“Now,” the man with the scar growled, stepping closer to the fat man. The fat man stopped, looked at the big man, and nodded. “Okay, man. I’ll call him now. In the meantime, you’ve got a purdy girl right over there. Why don’t you go say hi.”
I froze.
What did he mean by that?
I soon found out when the man with the scar walked over to me and yanked me to my feet.
“Get off me!”
He slapped me hard. I tasted blood as his hands grabbed my breast and squeezed hard, making me cry out, while his other hand ripped my jeans from me. His fingers touching me intimately, making me cringe, and I don’t know what possessed me, but I raised up my leg and kneed him hard between his legs. He fell to the ground, moaning, grabbing his crotch.
“You don’t fucking touch me! Ever!” I screamed as something unleashed deep within me. I don’t know where my courage came from, but I was done being manhandled, pushed around, and hit. No more. Never again.
“You stay the hell away from me. All of you!” I shouted at a shocked room of men. “When my husband shows up, he is going to kill all of you!”
That was when they laughed. As quick as my courage surfaced, it faded. The man on the floor stood, turned to me, and punched me so hard, I flew back, slamming against the wall.
“She ain’t her!” the man roared, flinging a wooden chair across the room. Men scattered as the man named Jekyll obliterated everything around him. I crouched against the wall, tears falling down my face as I watched him destroyed the room.
Baltazar.
Days blended, and time passed. I found myself the servant, I cooked whatever the men wanted. Whatever they needed I was required to get them. They groped me, touched me, slapped me, and on occasion hit me. I wasn’t allowed outside, I wasn’t allowed to wear my clothes, though I did manage to fix my jeans. Only bra and panties.
That was it.
It was humiliating at first, but now I didn’t care anymore.
The men were vile, nasty, sadistic creatures, and they loved to take their frustrations out on me. Though none of them actually forced themselves on me, it was altogether a different kind of degradation they enjoyed, like jerking themselves off and spraying their seed on me. At the same time, one man preferred peeing on me while I slept.
“Hey,” a woman whispered to me as I slept on the floor. Rolling over, she smiled. “My name is Katie. What’s yours?”
“Ari.”
“I’m getting out of here. You wanna go with me?”
“They said they’d kill me.”
“I’d rather die free than do nothing.”
I couldn’t disagree with that. Nodding, I got to my feet when the door burst open. Vain grabbed me, yanking me from the room, and pushed me into the main room. He then threw some clothes at me and told me to get dressed.
Doing as he said, I was then ushered out of the house into a waiting black SUV. I didn’t know what was going on, but at least I was finally leaving that filthy place. We drove for what felt like days only to stop in a small town. Getting out of the vehicle, I didn’t know where we were, but the area looked familiar to me somehow, and I could smell the salty ocean air. Something I thought I’d never smell again.
The trees reminded me of the community where I grew up. Trees exactly like the ones I was seeing grew plentiful around the community. It was absolutely beautiful, and for the first time since I left, I was actually homesick. Though I never wanted to go back to the community, I was thankful for the familiarity.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
Vain grinned. “Making sure Grimm still has the package.”
“What’s going to happen if he doesn’t?”
“Then you, my little spitfire, will belong to Jekyll, whether he wants you or not. Though I don’t think he’ll have a problem breaking you in.”
For the first time in my life, I prayed that another woman was there. I knew it was selfish and probably unkind, but there was no way I would survive Jekyll. I’d seen the way he treated the other women at the club. He was vicious.
Opening the back door of the SUV, I sat down. I didn’t want to think of anything else. I couldn’t. My life was hanging in the balance, and the longer it took, the more worried I became. I don’t know how long we stayed there, but Vain received the text message he had been waiting for as the sun began to set.
When the fat man smiled at me, I sighed. “She’s there.”