Once she was safely out of sight, I crept closer to the ship and tried to find a way on. As I stepped aboard and began searching, I should have wondered where all the dock workers, and crew of the ship, were. I should have wondered why it was so easy for me to walk up to a ship and climb aboard without running into another soul.
In my defense, I’d never been to a port before, let alone on a ship or even to a boat dock, so I had no idea what I should expect.
Still, my gut should have warned me that something bad was about to happen.
It didn’t.
It wasn’t until I heard a crunching sound behind me that I felt the first stirrings of oh shit and turned, bringing my knee up automatically as I did. My training from Bran didn’t fail me this time, but I’d heard my assailant too late.
I barely saw him sidestep my maneuver before I felt a prick in my neck. Then everything went black.
I don’t know how long I was out. When I came to, it was slowly, and I had a killer headache. Wherever I was, it was pitch black and utterly silent. As I woke, I worked on tamping down the panic that was threatening to consume me, and took short, shallow breaths.
My wrists were bound together, but my ankles were free, and I wasn’t gagged. I could feel the cold floor beneath my butt and a draft in the room that made me shiver. I was cold, like down to my bones cold, so I figured I’d probably been on the floor for at least a few hours.
I wondered if Alani had gotten hold and told her parents what was going on, and if she’d called Cade told him where I was. I hoped so, and the thought of an alternate scenario was more than I could handle in that moment, so I pushed the worries away.
I needed to focus, plan, and prepare.
Focus on my situation, plan what to do when whoever tranqued me came back, and mentally prepare myself for all of the possible outcomes.
That’s what I was doing when I heard the scrap of steel against steel.
Light came through the opening, bit by bit, until the room was illuminated and I was blinking rapidly as my eyes tried to adjust. The rapid change from dark to light allowed the large man to seemingly be at the entrance one moment, and towering above me the next.
When my eyes finally adjusted, I took in the large, muscular man in front of me, and knew it was the same man who’d come up behind me earlier.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, my voice coming out in a rasp.
“Well, Delila Horton from Greenswood, private investigator and mother of two,” he began, making my already chilled body freeze over with his words. He’d obviously taken my wallet and gone through it. I hated the thought that he had my address and business card, even though we were thousands of miles away from home, but the fact that he’d laid his beady eyes on my babies filled my heart with rage.
“Fuck you,” I spat, livid despite my predicament.
His response was a chuckle, which only made me angrier.
“No thanks,” he replied, and I caught a hint of an accent, although I had no idea where it was from. “But don’t worry, a lot of our buyers like them feisty … and old.”
I would have been incensed over the old comment, if I wasn’t stuck on the word buyers.
“What do you mean…” I began, but was cut off when he grabbed me by my wrists and yanked me to my feet.
“Let’s go, we’ve got to hose you off before the party tonight. Our buyers aren’t picky, but the boss has a rule about no smelly merchandise.”
I tried to drag my feet in order to keep him from pulling me from the room, my mind reeling at the thought of being taken and sold like cattle. I knew my struggle was pointless when he picked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and carried me out of the room.
It was hard, but I pushed my fear back and focused on my surroundings. Where we walked, the sounds filtered in between containers, along with the pungent smell of fish and the ocean. It was hard to see, because every time I tried to lift my head up to look around, the big oaf jostled me around on his shoulder, forcing me to fall back down. His ginormous ass my only view.
When he stopped, I heard him opening a door and lifted my head up a fraction to look around.
We were in between stacks of containers, but it looked like we were entering the inside of the ship. I wasn’t sure if a ship like this had cabins or rooms or what, although I assumed if there were workers living on this ship for months at a time, there must be some sort of living setup.
I feared I was about to find out more than I ever wanted to know.
I heard women screaming as we crossed the threshold, then the sounds of male voices shouting, and finally a loud noise followed by whimpers.
My stomach cramped as I wondered what I was about to not only see, but become a part of. I could only hope that help was on the way.
One moment I was over the oaf’s shoulder, and the next I was thrown down to the ground, landing unceremoniously on my butt.
“Hey!” I shouted, ready to surge to my feet.
The oaf must have read my intention, because he pointed a beefy finger at me and said, “Stay,” like I was a goddamn dog.
I glared at him, then turned my head to see another goon standing in front of girls, holding a large hose. Young, frightened girls. They were scattered around the room on the floor. Some sitting, some laying down, some curled in a ball. They were all naked and shivering, and would be more so when he opened the valve and started spraying them down.
“Take off your clothes,” the oaf said, causing me to turn my wide eyes from the scene in front of me to scowl at him.
“Like hell,” I sneered.
“If you don’t, I will,” he threatened, then took a menacing step toward me.
My thoughts scrambled as I tried to figure out my best course of action here … Did I strip down naked in a room full of disgusting men and terrified girls, humiliating myself and basically allowing them to hose me down like a barnyard animal? Or, did I fight, probably end up battered and bruised, and after the struggle, still naked in a room full of disgusting men and terrified girls?
Figuring I needed to keep my strength and remain uninjured so I could find a way out of this mess, I gave the oaf the stank eye while I took off my clothes myself. He flashed his teeth at me, grinning in triumph, so I flipped him the bird, then resumed disrobing.
Once I was naked, he pointed toward the girls, indicating I should move over to join the group shower. As I slid over, I looked at all of the girls. Even though I’d never met Hannah, and had no idea what she looked like, I wondered if she was in the sea of faces.
I was processing how frightened the girls were not paying attention to the goons, so when the blast of freezing water hit me, it was a shock to the system. I gasped, then instinctively tried to cower away.
It was over in seconds, but they were seconds I never wanted to live again. Cold, wet, my hair dripping, I huddled into myself as best I could, then tried to wring out as much of the water as possible from my hair.
“Up and to the next room,” the man with the hose bellowed, and when the girls didn’t immediately get up and start moving, he blasted the ones closest to the door on the opposite side of the room again.
“Now!” he yelled, and this time everyone scrambled to their feet and moved, including me.
I kept my head down, but took in everything I could as we walked across the puddles in the floor and into the next room. There was another set of girls in the room. But these girls were dressed.
They’d obviously been through the same drill my group had been, because their hair was wet, although most of them were now wearing braids and ponytails. There were not only men, but female goons in this room. They seemed to be involved in the dressing and fixing of hair.
I stood in the line of wet girls, peering around the naked bodies in front of me to see what was happening in front. The girls in the front of our line were being toweled off by the men, while the women handed them dresses, then moved them over to start on their hair.
I was looking at
the girls who were already dressed and sitting around the room in folding chairs. Although they had dresses on and their hair was done, no one had on any makeup, which only made them look younger and more pristine. Pure. Which I assumed was the look Yusuf and his buyers were going for.
I wondered what in the hell they were planning to do with me, since I was a fork in a room full of spoons.
As I was searching their faces, I realized that they were all acting much differently than those of us still naked and in line. They were sitting listlessly, not reacting to what was going on around them. They didn’t seem to care that they were being made up for auction, and hadn’t responded to the fact that there was a line of wet and naked girls all whimpering and whining in the same room as them.
They must’ve been drugged, I thought, then turned my attention back to the first girls in my group who were now dressed and were being led to a chair in front of a mirror. When the young, dark-haired girl sat down, one of the women handed her a water bottle.
The girl looked up at her, obviously about to refuse, but I saw the woman put her hand on the girl’s shoulder and urge her to drink. I watched closely, not tearing my eyes off the dark-haired girl even as I shuffled forward in line, so I noticed when her shoulders relaxed and her head dropped slightly forward.
It was the water. They were slipping something in there, knowing that the girls would feel safe drinking water out of a bottle, therefore making them pliable and easier to get ready for auction.
Jun said that Yusuf kept the girls drugged so that they didn’t know they were being sold off until it was too late. This is how he did it.
I was getting closer to the front, trying to figure out how to keep from drinking the water, when my eyes landed on a girl sitting in the middle of the room. Long black hair, toffee skin, and the face of an angel … They’d taken Alani.
“Damn, where’d this one come from?” the man asked rudely when I got to the front of the line. He was toweling me off roughly when he turned to the woman next to him with a smirk. “She’s as old as you.”
I growled in response.
Seriously? The woman handing out dresses is at least sixty. What an asshole!
“She was snooping around,” the goon offered from behind me. “Yusuf said to add her to the list. Some guys have fetishes, ya know.”
Fucker.
They all laughed, and I swore to myself that I was going to kick some serious ass when I got out of this. Or, I’d at least have Cade do it…
Once I had a white sundress on, that was almost identical to what every other girl in the room was wearing, I was pushed toward the chair at the vanity, and sat down. I held my breath as the lady handed me a bottle of water.
“Here, ma’am,” she said, her English broken and her tone kind. “Drink up, you need water.”
I wanted to tell her to go to hell, knowing that she used this sweet old lady act to gain the trust of these young girls in order to drug them. She was just as despicable as the goons, maybe more so, because she knew what was about to happen and she helped anyway.
I took the bottle, making sure to knock a couple items off the table as I did.
“Sorry,” I muttered as she bent down to pick up the brush and comb off the floor.
Thinking fast, I looked at the bottle, then the goons who were talking to each other, and tipped it quickly, spilling the water in my lap. By the time she came back to standing, the water bottle was mostly empty on the table in front of me, and I’d let my head fall forward. Breathing out slowly, I willed my body to relax and gave my best impression of being doped up.
I focused on keeping my breathing shallow and my limbs fluid as she started brushing my hair, yanking and tugging painfully as she worked out the knots that had formed after being hosed down.
Inside I was screaming, shit, fuck, motherfucking son of a bitch, but outside, I was completely still.
Once my hair was back in a braid, I was urged to standing, then walked over to one of the benches and eased into an empty spot. I kept my head bowed as I listened to the older woman tell the men that everyone was ready.
“I’ll tell the boss,” one of the goons said, and I saw his leather loafers as he walked past me and down the row of drugged girls.
I shifted my eyes, trying to gauge how far away I was from Alani, my heart breaking over all the girls in that room. I wondered how many parties like this one Yusuf had already thrown? How many girls had gone missing from their homes, from their families? How many were right now being held captive with no hope of every being set free?
The thought made my blood boil, and my bones chill.
I have to make sure these women don’t fall victim to the same fate.
A door slammed open and it took all I had not to flinch at the sound.
“Boss said take ‘em in and get ‘em ready,” one of the voices from earlier said. I didn’t look up to see if it was the goon with the hose, or the goon with the towel.
I listened to the sound of footsteps of what sounded like three people, and felt a tap on my shoulder, then a hand on my bicep urging me to stand.
We were herded out of the dressing room and led down a hallway. I watched the girls in front of me the best I could and kept my ears open to the sounds of the conversations around me. We passed a room with what sounded like a group of guys. I didn’t see them, but I heard their mixture of voices and the obvious excitement over what was about to happen.
“Did you hear how much we raised already?”
“Yeah, this is the hottest crop yet.”
“I can’t believe they finally got the big dog to come to one of these.”
“It was only a matter of time. We’re the best show on island, and news is getting out.”
“That hot blonde Yusuf brought in is going to be the star of the show. Hot, blonde, and a virgin? Those fucking guys are going to be jizzing all over themselves to win her.”
I bit back the vile that had risen in my throat, and did my best to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even though what I really wanted to do was go in that room and kick them all in their dicks.
I heard some shuffling a head of me, and as I kept walking, I saw that some of the girls were being deposited in different rooms. I passed a few rooms that held three to four girls, who were sitting on large beds.
As I started to pass the fifth room, I noticed Alani inside. Making myself stumble, I tripped over my feet and fell inside the room, holding back a moan when my entire right side hit the floor, hard.
I closed my eyes and kept my breath even as I waited.
I didn’t hear any movement on the bed, and wondered how long the drug worked before the effects wore off. Would everyone be given another dose before the party, or was it potent enough to keep everyone basically catatonic until they were already auctioned off?
After few moments, I heard the sound of running. It passed the door, then stopped, and I heard the footsteps coming back to the room.
“Dumb bitch must have passed out,” the oaf said. “What the fuck is that, did she piss herself? Do we need to go hose her off again, or should we take her down to the last room?”
“Nah, just leave her in here,” another man said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to throw my back out carrying her around. She’s not as small as the rest of the girls. And if she did piss herself, she deserves to marinate in it.”
“You think Yusuf will be okay with her being in here with his prize?”
“Yeah, sure, maybe being in here will get her more attention and get her sold faster. Get her the fuck outta here before anyone knows she’s gone.”
They chucked as they picked me up. Two hands grabbed my ankles, while two more grabbed my wrists. I was carried a couple feet, then tossed onto the bed into the bodies of the other girls.
If you would’ve told me it was possible for me to fall asleep in the middle of a crisis, I would have called bullshit. But seriously, that’s exactly what happened.
Maybe it w
as because the bed was hella comfortable, with some sort of cashmere blanket covering it. Maybe it was the warmth of the other girls nestled next to me while they slept. Or, maybe it was the drop in adrenaline after being tranqued, kidnapped, sprayed down with a hose, then herded around dressed up like a doll.
Whatever the reason, I passed out. Like dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep for who knows how long. Maybe it was my body’s form of self-preservation, like it knew I need to regain some energy for what was about to come.
I didn’t come awake slowly, wondering where I was or what happened. No, I came awake with a start. My heart beating frantically, as if I’d been frightened awake.
I looked around the small room to see the other girls waking more slowly, probably roused by me thrashing about in the bed. A sound had my head turning, and I watched as the curtain was slowly opened by some sort of machine, revealing a large open room with rows of chairs ten deep lining it.
I looked through the window to see at least twenty other rooms just like mine being revealed as all of the curtains were opened. Each with large beds heavy with slumbering girls of all shapes and sizes. There were varying skin tones and hair colors, the only thing that was the same, was their young ages. Everyone other than me was a minor, their sweet clothing and hair only making their ages more apparent.
Unfortunately, I was still coming out of a deep sleep, and hadn’t remembered that I was supposed to be drugged. The men on the other side of the glass now knew that I was not only awake, but aware of what was happening around me.
I heard them shout, then two men rushed out of the viewing room, and I knew they were headed right for me.
Moving quickly, I jumped off the bed and rushed to the door, closing it quickly and searching for a lock. Of course, there wasn’t one, so I ran back to the bed and started shaking Alani.
“Alani!” I yelled, no longer trying to keep up the façade. “Wake up. You need to wake up.”
A couple of the other girls murmured, but I was focused on Cade’s sister.
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