Looking down, I see men filing into the area, settling themselves with a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other. The toplessservers’ fixed smiles never fade, even when one of those pigs grabs them, groping their breasts or pulling them onto their lap.
My chest feels like there’s wet concrete being poured into it, slowly hardening, freezing my breath in my lungs, squeezing my heart until I don’t see how it’s still beating.
“No, no, no! I can’t lose it,” I whisper, chest heaving. “Not here.”
The haze of the smoke rises, wreathing my cage and making it impossible to see what’s happening. Gripping the bars, I close my eyes against the tunnel vision creeping in.
“You are a MacTavish,” I whisper, “You are a dragon, you’re powerful. You will survive and we will kill them all.”
I don’t feel strong. I can hear my twelve-year-old self again, begging those men not to hurt my cousins. Taking their beatings instead. The same sense of utter powerlessness drapes over me like a stifling blanket.
I won’t cry this time. I won’t beg. Feck them. If I’m going to die, I’m going down fighting.
Slamming my fists against the bars, I shout, “Let me out of here, you fecking sons of bitches and I’ll convince my brothers not to torture you to death!”
A man is leaning against the bar in an elevated section of the factory room, watching me. The spotlight shines from behind him, so I can’t see his face. But his shadowed form is huge; tall, and broad. Just as I’m about to scream insults at him, the cage jerks forward toward the stage.
Oh, god.
Chapter Five
In which Sorcha swears like a sailor. And we applaud her for it.
Sorcha…
My knuckles are white, gripping the cage's bars as it lowers to the stage, landing with a thud that almost knocks me off my feet again. The door’s ripped open and two creeps grab my arms, yanking me out.
I’m pushed to the center of the stage and my ankle’s chained to a bolt there. These pathetic fecks. Is this more psychological torment or are they afraid I could make a successful run for it?
“I know you’ve been waiting for this moment, gents.” The auctioneer is a skeevy little prick who looks like a moderately well-dressed rat. The lights press down on me like a physical thing and my first impulse is to pull my hair forward and cover my breasts, which must be visible under this transparent lingerie, but years of shame and anxiety win out and it flows down my back, a soothing weight.
The smell of sweat, alcohol, and greed is nauseating, filling my nostrils and making me cough. I can’t see the men, but I hear their restless movements, grunting like pigs and their nasty chuckles. They’re the animals in this meat processing plant, with their expensive suits and pitch-black souls.
“How many men here have been done wrong by the MacTavish Mafia?” he shouts, and the roar that echoes back nearly knocksme off my feet. I have to lock my knees to keep standing. I know my family has enemies, but the hate and lust in this room is palpable. “How many of you would love to stick it right back to them, yeah?”
Another approving roar.
“Or… stick itinto their sweet little sister?”
I’d rather be dead.
“Yes, gentlemen, Sorcha MacTavish, plucked off her family’s estate and standing here before you. She’ll need a firm hand,” he gives a grotesque little chuckle, “she put up quite a fight tonight.”
The crowd sways, the murmuring louder and more excited with each slimy word spurting from the troll’s mouth. He’s guaranteeing whoever buys me will beat the living hell out of me tonight. If I get lucky, I’ll fight back enough to make them angry and kill me before all the unspeakable possibilities can be explored.
“And the thing that makes this sweet little MacTavish utter perfection?” He leans closer, as if he’s confiding in this cesspool of humanity. “She’s avirgin.”
The howl that goes up brings my nausea back in full force. Here, in this horrible plant where the animals aren’t the ones being slaughtered.
I am.
I’ve always been funny, wise-cracking Sorcha, never letting my family see how being kidnapped as a child broke me. Tonight will be the end of me, one way or another, because I won’t survive another captivity. I’d rather die with my head held high and hopefully, taking a couple of these bastards with me.
A cane slams across my back and I shriek.
“Turn around, girl,” the auctioneer hisses at me. “Shake that pretty arse for the crowd.”
“Fuck you, you fucking fuck.” I say it loud, clearly.
