When she heard the music start, she didn’t feel so brave. Her heart was pounding in her ears, drowning out the cheesy Europop. When the crone opened the door, she saw the gang boss waiting outside. “Is she ready?” he asked, looking Celina up and down. His lecherous stare lingered on Celina’s breasts, which were almost spilling out of her bikini top.
“What do you think?” the crone demanded.
He leered at Celina. “Very nice. Does she need a little encouragement?” he suggested with a smirking wink.
“One of my special drinks?” the crone suggested.
“Perfect,” he agreed. “But not too much. We don’t want the punters thinking she’ll be no fun.”
Celina had considered that they might try to drug her. She hadn’t come up with an answer for that and would have to think on her feet.
“Leave her to me,” the old woman insisted as she left them to prepare a potion.
“Come, child,” she said, returning a few minutes later. “It’s nice and sweet,’ she coaxed, holding out a smeared glass to Celina, which was full of some thick pink liquid. “Drink it down in one. It will help you and give you confidence.”
She’d be in a daze if she drained the contents of the glass, Celina guessed, though she drank some obediently and then tipped up the glass as if to finish the last few drops. Satisfied, the old woman turned away, giving Celina the chance to spit out the contents of her mouth. Even so, the small amount she’d drunk acted faster than she’d expected, and by the time the crone had led her into the circle of light, the vaulted barn seemed to be bending into fantastic shapes. She staggered and would have fallen if the crone hadn’t hauled her upright again. She could hear the gang laughing in the shadows beyond the circle. Dazzled by the lights, she put up a hand to shield her eyes.
“I told you not to give her too much,” the gang boss complained. His voice sounded as if it was coming down a long, echoing tunnel.
“I gave her just enough,” the old woman countered angrily. “By the time the auction gets underway, the drug will be wearing off, and then she’ll dance if she knows what’s good for her.”
“You’d better be right,” the gang boss threatened.
“I am right. Have I ever let you down before? Let me see you dance a few steps, girl,” she added, prodding Celina with her bony finger.
Celina laughed woozily. She couldn’t have cared less by now. They were about to discover she was a hopeless dancer. She had two left feet at the best of times, and while they were clad in these ridiculous heels, they refused to obey her simplest instruction. Then she thought about Marissa and whether the young girl had been made to dance like this. The pain of that image cut through the muddled signals in her brain faster than anything else could.
“I can dance better than you,” the old woman mocked as she thrust Celina away. “Try again, or I’ll borrow a gun to shoot at your feet, and then you’ll dance.”
She had to stay alive to find out the truth about Marissa. To do that, she had to dance. The men fell silent as she began to move. She heard the whirr of the camera being switched on. Then the music stopped and the crone was back again.
“It’s time to undress,” she explained, plucking impatiently at Celina’s
bikini.
“Do you know a girl called Marissa?”
The old woman stared at her. “What’s it to you?” she snarled, and then the music started up again, and, naked or not, Celina had to dance.
~~o0o~~
“What’s she saying?” the gang boss barked as the old woman manhandled Celina into position in front of the camera.
“Nothing important. She was just asking about a piece of rubbish we buried months ago.”
The horror of this information seeped slowly into Celina’s wounded mind. Marissa was dead? The girl she’d been so fond of and had had such high hopes for had been disposed of like an unwanted rag doll. So much potential lost. All that optimism for a life yet to be lived, callously destroyed by these monsters? Her mission was a failure. Everything she’d planned to do was pointless. Her body ached with grief. Her mind collapsed. Her heart was broken.
What about all the other women like Marissa? Am I going to give up now?
“What’s that she’s wearing?”
As the gang boss asked the question, Celina’s mind cleared. It was as if a safety curtain had just been raised on a stage full of terrible possibilities. If she died, all the women who came after her to this human cattle mart for perverts would die, or be enslaved. She had a duty to stay alive for them.
“It’s an ornament for her working parts,” the old woman explained with sneering approval.
“Has it been scanned?” the gang boss demanded tensely.
The crone shrugged. “She’s been scanned.”
