Page 35 of Ash Storm

Reka

The rules were simple.

Don’t break the line.

Keep your eyes down.

Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to.

Never say no to a guest.

Any punishment earned will be shared by all the women.

Reka had never before been looked at so intently, or so lecherously. Her brain struggled to understand who these guests were—men of all ages, shapes and sizes, who looked so average she wouldn’t have looked at any of them twice if she’d bumped into them on the street, yet who were here to buy women.

A few bodies away from them, a girl started crying. She was one of the youngest in the group—one of the ones wearing the white bracelet around her skinny upper arm.

One of the guests, a small, bald man, had brought the straps of her dress to the sides, exposing her down to the waist, revealing small, pert breasts.

“And you’re sure she is a virgin?” the man asked. He had a strong Eastern European accent.

The guard checked his clipboard. “Guaranteed.”

The bald man leered. “I haven’t had a virgin in so long.”

“I wouldn’t bother if I were you,” a younger man said. “Igor wants her. He’s already arranged to stream the deflowering live.”

Reka’s stomach roiled.

It took everything inside her to keep her eyes down.

“Well, she’s not his yet,” the first man said testily. He moved down the line, not bothering to pull the girl’s dress back up first.

Another man, this one so obese he seemed to glide rather than walk, approached her. “This one’s got unusual coloring,” he said. Speaking as if Reka was a table or a rug. He put a thick hand around her face and pulled up, his thick fingers forcing her jaw open. “Good teeth.”

Reka was instants away from biting that hand. She’d never been a violent person, but she realized now she’d never had reason to be. Now, it was so easy to imagine what it would be like to hurt this man. To hurt all of them.

And at the same time, competing with that urge, was the fear—a fear so large it threatened to bubble out of her, and at the same time so deep it crawled under her ribs, pressing down painfully on her bones and muscles. And of course, she understood the fear was a large part of how they kept them docile and pliant. But understanding it didn’t make the fear disappear, or make it any easier to ignore.

It was the fear that kept her still while the man manhandled her.

Eventually, he let go of her jaw and moved down the line. Reka watched him glide away. He reminded her of the slug-like creature in the Star Wars franchise. She’d enjoyed all those movies, though it’d been a long time since she’d seen any of them and could barely remember the plot.

Eventually, the name came to her.

Jabba.

Her eyes filled with tears. She might never get to watch a movie again. She might never get to—

No.

She wasn’t going to think like that.

She kept her eyes down but straightened her spine.

The crowd of men around them seemed to have thinned. She realized most people had moved on to one of the black mats in the center of the courtyard, where two men were fighting.

Reka recognized one of the fighters immediately, even though his back was turned to her. It was the tall, dark-haired man who’d nodded at her earlier that day. His lightly tanned skin glowed in the light of the hundreds of lanterns and candles. Multiple scars marred his back, some straight and white with age. One along his shoulder, reddened and puckered, spoke of a more recent incident. Even for someone like Reka, who’d never seen one before, it was hard not to recognize the scar for what it was—a gunshot wound.