They assigned me a room at the back of the house, though a decent size. It’s sparse, the cramped space occupied by a mirror, a lumpy bed with a deflated pillow and scratchy blanket, a nightstand, and a dresser.
Just like the rest of the house, the wood creaks with every step, and I have a feeling I’m going to learn the exact spots that don’t make any noise.
On the bright side, there’s a nailed-shut window that provides a perfect view of the driveway, allowing me to see who comes in and out, and I don’t have to share a room with anyone.
Before Francesca showed up, Rio had informed me that five other girls are being groomed for auction. Francesca's job is to mold us into proper sex slaves. Teach us how to act, how to look, and what not to do.
But what she really does is teach us how to survive.
I don’t see the fucking point in any of it.
The more compliant, obedient, and pleasant we are, the less likely we are to be needlessly abused, Rio claims. But there’s no doubt that the buyers will have a brutal, sadistic side, nor is there any doubt we'll be on the receiving end of it, regardless of what perfect little pocket pussies we are.
They want us to feel as if there is no escape, so we might as well act right and take the good days with the bad. But that’s not surviving; that’s conforming.
It’s accepting that we will die here one day. Never to see our family or loved ones again. Never to experience freedom, laughter, and independence for the rest of our miserable lives. To never truly love and be loved.
But I won’t fucking accept it.
I’m going home—to Parsons Manor.
And to Zade.
A creak from beside my bed rouses me from a deep slumber I’ve been wading in for what feels like years. I startle awake in a cold sweat, disoriented, and confused when there's nothing but blackness, and the soft white glow of the moonlight peeking through the window, the strands weak beneath the shadows.
Only a whisper of my escalated breath can be heard over the pounding in my chest.
It takes several seconds to remember where I am. And the moment it registers, the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Someone’s watching me.
Slowly, I sit up, my eyes adjusting to the darkness that’s pressing in around me. I turn my head to look out of the window, light rain pattering against it.
Lightning washes the old room in a flash of bright light, and I take the brief moment to get a good look around.
No one is in here—at least not that I can see.
But I feel the weight of eyes on me, searing the side of my face like a hot iron left on a silk dress.
“Who’s there?” I whisper. The words barely make it out, my throat underused and dry.
When no one answers, I look toward the nightstand and search for the markings on the side of the table. There are six tally marks, but with it being so dark outside, it has to be after midnight. I’m on day seven now.
Before I let the pill take ahold of me on my first day here, I scratched a line into the cheap, soft wood to mark the days, vowing to keep track any moment I awoke from my drugged slumber.
Rio’s always there when I wake up, ready to escort me to the restroom and shove soup and water down my throat before I’m knocked out again. He’s been putting the drugs in my food, and I know that I could refuse, but what's the point? I'm not getting out of here if I'm starving and dehydrated. And I've found I don't mind drinking the poison.
Too drugged to care, he watched me scratch a line in the wood on the second night, and for some unfathomable reason, he started tallying them for me when I told him the days are blurring.
He doesn’t say much, nor has he mentioned any men attempting to take advantage of me. If they tried, they certainly didn’t succeed considering I’d feel the evidence of it. I doubt any of them would bother with a bottle of lube.
So, whether it’s because he doesn’t care to inform me of his good deed or because no one has attempted it—I don’t know.
There's another soft creak from my left. My eyes snap in the direction of the disturbance, right in the corner of my room.
"Who are you?" I ask, though the words don’t come out any better than the first time.
I hold my breath, waiting for a response. Several stilted seconds pass, and then just barely, I hear another low creak, as if someone shifted their weight from one foot to the other.
Something I noticed sometime after my arrival was that part of the plaster had been chipped away, revealing wooden bones beneath. Two planks are exposed, with a large enough gap between them to allow all kinds of bugs to creep in.