Unchained (Men in Chains 3)

No. I have us cloaked in a heavy disguise. Only Daniel would be able to see through this, or maybe Quill and Lev, my half brothers who serve him.

Shayna was hardly listening. She could hear moaning as well as a sound she hadn’t been able to place until she realized it was a cacophony of women weeping. What is this place?

An initial holding cell. The women are incarcerated here first, for a few hours. Most of them are raped at this point, a few kept pure for other harsher experiences down the line.

He started moving down the two rows of cells in which there were anywhere from one to three women on a cot, most of them huddled together, faces grimy, bodies bloodstained, eyes swollen from crying.

Screams erupted twenty yards away.

The guard stopped at what was an open cell door and smiled.

As Marius drew nea

r, Shayna heard the guards laughing first, then some heavy grunting and more screams. She caught a glimpse inside and her stomach turned. Several of the guards were taking turns raping the two women in the cell.

I’m sorry you have to see this.

Shayna hadn’t wanted to come here in the first place, but Marius was right. These women were human captives, and every nationality appeared to be represented. If she turned away without even observing, she was part of the problem. To not acknowledge their suffering and torture was to dishonor each and every one of them. Isn’t there something we can do?

I’m afraid not. If we stopped and disrupted this crime, we’d be hunted down by the thousands of guards in this system. I’d probably be killed and you’d be put in one of these cells.

Shayna shuddered at this bald description and said nothing more.

The hallway ended, turned at a right angle—and Shayna gasped, for another hall extended farther than she could see. There were more guards and as Marius moved past the end of yet another long, double row of cells, and another, and another, the same scenario repeated: more weeping and screams from the women, laughter and grunting from the men.

Her own tears started to flow and she couldn’t make them stop. Marius, how many rows are there of just these initial holding cells?

Can you see the horizon? He kept moving.

Shayna turned to look but it went on and on. Oh, God.

Marius’s voice sounded distressed inside her head. Shayna, thousands are brought here every week. Thousands die. Try if you can to process that number.

I don’t know how much more I can take.

Marius suddenly shifted course and flew straight up. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she knew he held her in the middle of solid rock. Shayna, this is the tip of the iceberg. Don’t you understand? I showed you this part to help get you used to what the rest of this operation will look like.

Oh, God.

But I will give you a choice. If you don’t think you can see the rest, I’ll take you away right now. She heard the compassion in his voice and knew he’d be as good as his word.

She grew very still, processing. What she’d seen so far made her want to throw up. Yet somehow, she couldn’t speak the words ordering him to get her the hell out of here.

Do I want to leave? Yes. But, God help me, I’ll stay. She swallowed really hard, brushing away her tears. Though she hated speaking the words that followed, she had to say them. Show me everything you intended to earlier. Don’t hold anything back because you’re right; I need to see this for so many reasons. I live in my clean, simple, protected university world, but this is reality. I have to do this.

* * *

It was at this moment, feeling Shayna tremble and knowing through the blood-chains that she was suffering, that Marius knew his relationship with this woman would never be simple. What he had just put her through, no woman should ever have to watch, the violation of her own gender.

And now she’d agreed to see the rest.

She showed tremendous courage when she should have been out of her mind, hysterical, even enraged that he would dare to disrupt her life and her worldview in this way. She should have demanded that he take her home.

Instead she’d faced up to the situation and chosen the harder path.

He barely knew her, but what he sensed through the chains, what he’d examined online about her life, and now her decision to see the rest of Daniel’s operation spoke of her character and her abilities. He approved of her and his damn heart swelled.

I promise you that I’ll make this quick for your sake.