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20
Annie
The guards weren't cruel once we got out of sight of Bevington. There was no groping, no intimidation, no hurrying me along faster than I could walk. There were no threats, there were no inappropriate touches. There was no talk of searching me when so very obviously I'd been searched before I left Arizona and while I was over the asshole's lap.
My ass was on fire and walking hurt. It wasn't just the spanking. The force with which he'd hit me was already causing deep tissue damage, maybe especially because it came less than twenty-four hours after Evie's demonstration. I was stiffening and probably already bruising.
The harem was a suite of rooms on the third floor. Third because probably no one would jump from that height to a concrete apron surrounding one of the area's frequent turquoise blue swimming pools. Once part of the lovely home, it looked like it had been renovated by a maniac with a chainsaw. Doors were hung unevenly in doorjambs that seemed hacked out of the original shape of the house. Floor to ceiling windows were sealed shut despite the iron bars outside so, desperate for air, someone had smashed them in.
The main room was a communal living room decorated with beds, and a kitchen against the back wall with one table and two chairs and a tiny three-quarter sized everything else. From the number of pieces of clothing strewn around everywhere, I guessed one of the bedrooms served as a closet.
There were three other girls in the room, my first confused impression gave me.
"You'll stay here until you're needed," the first guard said.
There was nothing inherently cruel about what he said. It was what had been ordered by the crazy man who thought he collected fragile things and then broke them. Quite possibly the guards were trapped too. But they had guns and I didn't and my sympathy didn't lay with them.
Or with the girls in the room. I turned even as the guards were leaving, shutting the door behind them, and It was everything I could do not to beg to be taken too. Take me back to him. Anything but lock me in here with all these strangers. I backed up, turned back toward the guards, suddenly as much afraid of the people as I was of being locked in by a crazy man.
"Don't be stupid," the second guard said, not unkindly. He'd only left the door open long enough to hand in the bag Evie had packed. When I continued to stand there, fight or flight clearly playing over my features, he relented, softened just enough to say, "They're not going to hurt you. They're really not – " a long pause while possibly he rethought the trajectory of his life – "They're really not bad people."
He closed the door then, and locked it from the outside.
"And with that recommendation, I'm sure you're just thrilled to be here."
I turned back to find out just what was waiting for me.
