Page 43 of Between Control and Chaos
“I’m Margaret.”
“Harper.” I give her my name and she takes my arm, leading me toward where with the other girls are sitting on the floor.
There’s a bench along the wall and a handful of blankets shoved into makeshift beds.
“How long have you been here?” I ask, my voice quiet, afraid that the guards or Livia might barge in on a whim.
There are two cameras in the room, the obnoxious red light indicating that we’re being watched.
“I’m not sure. Months,” she says. “It gets easier.” She leads me to sit on one of the blankets.
“I don’t plan on sticking around for long,” I say.
Margaret takes a seat on the blanket, her legs at her side, waiting for me to join her.
My gaze peruses the room. There are no windows, only one door in which I entered. There are multiple guards out in the hallway and a locked gate that we’ll have to get through in order to escape.
It won’t be easy.
Damn near impossible.
My silence has her staring at me.
“Yeah, I thought the same thing. But every time you fight—” She taps the collar around her neck, the same one that is fastened and jolted electricity through me.
I glance at her bright round eyes. They’re nearly steel-colored, and her skin pale and freckled. Her hair a mess of red curls, tangled and unkempt.
“Has no one escaped?” I ask, chancing a glance at the cameras.
“Don’t worry, no audio.” She pats the blanket for me to sit.
I oblige if only to appease her, desperate for answers.
Margaret leans closer, whispering to me, “Some of the girls leave, but they always come back.”
“How long?”
I ask, assuming she means the time spent with a buyer, perhaps a couple of hours. Has no one tried escaping then?
“They keep us here for us to breed. We’ll be auctioned off for an hour or two, forced to do whatever the buyer desires. The highest bidder is always first. They tend to sneak in alcohol, pills, a way to help us relax. We are shuffled from one buyer to the next until the early hours of the night,” she whispers. “Then we’re thrown back in here with the other girls until the next auction.”
My mouth goes dry and I wipe my sweaty hands on my black pants. I want Margaret to be wrong, mistaken. But the look in her eyes, she’s not lying to me. There’s no reason for her to trick me.
“No.” I shake my head, denial the only way through this horror.
“The way out is pregnant, but it’s only temporary.”
The air is knocked right there out of my lungs, and my fingers grip the bedsheets. The room spins and I shut my eyes, pushing away the creeping anxiety. It’s loud enough that I swear the sound of my heartbeat can be heard for miles.
“Rumor has it the Madam makes most of her money when those of us fall pregnant, auctioning off newborns like cattle. She moves any pregnant girls out of here, gives better accommodations until after the birth.”
I’m going to be sick. My head falls between my legs, gasping for breath.
She rests a comforting hand on my back. “It sounds awful, but most of the men are quick.”
Seventeen
Luca
