CHAPTER 5 #2
The handler stepped directly into my space. He loomed over me, a massive wall of black tactical gear, his posture shifting into something actively aggressive. He didn't speak, but the threat was absolute. Put it on, or he would put it on me, and he would break my arms to do it.
"What is this for?" I demanded, my voice shaking as much from the freezing air as the adrenaline.
They just watched me. I gritted my teeth, holding their dead stares, and pulled the slip over my wet head.
The silk immediately clung to every single curve of my body, practically turning transparent against my damp skin.
It was freezing. I felt infinitely more exposed in this cheap, sheer fabric than I had when I was completely naked.
I grabbed the hem and yanked it down as far as it would stretch, but it barely reached my mid-thighs.
The wet slap of the fabric against my legs echoed in the quiet room.
The cold draft from the overhead vents blew right through it.
Keep your head up, I told myself. Don't slouch.
Don't cover your chest. If you shrink, they win.
"Satisfied?" I asked, lifting my chin. "Where are we going?"
They turned and marched out the door. I had no choice but to follow.
My bare feet slapped against the freezing concrete.
We entered a brutalist corridor—a maze of gray cinderblock with heavy numbered doors.
There were more black dome cameras on the ceiling than a Vegas casino.
The handlers walked with a brisk, military pace, completely indifferent to the fact that I had to practically trot to keep up, my wet hair dripping freezing water down the middle of my back.
Three left turns. One right, I mentally chanted, counting the steps between junctions. I needed to build a mental map. I needed to know the distance to the elevators.
"Is there anyone else here?" I asked the back of the handler's head. "Wait... please, my feet..."
A sharp rock on the concrete dug into my heel, but neither man slowed down. The rhythmic echo of their heavy boots drowned out the slap of my bare feet. I could feel the low vibration of heavy machinery thrumming behind the cinderblock walls.
We stopped abruptly at the end of a long corridor. In front of us was a massive, reinforced glass enclosure.
Inside, I saw them. A dozen women.
They were all wearing the exact same sheer white slip.
They looked like ghosts trapped in an aquarium.
The sight of them hit me like a physical wall.
Some were huddled in the far corners, their arms wrapped around their shins, faces buried in their knees.
Others were just sitting against the glass, staring blankly at the opposite wall, their spirits so completely extinguished they didn't even blink when we walked up.
Near the center, a girl who couldn't be a day older than nineteen was sitting cross-legged, rocking back and forth, humming a frantic, discordant tune under her breath.
"Oh god... all of them?" I whispered, my stomach dropping into my shoes. "What have you done to them?"
The smell of fear-sweat mixed with expensive perfume leaked through the seams of the door. The clinical, bright overhead lighting of the pen illuminated every single bruise, every tear-streaked face. They looked like they’d already died.
The handler beside me swiped a blue keycard against a black reader on the wall. The heavy glass door slid open with a pneumatic hiss. He didn't tell me to walk in. He just planted a heavy hand squarely between my shoulder blades and shoved.
I stumbled forward, my bare feet immediately sliding on the highly polished floor of the pen. I threw my arms out, catching my balance just before I ate the floor. Behind me, the glass door slid shut and locked with a definitive, magnetic, echoing thud.
I was officially part of the inventory.
A woman sitting near the door reached out. Her hand was shaking violently, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She tried to touch my arm.
"Get away from me," I snapped, pulling my arm out of her reach on pure instinct. I didn't mean to sound so vicious, but the panic was rising fast.
She flinched and pulled her knees back to her chest.
"Who did this to you?" I asked the room at large.
None of them answered. The collective sound of ten different women breathing, the muffled sobbing, the humming—it was a symphony of total, utter defeat.
The clinical silence of the facility outside the glass pressed in on us.
I backed up until I felt the cool touch of the glass against my shoulder blades.
I’m in the box, I realized. Now I have to find the way out.
A massive wave of pure, unadulterated despair crashed over me.
It started in my chest and shot straight up my throat.
The low, melodic grief of the women crying started to pull violently at my resolve.
My vision immediately blurred with hot tears.
My throat tightened to the point of pain.
Desmond had sold me. I was locked in a glass cage in a subterranean nightmare, wet, half-naked, and branded for whatever sick bastards were paying for this.
"No. Not yet," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut. My chest heaved as I actively tried to push the massive sob back down into my gut. "Don't cry. Don't you dare cry."