Chapter 12 - Zoe ***Trigger Warning***
I had been yanked from a dead sleep and dragged by Mikey naked and screaming out the door. I freaked at the blood on my arms. The pain of a bite that made me feel sick when I watched Roman get shot.
I was dragged down the hall and thrown in the waiting elevator and kicked for good measure. The scene I just witnessed left me in a jumbled mess. My thoughts were painfully numb. We were ascending. Something in my foggy brain screamed at me to fight back. To get back to my Roman.
I inhaled to scream, to cry, to do something. Anything. My body let out nothing more than a weak whimper. I looked up at Mikey and it finally registered that I didn't know the big, bald man with the arms like tree trunks and a beard like ZZ Top that was staring down at me with a smug grin on his face standing next to him.
The elevator stopped and we transferred to a service elevator at the end of a dark, cramped corridor. There would be bruises on my arm with the way the strange man grabbed me up. I tried to stand but my legs were jelly. That didn't matter, though, he dragged me out like I weighed nothing.
There was a third man waiting for us in the elevator with a blanket and a hood. He was tall and muscular like the bearded man.
"Not my problem no more, ya dumb bitch," Mikey yelled from behind me. I turned and watched his grin disappear behind the sliding door. I was dropped in a heap on the floor.
My mind started to crack like icy glass. Too much. It was all too much. There had been something about Roman that had made feel safe and hopeful. If I hadn't just watched him get shot to death, I might even let myself fantasize about him rescuing me.
I started to hyperventilate until there was a pinch in my arm, like a mosquito bite. As the drugs leeched into my system, I heard a strange almost Russian accent.
"Don't break this one. She's a special delivery for the boss. No permanent damage." And with that declaration I slipped into the blackness.
* * *
I couldn't tell you which sensation I felt first when I finally clawed my way back to consciousness. Between vicious nausea, pain competing for attention in different parts of my body and the intense vertigo, I relieved my stomach of it's measly contents before I ever even opened my eyes.
Slowly sounds came to me. Women. Begging. Pleading. Sex. The slap of flesh on flesh. My eyes burned as I slowly rubbed the crust from my lashes. It took time to focus on the depravity I was witnessing.
Maybe fifty women were nude and strapped to various devices around the warehouse. All of them were naked. Most of them crying or lost in their head and zoned out to protect themselves. It isn't the first time I've seen that look... I've had to do that.
My heart clenches in my chest. I'm in a cell of bars with 3 other women that I'm not completely sure are alive. They are naked like me. Bruised and broken. I'm facing my worst nightmare as I look at the other cages stacked two high around the entire inside perimeter of the building.
I look around at the varying degrees of damage of each woman and know that I'm next. Nothing ever stopped the pain before. I don't get rescued and I'm so tired. Tired of fighting for scraps of basic rights.
I close my eyes and picture Roman. I laugh mirthlessly because he never even knew my real name. He was a stolen joyful moment where I felt like I could just be myself. And I didn't even have the balls to trust him. But did I really even have the balls to trust myself?
I closed my eyes and started to recite The Secret Garden from memory. I'd settle in until I had more to go on. After all, nobody can see the future. As I slid into sleep yet again, I had fevered dreams of hope. Of a stunning man with short brown hair and ice blue eyes you could get lost in coming for me...if I could just hold on...
Hey y'all. Hope your still with me. I know it's dark right now and it doesn't seem like it's ever gonna be ok, but hope is not lost. Not well and truly. Pay close attention. It's all about to change...
Autumn.