The girls got dressed, slathered on the makeup Teddy wanted them to use, and sat around the bedroom talking.
The door flew open, and a man threw a bag of bread and a small jar of peanut butter at them. “Eat, cunts. You’ll all be working tonight.”
“Hey,” Ella said to stop him. “What’s your name?”
The guy looked shocked. “Westin. Why?”
“I was just curious.”
The guy frowned, turned, and left the room.
“Why did you do that?” Emily whispered.
“Because I want to know the name of the men I’m going to kill.”
The women’s mouths dropped open, and then a few smiled.
It had started to get dark when they yelled from downstairs. The women stood and walked down the stairs, and Ella hated how their expressions changed. One guy gave them thin coats to wear and then pushed them outside. She didn’t know how the girls would survive in the cold weather practically naked.
One of the guys grabbed onto her arm. “You stay here. The boss wants to talk to you. The rest of you whores outside.”
The other women looked at her and then left. The man threw her into a chair.
“I really hope the boss gives you to us,” a man on the sofa said. He was disgusting and looked like he hadn’t gotten clean in years.
“When’s the last time you had a bath?” Ella said.
The men were struck speechless, and then a few of them chuckled. The guy she talked to lunged at her, but a few of the guys stopped him.
“Frankie, man. You can’t touch her. The boss will kill you.”
“You fucking cunt, the things I’m going to do to you,” Frankie said.
She felt the fear building and tried to think of anything to distract them.
“Have any of you heard the term Wicca?”
“I saw something in a show once. It was about witches.”
Ella nodded and smiled. “That’s right.”
One of them snorted. “You’re saying you’re a witch? That’s in fairy tales.”
“But it’s not at all. You’d be surprised how many of us are out there.”
“If you’re a witch, why haven’t you done a spell to get out of here?”
“My religion works in mysterious ways. Sometimes the universe waits. This time it was to get all of you in a room so I could curse you.”
God, she hoped she was selling it. The two college courses she’d taken were about religion and psychology.
A few of them laughed.
“Cunt, you’re going to die.”
She nodded and shrugged. “I know that now, but I accept it. Mother Earth will take me, and I’ll become whole again.”
She could tell that freaked out a few of them. She stared at each one for a moment, closed her eyes, and started chanting the first dribble that came into her mind.