AllFreeNovel
Share Us
15
Annie
Pain still radiated through me when they took me down and dragged me in front of Queen Bitch again. She threw me a long t-shirt that fell short, puddling on the floor at my knees. I couldn't stand. My entire body seemed to radiate flames from the beating.
"Put it on," she said. Her voice was cold and devoid of emotion, like what had just happened was of no consequence.
Undercover in narcotics, I was used to being considered of importance because of my sex. Or because I looked good enough to entice buyers. It was all physical and while it lead to money, I'd never felt like a whore.
I had a price tag on me now and that was my only worth.
That, not the beating, came close to breaking me. Months of addiction and months of battling my attraction to the lifestyle Cole represented. All that time spent feeling horribly guilty because Mark was so sweetly adoringly willing to wait, not understanding that Mark was going to wait until hell froze over before giving up on me because breaking the engagement meant he'd lost some strange battle of wills I'd never known we were fighting. All of that and still I'd felt I had worth.
Now, I felt like nothing but something that could scream or give pleasure. Or both, I guessed.
There was no gaggle of girls, all beaten and filthy and being forced to strip and shower on command, there were no invasive and public medical exams, there were no transport trucks and trailers stuffed with women.
There was just me. I had presented the opportunity and human predators came out of the woodwork and swooped down on me. If Erin Trace existed, she'd certainly have had her flaws. She'd been busy in her young life, according to the painstakingly assembled story. A bit of narcotics misuse here, petty theft there, one B&E, questioned on more than that, thrown out of drunk and disorderly scenes where all police wanted to do was disburse. Then the liberating of someone else's wheels.
Did Erin Trace deserve what she was going through and what she was going to be going through? Fuck, no. No one did.
"Put it on," the woman said. For all that she'd ordered me stripped and beaten she seemed discomfited by my nakedness.
Then she ought to give me more than a t-shirt, though I understood the psychological impact of giving me only a t-shirt. Even knowing better it would make it hard for me to run. I'd be afraid of being exposed. As if having someone see what every woman had under her clothes was more important than escaping what would in the long run undoubtedly be death.
I put the t-shirt on. I didn't need to make anything worse. It was long enough I could bring it between my legs, into my lap, and sit cross legged. I wasn't going to kneel to the woman unless someone forced me to.
"You can call me Raven," she said.
She didn't look like a raven. She looked like those naked cats, the ones with no fur, whose elegant bone structures and sweet faces are offset by the fact that they're freaks of nature and in some way horrible.
I didn't answer because none seemed required.
"What's your name?"
"Erin Trace." Though her team had undoubtedly already given her the entire fake history. I was confident it would stand up.
"Erin, you're in a bit of a pickle here." She sat down on the thing that looked like a throne. The sun had moved, so the room was normally lit. We could see each other, as if we were two women having a weird conversation, if one left out the fact of armed guards, a dominatrix with a cane, the beaten woman brought to the place in shackles and wearing nothing more than a t-shirt.
Bit of a pickle. Yeah, that fit.
I let the panic out. "I didn't do anything! I thought it was my friend's car! I told you that, I thought it was Ray's and he said I could borrow it and he always leaves the keys behind the visor and that's where I found them. It was a black 'Vette and I thought it was his! He said I could borrow it!" I was starting to cry again and my friend, whose identity would actually check out, who really didn't own a Corvette but who did exist at least, he was starting to feel like the catalyst behind Erin's problems.
I was becoming irrationally angry at him.
I was becoming extremely rationally afraid. Even though nothing had changed.
Next second, everything did change.
"Get her ready to travel." That seemed to be directed to Evie, who was already heading toward me, now holding a Taser. "You two think you can make a delivery on time?" But she only seemed mildly annoyed with Chad and Theo. They had, after all, delivered the goods. I was like an improperly tracked Amazon order.
"She tried to run," Chad said. He looked sulky and stupid and I wouldn't have minded shooting him. He had the dull meanness of a real bully. I didn't think he was smart enough to be a psychopath, but he was more than garden variety mean. There was something in those eyes that enjoyed hurting. I'd been safe so far because Raven wanted me unharmed.
For what reason? Because I didn't think I'd like that. Trafficked women ended up in brothels, but they also got sold to sick fucks.
Cole could be considered a sick fuck. I had considered him that. I didn't let myself think about it.
Chad didn't look like he cared if Raven ordered me trussed up and delivered to the dump. I thought to him I was a job, and a job was a job. He didn't care about time involved or convenience, though he'd cared about sticking to the timeline of the one of getting me here. I considered that a certain type of evil on its own. To care so little about what you were doing except as it impacted you, when the thing being done was hurting someone else.
