There was one thing that bugged me, though. That kind of nagged at me. When she’d bitten my hand, I’d gone to slap her but stopped. I’d never stopped with any other girl before. It was something in her eyes that had done it. Not the fear, but something else. Something almost familiar.
I lay strips of bacon into the pan and cracked two eggs beside them, the sizzle and smell making my stomach growl, and wondered who she was. It wasn’t just her looks but the look inside her eyes. She was different than the others. She wasn’t a random pickup off the street. And I had a feeling she was older than the usual girls by a few years. The girls I trained were between eighteen and twenty-one. I wouldn’t take them younger. If I had to guess, I’d say Gia was twenty-four, maybe twenty-five. The buyers usually wanted young flesh.
Sick fucks.
Sicker than you?
I scrambled the eggs and told that voice to fuck off. Once everything was cooked, I plated it and set it on the table, grabbed my laptop out of its bag beside the door, and booted it up. I finished the plate of food as I checked my bank balance for the deposit—ten grand up front, the rest upon sale, the final price determined by the amount the girl brought in. Not bad money. But I guessed human trafficking brought in serious money. The auctions were always interesting. I enjoyed looking at the girls. Who wouldn’t? But I more liked watching the buyers, who were mostly men, some couples, and a few single women. The same ones seemed to turn up at every auction. I wondered if they were growing their stable of stolen women or if they needed to replace lost or damaged goods.
That little bit of conscience that gnawed at me got shoved back down into its box and the lid locked down tight. I thought of the girl—the job—and how I could maximize my earnings. She was good-looking, even if she was older than the usual girl, but she had something most of the others didn’t: that arrogance. Nothing like breaking a cocky girl. I just needed to somehow preserve that during her training, make her bow down with just that hint of indignation.
Once I finished, I cleaned up, then grabbed a granola bar and a bottle of water and headed toward Gia’s room. The cold inside gave me a chill. I saw how she lay sleeping huddled into herself on the bed. I set the water and the granola bar down on the small bedside table and walked back out. Tomorrow I’d give her a chance to earn back the blanket.4GiaI ate the granola bar and drank the water when I woke up. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had real food. Hot food. I had dreamt of bacon while I slept. I even thought I could smell it right now. It was like a mirage of water in the desert. I must be desperate.
No light came through the slats of the boarded-up window, so I knew it was late. How late, though, I couldn’t be sure. And it was cold. Really cold. I was glad to have such dim lighting in the room. Sleeping on the bare mattress and knowing others had been here before me—well, I didn’t want to know what I’d find staining it.
I stayed at the window for a while, knowing screaming would be useless. If anyone would have been able to hear me, he would have made sure to gag me anyway. This wasn’t the first time he’d done this. I knew that much. But I tried anyway. I cried out the window, not caring if he could hear.
“Hello? Hello, can anyone hear me? Is anyone out there?”
Nothing. Nothing but the sounds of night. I went back to the bed and sat down, rubbing my arms to warm up.
I wish I knew exactly what would happen to me. My captor—what was his name? I decided I would call him Death. He looked like an angel of death. That death mask hid his angel’s face.
I needed to find out more information. Try to figure out where I was. How far from civilization. I heard no noise, and trying to look through the window slats had proven useless earlier. The room smelled musty and old, like it hadn’t been used in a while. The mattress and pillow—I didn’t want to think about what those smelled like. But if I went close to the window, in addition to the freezing-cold draft, I could smell pine. We were in the woods somewhere. Question was, where and how far from civilization?
Death. He’d whipped me so easily. Hadn’t even had to hold me down to do it, although he had had to adjust my position a few times. I’d have to figure out how to not swallow the pills next time. I couldn’t be so out of control again. I needed to find an opportunity to run. But what if when I got that chance, it turned out there were more men out there? What if he wasn’t alone? What if I did manage to get past Death and got out there, only to find a second man? Or third. Victor had so many at his disposal.