The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)

by R.F. Kuang

“Do you know how badly it hurt? They were in me, they were in me for hours and they wouldn’t stop. I blacked out over and over but every time I awoke they were still going, a different man would be on top of me, or maybe the same man . . . they were all the same after a while. It was a nightmare, and I couldn’t wake up.” Rin’s mouth filled with the taste of bile. “I’m so sorry—” she tried, but Venka didn’t seem to hear her. “I’m not the worst,” Venka said. “I fought back. I was trouble. So they saved me for last. They wanted to break me first. They made me watch. I saw women disemboweled. I saw the soldiers slice off their breasts. I saw them nail women alive to walls. I saw them mutilate young girls, when they had tired of their mothers. If their vaginas were too small, they cut them open to make it easier to rape them.” Venka’s voice rose in pitch. “There was a pregnant woman in the house with us. She was seven months to term. Eight. At first the soldiers let her live so she’d take care of us. Wash us. Feed us. She was the only kind face in that house. They didn’t touch her because she was pregnant, not at first. Then one day the general decided he’d had enough of the other girls. He came for her. You’d think she’d have learned by then, after watching what the soldiers did to us. You’d think she would know there wasn’t any point in resisting.” Rin didn’t want to hear any more. She wanted to bury her head under her arms and block everything out. But Venka continued, as if...