Free
TWO
HAVEN
Then Mickey pulled one of his punches as if remembering almost too late, saying, “Fuck, Winter needs her alive,” and I heard Cam and Noah discussing how Winter was calling a meeting upstairs, and it finally hit me that he was a man.
I haven’t seen him. For the first two weeks, I had no idea he was even near—until Mickey forced me to my knees, unzipped his pants, and a ghost of a voice echoed through the cell, telling Mickey what he could and could not do to their guest.
Guest.
That sadistic bastard considers me a guest…
I hear the buzz, followed by static before his voice fills the cell.
“Keep her breathing,” Winter says, and I know he’s not speaking to me even though I’m the only one in the room. “And remember the rule.”
My stomach turns cold. If I’d had breakfast this morning, I might hurl. Instead, with most of the fight in me long beaten out, I freeze in place, knowing that I can’t escape what’s coming for me.
Thirty-four days into captivity, I know the rule.
Everyone knows the rule.
Once again it’s Mickey’s turn, I guess, because that’s the voice I hear answering Winter from just outside the glass door to my cell.
“No penetration,” he calls back, almost sing-song. “Yeah, yeah. We got it.”
The glass door slides open.
My body reacts before my mind can decide what to do. I scramble backward on the cot, my shoulder hitting the wall, my knees drawing up as the heavy door opens. Shit. There are two of them today. Mickey is first, because Mickey always likes being first. Behind him is Cam.
Neither one has a tray of food for me. They’ve learned.
They want me hungry. They want me mean. When I react like a cornered animal, they get to have more fun; at least, it’s their idea of fun.
They want the excuse to get carried away, hoping Winter will forgive them if they forget how far they’re allowed to go.
I stay where I am, watching them quietly.
Mickey leers at me. “How’s our favorite Offering today?”
I try to hide the wince. Offering… I hate when he reminds me of what I used to be; by now, there’s no way I am.
Even worse, it’s his way of showing me that he knows everything about me: from my age to my hobbies, my name to my position in the Order…
they knew exactly who they were taking while I know nothing.
I don’t care why he taunts me like that. The first time Mickey called me ‘Offering’, I spit in his face. Unfortunately, he made sure I regretted it, and since I’m a fast learner, I keep my mouth shut as he waits to see my reaction.
He smirks when I don’t give him one. “See? Even the most rabid bitch can learn to keep her trap shut.”
I don’t move.
Moving makes them excited. Not moving does, too, when he knows I’m being defiant, but at least stillness lets me pretend I have some control.
I don’t. Not really. It’s going to happen anyway, but if my body is quiet, if my face is blank, if I don’t give them anything, maybe they’ll get bored easier and finish faster.
They rarely do, but I need to cling to that to hold on to the last of my sanity…
Mickey crouches in front of the cot. His breath smells like stale coffee and cigarettes. I turn my face slightly, staring out of the corner of my eyes at the wall beside me, peering down at the faint tally marks scratched into the concrete.
He follows my gaze, laughing when he notices the marks for the first time. “Oh, that’s fucking precious.” He jabs a finger at them. “You been counting, Haven?”
I keep my head down, ignoring him.
“Counting what? Days?” He glances over his shoulder, addressing Cam. “Hey, she’s been counting days.”
Cam shrugs, his eyes on my tits as though my stretched-out t-shirt shows off any of my body.
Mickey’s attention comes back to me. “What happens when you reach the right number, huh? Somebody comes busting in here to save you? Big bad Order men? That what you think?”
I still don’t answer.
Too bad that doesn’t stop him from grabbing a fistful of my bun and tugging my head toward him until I’m forced to look in his face.
“Asked you a question, bitch.”
I grit my teeth.
His eyes light up. I can’t tell if it’s because he’s almost always high—on something they call Breeze, a drug that Winter and his men manufacture and distribute—or if it’s simply because he likes it when I fight back.
Both, probably.
“You can stop counting,” Mickey tells me, almost gleefully. “No one’s coming for you. In fact, if they leave you to rot here much longer, the boss might just decide to give this cell to someone more worthwhile than some abandoned slut.”
Slut. If that’s what he calls me, it’s because that’s what he made me.
I swallow a lump in my throat. “You… you don’t know that.”
My voice sounds wrong, like it’s too rough to belong to a twenty-seven-year-old society girl. Then again, I don’t use it much anymore, and when I do speak, Mickey takes it as a sign of personal victory.
“Sure I do. But that’s okay. If hope’s all you got to keep you warm at night, you might as well hold onto it until Winter finally lets me fuck you for real.”
I go absolutely still.
Over my head, the speaker crackles again. This time, Winter doesn’t say a thing, but he doesn’t have to. It’s a quick reminder to Mickey that he’s still expected to follow the rules… for now.
Being captured didn’t change my fate, it seems. For my entire life, my only worth was in my virginity.
So long as the Order considered me ‘pure’, I was allowed to retain my status and hopefully end up the wife of an Owed.
And though the corrupt guards in my prison cell have fondled me, touched me, stuck their hands in my pants and up my shirt, and forced me to pleasure them in ways I never have before, they’ve abided by the one rule: no one is allowed to fuck me vaginally.
Or, as he says it, no penetration.
Trust me. They don’t need to do that to make me feel dirty and worthless and… fuck it… Used.
Like now. Remembering that Winter is watching, Mickey lets go of my hair and pats my cheek. The touch is gentle enough, but it makes my skin crawl worse than any slap does because I know what’s about to happen.
And then, instead of reaching for his zipper, he pinches my jaw. “You still don’t get it, do you? You think being one of those Order girls means something.”
I swallow, but don’t say a damn word.
Mickey’s thumb drags beneath my lower lip. “Offering. That’s what they call you, right?”
My jaw locks, though I know that won’t save me.
“You rich assholes have the prettiest names for the ugliest shit.” Mickey keeps his gaze on me. “Winter told us all about it. How special you are. How valuable. How men pay good money for girls like you. Well. Not you, Haven. No one wants you.”
Someone has to want me. They have to.
Don’t they?
My lips part, a sob stuck in my throat, and Mickey grabs my chin, wrenching my mouth open.
As he does, all I can think is:
Offerings are protected.
Offerings are treasured.
Offerings are cherished.
No, I think to myself.
Offerings are preserved.
Offerings only matter if they’re pure.
Offerings don’t fight back—but this one always will.
“Come on, Mick,” grates Cam, and a peek in his direction tells me that he already has his erection out, stroking it lazily.
He likes to have me on my hands and knees in front of him, choking on his cock, but the gleam only hits his dark eyes like that when he gets to watch me degrade myself with Mickey.
“Stop talking and give her your dick. I’m ready. ”
Ready for his turn or to leave sticky residue on the floor of my cell when he comes all over it after watching his buddy rape my mouth, I can’t say. Regardless, I hate him as much as I hate Mickey, and as all that violent hate wells up inside of me, I react.
Mickey unzips his jeans. Distracted by pulling out his hard cock, I shift my weight and, throwing myself backward, I kick out. My heel makes contact with his groin. He grunts, then sucks in a breath, and as he slumps forward, he stares at me in disbelief.
I can’t save myself from this, either. I know in an instant that I provoked him too far, and that when he recovers, I’m in trouble.
Double trouble since Cam jerks up his jeans, grabbing my shoulder, pinning me to the cot so that Mickey has a wide open target when he begins to hit me.
I hear someone shout an order—“Don’t damage the merchandise”—but these two brutes don’t give a shit. After the first few hits, Mickey is on top of me. His knee lands beside my ribs. His hand catches my hair again, forcing my head back as he crouches over me.
“You just don’t fucking learn, do you?”
My mouth is full of blood, and when I spit at him, I see red dots in the spittle that lands on his chin.
Cam switches his position, holding my thighs down before I can jerk my knee up. With Mickey’s weight on me, I’m immobilized. I can’t imagine my heel did that much damage because Mickey is still half-hard when he forces my mouth open and shoves his dick past my teeth.
“Told you, Cameron. The only good use for a bitch like this is a hole. Maybe next time Winter will see how much of a filly the Offering is and give us her ass to break her for good. That can’t count in their stupid fucking rules, eh?”
It’s the latest threat that does it. Over the last few weeks, whenever he had me like this, my brain protected me by shutting down. This time, though? It’s… it’s different. Almost like the most recent assault is happening to someone else. Someone who isn’t me.
I hear Mickey’s voice, too close and too pleased, telling me I can make it easy or I cam make it hard, and if I’m a good girl, he’s sure I’ll enjoy it.
But I won’t. I know I won’t, and as though I won’t be the one to pay the price for it later, I choose hard.
I want to believe I’ll always choose hard—and that’s when hard becomes impossible, and I have Cam rubbing dicks against Mickey as he stretches my jaw, trying to find some part of my tongue to touch his skin.
They high-five while they violate me, and discuss what it would be like to bend me over and take everything, and that’s when I shut down until it’s finally, finally over.
By the time they leave, I’m curled on the floor beside the cot, one arm wrapped around my middle. My jaw is throbbing. My throat is raw. Hot tears sting my eyes, and though I know I need to rinse my mouth out, I can’t move.
I stay on the floor for a long time, the number thirty-four echoing in my head.
Eventually, I find the strength to get up on my knees. I pull myself on top of the cot and crawl toward the wall. Toward the tally marks.
It’s been thirty-four days since I stopped being the Haven Smith that I was.
A high-ranked Offering from an old Harmony Heights family. One who was protected. Prized. I was supposed to be valuable, but now… now I’m nothing.
Slowly, I curl on my side again. The speaker crackles once, then goes silent, but I know better than to think that I’m as alone as I feel.
Thirty-four days ago, I would’ve shouted at the unseen watcher. Now? I’m as silent as the grave.
Later, I’ll wonder if that’s when my voice truly left me. Like, one moment I had it, then it was gone, and because I didn’t miss it, I just let it go.
The next time Mickey comes in, he leers like always, then asks if I missed him.
I don’t say a word.
Smirking, he asks if I learned my lesson.
Nothing.
Getting pissed off now, he grabs my chin hard enough to bruise before telling me to answer him.
I don’t want any more pain. I just want to be left alone. So I open my mouth—but nothing comes out.
Mute. It’s the first time he laughs and says, “Cute. You’ve gone mute now?,” and I realize that these men broke me so badly, I have. I’ve gone mute.
And I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything.
Not my escape. Not my future. Not my worth as a goddamn Offering.
For the first time in more than a month, I think I’m finally free.