Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106541 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 533(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)
Could he be my savior?
Or will he constantly stand in the shadows that hide half his face?
If the gunfire that rings across the parade is any indication, I will never find out.
The blasts are deafening, but before I can swing my head in the direction the gunfire is projecting from, I’m pulled to my left by the man who bound me.
“We’re taking heat,” he announces while pulling me behind a pavilion the women were stuffed into after being paraded like meat at a cattle sale. “What do you mean it isn’t you, Tobias? Then who the fuck is it?” I realize I shouldn’t have run when he pulls out a weapon strapped to his thigh. “I can’t hold back. We’re being bombarded.”
Bullets whizz over my head as wounded cries echo in the eerie carnage.
You can smell death and all the horrid bodily functions that come with it.
“I’m sending her out the west entrance. Get someone there.” Before the stranger speaks another word, he plucks me onto my feet, drags me across the bullet-shell-riddled floor, then pushes me through the exit door the scarred-faced blond nudged his head at earlier.
The sun is just as blinding this time around, amplified by the amount of tear gas and smoke in the air. The building is on fire, but the parking lot is still filled with pricy vehicles.
“Aaren?” A man in a dark SUV asks when he pulls up beside the man who’s playing both sides of the field and me.
When Aaren appears hesitant, the man behind the wheel murmurs, “Tobias sent me. She’ll be safe with me.”
Aaren’s deliberation is cut short when a swarm of men heads our way. They’re not associated with any faces I locked onto today, and they’re brandishing a range of weapons.
After shoving me into the car, Aaren slams the back door shut, then says, “Take her to the safe house. I’ll organize secure transport this afternoon.”
KATIE
Twenty-two years old…
Secure transport never came.
I was taken to a compound similar to the first one I was delivered to eight years ago, shackled to a bed in a room that only had a dirty mattress on the floor, then told my new owner would collect me soon.
Considering the amount he paid to purchase me, I thought he’d arrive within a couple of hours.
It’s been over four years, and I’m still waiting.
Once again, I shouldn’t complain. Excluding a handful of bruises for disobedience and a fractured rib, I’m still relatively untouched. Sexually, I am what Master Rudd likes to call a saint.
Pure in all meanings of the word.
I can’t say the same for the women who live here with me. They’re beaten and assaulted every day by men who come and go as they please. I know this because I patch up their wounds, offer them a shoulder to cry on, and nurse their children when they can’t.
This compound differs from the one I stayed at with Madame Victoria simply because some of the women here get to keep the children who aren’t sold like their mothers once were. They have a range of health issues and live in conditions not suitable for children with disabilities, but it is better than the alternative.
At my old compound, they killed any baby born with the slightest deformity. Even something as simple as a cleft palate saw them murdered within minutes of birth.
The conditions are better here, but I live a boring, miserable existence. I’m forgetting the ruddiness of my mother’s cheeks, my father’s lopsided smile, and my little sister’s once-annoying traits I’d give anything to be frustrated by again. I am miserable. So much so I get upset when Master Rudd’s attention never fixates on me for longer than a few seconds.
He compliments me on the odd occasion but is quick to remind me I am not his to sully.
His standards are weird, considering he beds multiple women in one night. He has four wives, and between them, they have thirteen children, but that doesn’t stop him from taking the occasional new ‘slave’ for a ‘test drive.’
His last two wives only joined us last year. They were trafficked like the rest of us, but within weeks, they stopped fighting their fate and faced the inevitable.
They are as trapped as me.
I shouldn’t want any man’s attention, much less Master Rudd’s. He’s a vile, heinous man, but for some reason, I get jealous when he brushes his index finger down my nose before telling me to go to bed. He isn’t a doting man by any means. However, when you’ve been starved for affection as long as I have, you seek it in any way possible.
If I could just go home, I’d feel different. But I can’t. I’m stuck here for eternity.
And I hate it.
The thoughts in my head aren’t natural. I’ve never been a negative person, and I have always seen the good in everyone, but a lot has changed over the last six months. I’ve been sick, both mentally and physically, and reached a point where I don’t believe I will ever escape.