Chapter 10 Thea #2
Slowly, I twist back to look at Slade. His eyes meet mine before he averts them in favor of tracing a droplet of water rolling down my arm.
I’m still wet. Still wearing nothing but my towel, and utterly aware of his stony stare.
He pushes up the frames on his face and studies me, like he’s trying to memorize something or like I’m data to be decoded.
Why is he here? I’ve never once seen one of the EV members lurking outside the door. Granted, I only get fleeting glimpses past the steel door when staff, cleaners, or guards enter.
Silence stretches between us.
His jaw is tight, but his stare … it’s starved.
It must be the glare from the light spilling overhead and reflecting off his glasses. I can’t place the strain in his unreadable expression.
“Back up.” Another guard joins the one standing by the door to help monitor the exit while keeping the door open for the medic to work.
I do, severing my connection with Slade. Then I turn to stand with the other girls looming outside the bathroom entrance.
More medical staff run around the corner—another man and a woman with short hair—and they barge into the room with a rolling IV cart. It’s too proficient, the way they execute setting up a station beside her bed like they’ve done this before.
I hover with the others, but it’s like I’m watching myself from somewhere else. It’s too loud, but slow motion. My breath doesn’t feel like mine—I’m untethered. Numb. Trapped.
It’s like I’m watching a distant ghost of my future self, and when they drag her out and haul her into bed, hooking her up to the IV, I panic.
I turn to look back, perhaps in minor desperation, at the congressman, but he’s gone. Why was he even here? He didn’t say anything, didn’t help. Was he checking on her—or on me? The thought shouldn’t make my stomach clench, but it does. I can’t tell which answer would be worse.
The days that follow are more depressing than last week.
While Tonya—the blonde—is making a physical recovery, mentally she’s crumbling.
She wakes every night screaming in utter terror.
We do our best to comfort her, but what can we really do?
She needs professional help at this point.
There are no words to heal her, and for many of the girls, it’s too painful to share stories.
We’ve all suffered in the sleep department because of it, and with it being the morning of another Market, we’re all on edge.
“You’re in my way,” Juliette says to Tonya, who’s waiting behind me for our morning green juice.
“Sorry.”
Mercy speaks up. “Do not apologize, T. Juliette, what the hell is your problem?”
Juliette rolls her eyes and files in behind the others.
When I glance at her, she widens her eyes and shakes her head at me, annoyed.
“We can’t walk on eggshells around her forever.
It’s not our job to take care of her. Everyone else is trying to survive just as much. It’s not the worst we’ve been through.”
“Did you notice they didn’t bring in anyone new this week?” Sarah asks. She watches the corner camera in the room. “Who do you think”—she grits her teeth—“he will pick? It should be Tonya.”
This conversation isn’t new. The handful of girls lucky enough to be bought by Slade over the weeks—and armed with GHB—talk in discreet circles.
Conversations that do nothing but foster resentment among the girls who haven’t had a break.
If it weren’t for the cameras, and I’m assuming, the NDA they—we—signed, I’m pretty sure there’d be fights over it.
Edmond called it a “gesture of trust.” I remember thinking how ridiculous it sounded.
A promise to stay quiet in a place built on secrecy.
But there’s no one to tell, nowhere to run.
It’s more of a tool for psychological control, not a true legal necessity.
Judging by how the girls act over it, over him—part of me understands, especially if he has an underlying plan here.
It’s just another layer to scare the girls into playing by the rules.
“It doesn’t work like that, and you know it,” Juliette snaps back, tossing her long hair over her shoulder.
“But there’s no one new. Do you think we have another chance—”
“Shut up!”
I chew my lip and adjust the cotton lounge set I’m wearing. In a few hours, they’ll come take me away. Then I’ll spend the latter half of the day being stripped of all body hair, exfoliated, dolled up, teased, and plopped into lingerie to lift my B-cups and scallop my butt cheeks.
All this fighting, this vying for attention, sucking up to the staff—none of it will matter in a few hours.
There’s a tap on my shoulder as I file up another body length, watching the EV staff member scan another green smoothie and hand it to the next girl in line.
“Did anything … happen last week?” Sarah’s face is hopeful, and I know what she’s really asking, though she can’t say in front of the cameras.
Why didn’t they bring in a new girl? Was there any sign at the congressman’s that would explain? Does she have a chance of being selected by Slade again, to get out of the horrifying night to come?
I shake my head.
Juliette butts in. “Ugh. Seriously, just stop. It’s not our fault you ran out.” She snaps her mouth closed, and my eyes dart between the two of them before I step forward, next in line.
The EV staffer gives me a once-over and hands me the pre-bottled green sludge meant to keep us alive. I’ve lost weight, not a ton, but enough to notice my sharper jawline and hip bones. Surprisingly, my hair is full and longer. Mercy says it’s because of the vitamins they add to everything.
It’s weird. To be physically healthier than I’ve been in a long time, considering I’ve been deprived of sugary coffee and cheap takeout, but mentally worse off. Which is saying something.
I turn around, twisting the top off my morning meal, and attempt to defuse the tension. “I don’t think Tonya will make it through another week if she goes through this again.”
Sarah nods. “Graves is a vile, soulless asshole. She’s lucky, though. The last girl he ruined like that didn’t make it.”
I recoil, and a slow burn of horror tightens in my throat. “What do you mean?”
“I mean … she was badly assaulted and took too long to recover. They never allow more than a few days. They dragged her out the moment it was clear she wouldn’t sell well at the next Market.”
The pit in my stomach grows. “What did they do with her?”
Juliette laughs. “What do you think? Sold her. They Cull girls to cycle them out, or in this case, don’t recover enough to function the way they need.
Only it isn’t rich American men with kinks, fetishes, and money to burn.
They traffic useless girls overseas. Instead of mattresses, you sleep on the stone floor.
Forget showers, you sit in your own waste.
And assaulted once a week in a mansion? Nope.
Try daily, violently. Until you’re starved down to nothing and dropped in a hole to be buried alive. ”
Sarah whimpers and cracks her knuckles.
Juliette’s face hardens. “So don’t be useless.
It can get worse. Much, much worse. While there isn’t a new girl this week, there could be two the next, and they won’t keep us all.
Which means someone will be shipped off.
” She looks over her shoulder at one girl tucked in the corner and sipping her juice like a chipmunk.
I’ve been told she hasn’t been bought in three weeks.
I fight the itch to pull up my mattress and dig for my vial of GHB.
How I’m going to hide it while they poke and prod me during prep is beyond me.
I’d ask another one of the girls, but I’m not supposed to, and while I’m not privy to the congressman’s plan or reasoning behind it, I’m not willing to spoil it.
I drag a hand over my face and pad to the water fountain to get a cup to help wash down the thick glop I need to consume. My stomach flips and dips, and by the time I sit back on my bed, I’m not sure I can even “eat.”
I’m not the new girl this week. I’ve been given my shot, the free pass. This time, I need to prepare myself.