Page 31 of Ash Storm

Reka

It would have been incredibly easy to feel grateful for the weak tea and the single bowl of rice they’d each been given.

Reka steeled herself against the feeling.

She was an expert on emotions management, and she wasn’t going to feel a moment of gratitude towards these monsters, who’d only given them the bare minimum amount to eat and drink to avoid them fainting before they were sold.

Sold.

She’d repeated the word so often inside her head, at times it stopped making sense. She’d heard of human trafficking as a concept, of course, but she came from a different world. A world where this kind of thing didn’t happen. And yet, there was no doubt in her mind anymore, that was exactly what awaited her and Chloe and the other fourteen women trapped in here with them. They were going to be put on stage and sold, like chattel.

Worse than chattel. They were going to be sold as slaves.

The water had helped Reka feel more like herself again. It’d fanned her anger, her hatred, and her desire to get away. Somehow—and she had no idea how—she was going to escape with Chloe.

She looked around her. It had to happen soon, because Chloe was fading fast. Already, it was becoming harder to engage her in conversation. It was as if a part of her had given up already.

And most of the women in the room were the same. Most of them stared down at their feet, or into the distance, their eyes unseeing. Reka wasn’t even sure how many of them spoke or understood English.

So far, only one of the women had spoken to her. It was the same tall woman who’d tried to comfort her when they were being cleaned. Her name was Anara, and she came from Azerbaijan. Her parents had taught her English and French, hoping it would lead to more opportunities for her. The entire family had saved up for two years to buy Anara a ticket to France. She’d been promised a job taking care of an older couple. Eventually, a passport, and then the chance to bring her family over with her. It was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up. Instead, Anara had ended up in this hell-hole, tortured by the knowledge that her family would never know what had happened to her.

“I’m sorry,” Reka said. And there was shame in her words, as well, because until a few days ago she’d lived in a different world. An easier world, where the biggest decision she’d ever had to make was which university to choose, or what subject to major in.

She’d never spared much of a thought for people going through what Anara had gone through, even before she’d been taken—and certainly not for human trafficking victims. It wasn’t that she hadn’t cared. It was that she’d never heard about the problem except in passing on the news, and never in enough detail to understand the true magnitude of the problem.

And it was clearly a big fucking problem.

There were sixteen women here right now, fourteen if she didn’t count herself and Chloe. After meeting Afsan, she realized she and Chloe were here by luck—bad luck, the worst luck. She spared a thought for Yusuf.

I hope he’s rotting in hell.

But, excluding the two of them, Reka assumed most of the other women had stories like Anara. And it was clear they weren’t the first or the last. This room. The guards. The way the old women had cleaned them up. Everyone was playing their part in a well-oiled process.

The previous night, while she’d lain there awake, Reka had promised herself two things: that she would get Chloe out of here, and that she would never, ever, turn her back on this problem again.

That morning, the toothless old women had come again, this time to do their hair in fanciful knots. They’d had trouble with Reka’s thick hair, in the end opting to oil the springy coils instead. They’d tied Chloe’s hair in a series of cascading bows, making her look like a Disney princess.

And though Reka knew neither the guards nor the old women were the ones to blame, but rather Afsan, she hated them as well, for being complicit in this.

A bird flew by outside the window, catching Reka’s attention.

At least this morning they’d been moved to a higher floor. They were still locked in, all together, and closely guarded by at least two armed men, but they could look outside and see the sky, the trees in the courtyard …

A group of men came out of the smaller building at the opposite end of the courtyard. They were a mismatched lot, not just because they differed in terms of age, size and appearance, but also because they didn’t even seem to know how to walk together.

One man in particular caught her attention. She’d noticed him the previous evening, as well, when she and the other women had been led outside, single-file, for a forced walk. He’d been sprawled on a seat, pretending not to look at her, but she’d felt his dark stare burn into her. For a moment, it’d been as if he could see straight into her heart. Then he’d looked away, and she’d realized she was kidding herself. He wasn’t her savior.

She looked at him now. He wasn’t the biggest man in the group, but he stood out because he looked … she sought in her mind for the right word.

Hard.

Intense.

A warrior.

She couldn’t help noticing the way the black T-shirt and worn jeans he was wearing seemed to cling to each and every one of this thick muscles. An awareness—of him as a male—zapped through her, catching her by surprise.

You’re losing your mind.