her like the water did when she was five and carefree, toddling at the beach. She couldn't look away even if she wanted to. It shouldn't have been possible to look at a person like he did, his piercing gaze stripping her down to the dreamy girl she was under the scar tissue and paint. He stood a good head or so taller than her with arched cheekbones and full lips that could put a statue to shame, deep bruised hollows under his eyes that matched hers, and long, fine, calloused hands that she wanted nothing more than to hold. The way he clenched his jaw and his knuckles like he didn't believe he'd made it back alive and this was all real.

All Lupe wanted to do was to reassure him it was.

She disentangled herself from the man with muddy eyes who hardly noticed her disappearance.

The soldier boy in the doorway walked towards her.