My mouth is painfully dry and I look around the room, there’s a stainless-steel toilet and a cracked sink. I greedily drink as much water as I can, and then immediately throw it up again. With a sigh, I start over, slowly taking sips from the tap as I pacethe room. There’s an insistent drumbeat just behind my eyes, like someone trying to chisel out from inside my head. I guess whatever they injected me with hasn’t gotten out of my system yet, since I’m oddly calm. I should be screaming and crying like the other girls.
None of the abduction training my brothers gave me before and after my own kidnapping when I was a little girl is useful here. I have no idea how long it’s been since that rat bastard Gavin drugged me and hauled me across the river to that other manky prick. I don’t know where I am. I hear a mix of Scottish and English accents out in the hall, but a few speak Spanish, and Japanese, I think. There are no windows, I can’t tell if it’s day or night.
The room spins and I curl up in the corner, drawing my knees to my chest.
How could this happen again?
This time, I don’t think my oldest brother Cormac will come breaking through the door to save me like an avenging angel, the way he did before.
Maybe this was always how I would end up, no matter how hard I tried to escape it.
I’m sure of one thing, what’s left of my life is going to be so unspeakable that I’ll welcome Death when he finally comes for me.
“Get up!”
A woman’s sharp voice prods me as I see two high heels step in front of me. Behind her, two armed guards are leaning against the wall.
Pushing with my feet, I slide up with my back against the wall because I’m not sure my legs can hold me.
“Where am I? What is this?”
My desperation is rewarded with a slap across the face.
“Shut the fuck up!” she hisses, glancing over her shoulder. “If you fight me, they’ll hold you down, strip you, and you’ll still go up on that stage. Make it easy on both of us.”
“You dress up women for fecking human traffickers and you don’t wantmeto make a fuss?” I snap incredulously. “How can you do-”
She cuts me off with another slap, harder this time.
“Don’t mark the merchandise, you stupid bitch!” One of the guards pushes away from the wall, stepping close. “I’ll keep her still for you.” His lecherous gaze examines me, head to toe.
“You can’t fuck her,” the woman says tiredly. She’s wearing a smock, like a stylist but I doubt she was hired for her cutting-edge skills with a mascara wand.
“You’re not gonna tell anyone,” he sneered, trying to loom over her.
“She’s a virgin,” she said flatly.
Somehow, this humiliated me more than the rest of this twisted nightmare. How do they know? Did someone examine me? What else did they do to me while I was out? He glares at me and steps back.
“Eh. Maybe whoever buys her will give me a taste after he has her.”
“You revolting piece of shite,” I hiss, “I swear to god I’ll kill you first.”
This time, he’s the one storming toward me, hand raised.
“Ya’ stupid fucks.” It’s the other guard. “Michaels, get back over here. Lollie, just get the bitch cleaned up and move on. You have six more girls to do.”
Lollie slaps a thick foundation on me, blending it with short, furious strokes before plastering on mascara and a garish red lipstick. When she’s done, the guards grab my arms and haul me out of the room. The hallway opens up to a huge factory room, thick with the stench of old blood and new cigar smoke.
Oh, my god. This is a meat processing plant. I see the hooks hanging down and… those arecages.
Ten of them are already occupied, some of the girls crying, not noticing the mascara running down their cheeks in streaks of black. A couple of them are motionless, staring off into some private hell only they can see.
“I’m not- I’m not getting in that!” I kick furiously, trying to trip one of the guards dragging me over to a medieval-looking cage with a length of chain on the top. Oh, sweet baby Jesus and all the saints are they going to hoist that thing up with me inside it? Like a caged bird?
Cormac, please find me. I can’t. I can’t do this again.
One guard grips a fistful of my hair, pushing my head down and through the little cage door, and the other shoves me from behind and I land in an ignominious heap on the barred floor. I was right, after they slam the door closed the cage rises slowly on a pulley system, lifting me nearly up to the ceiling and then across the room.
