She had it worse.
At least my boyfriend had been safe. What had happened to hers after she’d been stolen?
It was the unknown that hurt the most. The not knowing if her boyfriend was alive or if mine was looking for me. The total uncertainty of our futures, diverted without our permission from the path we’d chosen.
How could another human do this to us? What gave anyone the right to steal us from a life and trap us in the dark with no answers, no comfort, no sign of this nightmare ever ending?
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Are you okay? You weren’t hurt too badly?”
She sniffed with pain. “I’m fine. Are you okay?” She stepped closer to my bunk, her blonde hair dirty and limp. “You don’t look so good.”
I waved her concern away with a lacklustre smile. “I’m still alive.”
She sighed as if I’d said I was broken beyond repair. “Being alive might be something we’ll end up regretting.”
Other pairs of eyes looked over to us, narrowed with fear and harsh with warning. Silence had been our only companion since I’d been thrown in here two days ago.
This girl had taken that silence and filled it with fight. The food in my hands reminded me that she was right. No matter what they’d done to us, we couldn’t just accept it. There had to be a way—some way—to stop this.
Without dying in the process.
Tess sighed again, a huff of anger and a puff of despair. “I just want to go home.”
A whisper of agreement filtered around the room.
I nodded. “Me too. All of us do.”
My other companions had trickled in over the past forty-eight hours. Two girls had been here before me, but the others were new, just like this brave Australian girl. I’d never been much for talking to strangers and preferred silence over conversation, yet she reminded me of a time when things had been so much simpler.
A girl of a similar age. A young woman just embarking on her life after suffering through adolescence and education. We’d earned our freedom, yet these men had killed it before it’d begun.
“They can’t do this.” Tess’s hands curled by her side, crushing the piece of bread she still held.
I nodded again. I opened my mouth to agree.
But really, they could.
They had.
They’d taken us, and we had no control.
We could scream and curse and crawl around in the dark for a way out, but in the end…we just had to be patient and hope fate was kind to us and ruthless to them. That karma would be on our side.
No one knew what was in store for us but nasty misery held the truth.
We were theirs.
To use.
To sell.
To kill.
We could rebel all we wanted and use energy, wishing it wasn’t so…but in the end, the ones who would survive were the ones who waited and watched and learned how to use the monster’s weaknesses against him.
“I’m sorry about your boyfriend,” I murmured. “I’m sorry they took you.” I pulled back into the shadows, curling around the food she’d given me, settling deeper into silence.
* * * * *
“Get up, putas.”
I opened my eyes.
The oppressive blackness was sliced with a wedge of light, spilling through the open door. Two men barred the exit. One had a jagged scar along his cheek, the other an oily leather jacket.
The one with the leather jacket marched straight toward Tess and snatched her off the bottom bunk. The one with the scar joined in the game, dragging girls off the bottom bunks and yanking legs of the ones on top. Not waiting for the rude alarm clock to hurt me, I leaped off the top bunk and landed on filthy floorboards.
My denim shorts and lemon t-shirt had long since succumbed to dirt and disgust.
The scarred guy sneered at me, then shoved my shoulder and sent me crashing into the framework of the bunk just because he could.
I gritted my teeth as quiet rage slithered through my chest. A rattlesnake of hatred. I was the girl at school who always played by the rules and made friends with everyone. I was the one teachers used as a good example. Not because I was perfect but because I’d learned how to play perfect.
I didn’t pick fights or argue trivial matters. I held the enviable position of not being tied to one clique. I hung out with the nerds, the cool kids, the druggies, and the jocks.
I was neutral. I was calm.
But beneath that façade, I was pure emotion.
I didn’t bother wasting energy on petty and pointless things because I knew life hadn’t truly started yet. I’d bided my time. I’d accepted the delay that school delivered before my life could really start.
And now that it had…now that I didn’t have to be perfect, well…it was personal.
This situation was too dangerous to ignore, and I wasn’t weak enough to accept it.