I hear the other women quietly sobbing in their crates.
I’m fucking shaking. The world is an evil place. Unfortunately, now I know there are things worse in life than death.
I hear a noise coming from the back of the room from a door I’m assuming leads to outside. It sounds like multiple locks are being unlocked.
I can’t help but hold my breath, trying to listen for anything. The other girls seem to be doing the same thing because the room is deadly quiet.
The door swings open, creaking, and two men dressed head to toe in black come inside. I hear a car’s engine running. The sun isn’t up yet, which would explain why they are transporting us while there is still darkness. The vehicle has to be a decent size if it’s going to hold all of us.
Archer comes through the door that is connected to the house, the same door I entered when I stumbled upon this place.
I grit my teeth, seething, while looking at his arrogant face.
“How many?” one of the men in black asks Archer.
“Eleven, plus the new merchandise,” Archer growls.
How the hell are they going to transport twelve of us?
“Let's quickly load them in the van. We need to transport them while it is still dark outside and there is less traffic,” the man in black says. “We need this to go as smoothly as possible without damaging any of the merchandise.”
For fuck’s sake, we aren’t even women, just property now.
Archer opens one of the crates and roughly grabs a woman who is whimpering; she can’t scream since she has tape over her mouth.
She looks like she has been here for days, if not weeks. Completely filthy with oily hair and bags under her eyes, her skineven looks pale and dry; they must not have given them much water down here. One by one, I watch these three men move the women to the van. They save me for last.
Archer unlocks my crate, grabs me from the back of it by one of my arms, and pulls me toward the front of the cage. Then, he grabs both my arms to control me. Instinctively, I begin fighting and resisting. He pulls my hair so hard, jerking my body upwards. I can already feel the soreness in my neck, my toes only touching the ground.
“Fight me, and I’ll make this worse for you,” he whispers. “I will have all of these men run a train on your asshole and make the women watch.” He licks his lips as if he’s envisioning it.
He lifts up my shirt in front of all the men, exposing my entire body.
Smacking my ass hard, Archer loudly announces, “Look at this hot new addition. You boys have some fun with her, one of the tightest holes I’ve ever been inside.”
Tears stream down my face. What could be worse than this? I stop fighting, thinking I need to save my strength for what is to come, not fully accepting this as my future, but just accepting the fact that I am on my way to my next destination.
He leads me out to the vehicle, which is a black Mercedes Sprinter van. The windows are completely blacked out. The tint has to be illegal; you can’t even see inside.
Leather seats line up in a U-shape around the inside of the van, with the focus being on the center. Each seat has a chain with a designated handcuff to keep us in place. That isn’t what horrifies me. I gasp, and an uneasy feeling fills my stomach.
There is a man in black in the middle, sitting on a stool with a woman strapped to a reclined chair while he tattoos the inside of her right wrist.
What the fuck?
Archer puts me in one of the chairs and handcuffs my left wrist.
He bends down and whispers, “No one will ever find you. I just wiped Cassidy Matthews off the earth.” He chuckles under his breath.
He slams the back of the van doors and bangs on them twice, and we start to move.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
My alarm always goes off at 6am. I am a creature of habit and live by my routine, even on the weekends. When you love being in control, you take control of all of the aspects of your life that you can. I always grab a coffee at the local coffee shop and hit the university’s gym. Usually, I walk there from the fraternity house. I hit my alarm to turn it off and smile to myself when I roll over, looking for Cassidy, but I don’t feel her.
Fear shoots through me when I notice her side of the bed is empty. Confused, I sit up and turn on my lamp. I mentally replay the events that happened last night and recall that we went to bed together, happy, wrapped up in each other’s arms. I glance over at her side of the bed and the wall where she put her bag and shoes the night before, but none of it is there.
I clumsily push things over on the nightstand, looking for any sign of her and that she was here, and I didn’t just dream the whole thing.
