Tempting Trade, page 4
part #1 of Desolate Lands Series
A few men lined up for food. About ten more men lolled around on chairs, and three girls stood around a pool table, where two six-foot-something meatheads played a game.
As we walked into the room, all conversation stopped, and all eyes turned on us. One of the girls gave a dark scowl and tossed her hair back. The other two eyed me up and down and started whispering to one another. The men just looked their fill.
God, I hated the place. It was like stepping back in time to some horrible medieval village, where women were nothing more than property to be used by the Lord of the Manor.
These girls weren’t nasty because they’d simply become that way. More like, they were forced into it by the patriarchal shithole they’d ended up in. Some, like Melody, had probably been raised in the Dark Zones (so called because the street lights hardly ever worked) and been exposed to gang culture and male violence from a young age. Others might have been trying to eek out a living in the desolate lands where hardly anyone lived anymore and the Foamers roamed. Huge acres of land that used to be used for crops and growing food, or full of sheep dotting the hillside, were now overgrown scrub, or wrecked wastelands.
All of it was alien to me. I’d grown up in a middle-class household with educated parents. After the Collapse, my life didn’t change all that much compared to these young women. Okay, I didn’t have mascara, but I still got an education, treated with respect as a human being, not merely tits and ass. To a degree, anyway, and I hadn’t realized how freaking lucky I was. Now, it had all been ripped away. A pang of mourning for my old life hit me hard.
With seriously eerie prescience, Melody turned to me and whispered. “Your old life is gone. Suck it up sister.”
We joined the line and Melody handed me a plate, where I was given a dollop of lumpy looking mashed potatoes, and some stew. She then took me to a table near the back, where we could see everyone, but they wouldn’t be able to see us unless they purposefully turned to watch us. No one questioned why I was allowed in the main hall instead of being locked in a cage like the others. It seemed if Melody wanted me there, then I was there.
The men talked and laughed and became more raucous as they drank whiskey. One guy kept looking my way. He appeared to be in his early forties. Way older than me. He had blond hair, shorn close to his head. He stood about five foot eleven and was built like a brick wall. He had a slight paunch and wore silver rings on all his fingers. I noticed his fingernails, rimmed with black so deep I could see it across the room, and tried not to puke at the thought of his hands touching me.
“Greg likes you.” Melody whispered at me, obviously picking up on his stares. “You could do worse. He’s a nice bloke.”
I started to giggle.
“What?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”
“A nice bloke…for a human trafficker.” I deadpanned.
For a long moment Melody just stared at me. I thought I’d be heading back to the cage any second, then she threw her head back and laughed. I mean, really laughed. In that moment, she looked so free, so happy and I noticed Chris turn her way and his face soften as he smiled at her. Maybe she’d get her dream come true after all and become his Lady?
Just then, the door to the hall banged open and four men marched in. They dragged a group of girls with them. All of them bound at the wrists by rope, gagged and blindfolded. I wondered what would happen to the other poor souls brought in with me. Nausea rose up as I watched them being dragged into the center of the room. Two more men brought up the rear. They were scowling and didn’t seem to be with the guys in front because they cut around and moved deeper into the room, their eyes locked on Chris.
“Good haul,” Chris spoke around the two guys to the men with the girls. “Take them to the cages.”
One of the men grinned and pulled on the ropes so hard, the lead girl stumbled and cried out. He stuck his tongue out at her and made a waggling motion with it, jiggling his eyebrows at his friend and laughing. I wanted them all dead. But first, I needed to try and find out what happened to Simon and Blake. I had only two goals, find out what happened to my friend and brother, and get back to Mum and Dad. Both of which demanded me not being shipped off to Russia, which meant I might have to take Greg up on his offer, if Melody was right, no matter how much it made my stomach churn.
I didn’t think asking Melody about Simon would do much good, but maybe I could get her to speak to Chris for me, which meant being a fair bit nicer to her and trying to persuade her to do me a favor.
As the girls were dragged out of the room, the two men who had entered separately watched them, and then turned back to Chris with a smirk.
One of them snagged my attention because he was the kind of guy you’d cross the street to avoid.
He was big, even in a room full of big men he stood out.
He had long hair, tied back, a close-cropped beard, and deep-set eyes, with thick blades for brows.
He shrugged off his jacket and dropped down heavily into a chair. Underneath the light jacket, he wore a black muscle vest, the cut of which highlighted his massive shoulders. As he rummaged around in his jacket pocket for something, he whistled a tune, slightly off key. Finally, he pulled a cigar out of the pocket, bit the end off with even white teeth, and lit it.
The man took one long drag, then leaned back in the chair with a sigh, blowing smoke into the air. He put first one, then the other leg up on the table in front of him and grunted.
“Good haul we’ve got today, Jackson. Plenty of work for Doc here.” Chris turned toward the man with a smile.
“Yep. Rich pickings out there today, it seems.” Jackson spoke around the cigar.
Oh Lord, his voice, his presence. He reminded me so much of the man from my dreams. He drew me in at the same time as he scared me. Confused, I frowned and looked away, only to find Melody watching me closely.
“Forget it,” she intoned. “No way. Look elsewhere. Like I said, make a play for Greg. But him…” she trailed off with a shudder aimed at the impressive, tall dude.
“What about him?”
“He’s…bad.”
“Oh.” At a loss at this I shut up. Bad? Didn’t she realize she spent every night cozied up to a bastard who traded women like cattle?
“I mean, really bad, Milly. Don’t go there. I get that he’s hot. If you like your men to look like pirate raiders, but he’s wrong. They say… They say he’s an Altered.”
Her words sank in. If he’d been genetically spliced it would explain his size.
“Anyway,” she lowered her voice, “there are rumors he’s not into girls. Some of them here, they tried, and he’s not interested. Not all in working order, they reckon, if you know what I mean?”
“Maybe he’s gay,” I said, thinking about Blake’s revelation of earlier.
“Gay?” she snorted. “Have you seen the size of him?”
“Erm, gay men have muscles, too?”
“If he is gay, he’d better watch out. Some of these guys would kill him for less. Mind you, he’s a hard bastard, so he’d probably take a few of them out if they tried.”
I glanced over at him one more time and as I did, he turned slowly, his nostrils flared, and he breathed in deep as his gaze locked on me.
Even from this far back, I could see his eyes were uniquely striking. A startling shade of amber that stood out in his dark skin, against his dark beard, and the thick hair pulled back from his forehead. God those eyes, achingly familiar, but he couldn’t be…
For a long time, he stared at me, and I couldn’t look away. Then he broke the moment and turned to face the front.
Did those who were altered have powers beyond heightened senses and muscles? I was sure they didn’t, but when he’d stared at me, I’d been unable to do anything, even breathe. It reminded me of the scenes in the old science fiction shows we watched, where the ship would be stuck in a tractor beam unable to move at all.
Not only that, but despite myself, despite everything he stood for, I’d felt a tiny frisson of something horribly close to lust. I shook my head and turned back to Melody, determined not to give him another moment of my time. She looked panicked.
“We’ve got to get you out of here. He’s really noticed you. Oh Lord. This is bad. Come on.”
She pulled me up and took me out a back door, so we didn’t have to go past the men sitting there, smoking, drinking, and laughing.
As we walked, I tried to formulate how to ask her to talk to Chris about Simon. A door banged to our right, and another huge guy stepped out. These men, the non-altered ones must be taking steroids. They were rampant in the Dark Zones and amongst some of the Ferals, too.
Close cropped hair, startling blue eyes, muscle on muscle and he was clean. As a whistle. He didn’t even have scruff.
“Where are you going with this little morsel, Melody?”
“Taking her to my room, Slim,” she replied.
Slim, what an odd name for such a big man.
“I get you have certain privileges, being Chris’s bit and all, but no dice. Doc’s here, and she needs checking with all the others.”
He grabbed my upper arm, his grip firm, but surprisingly gentle.
She scowled, but it seemed Melody knew how far to push. She nodded. “It’ll be okay.” She leaned in. “They need to check you out, see if you are a virgin, make sure you’re fertile. Then you can come back and spend time with me. Okay?”
Then she leaned in even closer, brushed my hair to one side and whispered so quiet I almost couldn’t hear despite her lips brushing my ear. “You could do worse than get Slim to notice you, he’s second in command here and doesn’t have a Conki or a Lady.”
“See you soon,” I smiled at her, my heart breaking at losing the chance to ask about my brother.
Slim walked me down the corridor and he smelt nice, he was wearing cologne. “You’re pretty,” he said as if observing that it was a sunny day. There was no heat in his voice.
I smiled up at him and batted my heavy new lashes for good measure. He stopped walking and laughed. “Oh, you’re so out of your depth aren’t you, little thing?”
Shit, was I? “Erm…I don’t know what you mean.”
Thing was, despite being promised to Blake, and despite not actually having had sex, I wasn’t the innocent most people believed. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty, I’d had a boyfriend. We used to sneak out and meet, and we’d done everything but the final deed. We’d had oral sex, used our fingers, he’d even stuck his finger in my ass once while he went down on me, which had made me come so hard. So, yeah, I wasn’t the untouched little soul this guy seemed to assume, or my mother believed.
I wished I had gone all the way, because I doubted I’d be much value to these guys if I’d been sullied, as people referred to it these days when a girl wasn’t a virgin.
“What happens to girls who aren’t virgins?” I asked. “Do they get sold into domestic service in London or somewhere?”
“Often, but not girls that look like you. You better be a virgin because if not, you’ll be sold to one of the brothels rather than an individual buyer. Unless one of our guys takes you, which they might because you’d be a bargain. Sullied girls only fetch thousands, virgins, ones that look like you? Christ, you’ll be worth a fortune. If you’re sullied, used already, then either you catch the eye of someone here, or you’ll find yourself in a brothel.”
Holy shit! “I’m a virgin,” I reassured him. I sent a prayer to God that the ridiculous flap of skin between my legs was still intact and hadn’t been broken by any of the messing around I had done. Girls in the safe zone weren’t even allowed to use tampons anymore so that our stupid bit of skin stayed intact. I hated this fucking world.
Hated the men who made it their own, and women like me, complicit in our own weakness. Not rocking the boat because there was always a worse fate out there if we pushed too far.
Once more, I tried to flirt with him, giving him a smile.
“Darling, forget it,” he drawled.
“Why? Don’t you find me attractive?”
“Oh, you’re attractive. But you don’t want me.”
“Why?”
“Because I like to break pretty things,” he said.
My blood ran cold and I turned away from him, staring at the floor instead as he pulled me along.
We rounded a corner and I saw a small desk, then a familiar row of cage like cells.
“Can I ask you something?” I figured I had nothing to lose at this point.
“Yep.”
“Do you know what happened to my brother, Simon, and our friend Blake?”
“Not sure about your brother, I’ll look into it. Blake though, he’ll be ransomed as he’s worth a lot to his family.”
What? Oh God, this could be my way out.
“We’re betrothed. It’s not official yet, but we’re to be engaged. I’m about to hit twenty-one so I was going to have my medical and then it would be made official. They’ll probably pay for me, too.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “I doubt his family will pay what Chris and the guys can get for a fine specimen like you on the open market, but I’ll talk to Chris.”
He began to open a cell, but the door behind us banged open and the two men from the canteen walked in. I turned my gaze to the floor, terrified of catching the attention of the one who looked like a piratic warlord.
His heavy footfalls told me he approached.
“Might as well leave her out, we’ll start with her first,” one of the men said.
At his words I risked a glance up to see the smaller, slighter of the two men talking. Smaller and slighter being objective terms, he was still big.
“If you say so, Doc.”
The door opened once more, and Chris, Melody, and Greg, the man with the gut and the dirty nails, walked in.
“We’re just about to start with Blondie, here,” Slim said.
“She’s been claimed.” Chris slapped Greg on the back.
Melody grinned at me, but my heart sank as I stared at the greasy haired man leering at me with open hunger. God, could I really do this? Give myself to him? Then I thought about Simon, and knew I had little choice. I had to save my brother no matter what it took.
“You don’t have enough coin to pay for this one if she’s intact,” Slim said to Greg.
“I do.” A deep drawl cut through the silence.
The bass of his voice rumbled through me, and I swallowed as I looked at the giant of a man with the whisky eyes and long hair. Hair I now saw was held back in leather ties, the same as the ones in my dream.
His face would be hazy, but I’d see that hair swinging in front of my eyes as he kissed my neck. Saw those leather ties.
Oh. My. God.
He stared at me and as he did, something happened. Something so strange I didn’t know what to do. My mind began to itch, as if something, or someone were crawling around inside my head. I instinctively put my hands to my scalp and gripped tight, as if I could stop the awful sensation.
Whisky eyes tore his gaze from mine and the itching-pain stopped.
“I’ll make an offer on her.” He placed his hands loose on his hips, legs wide, all alpha male posturing.
His words terrified me. I was sure he’d just rooted around in my mind, and now he wanted to buy me.
God help me.
Chapter Four
Milly: Bought and paid for
“You can’t have her,” Greg said straight away, his voice indignant.
“The rules say I can,” Big Guy rumbled. “You don’t have enough coin or contraband to pay for her. She’s worth a fucking fortune, and you know it. Fucking look at her for Christ’s sake.”
He pulled my hair into his hand and let it slide through his fingers. “Great hair, perfect teeth, good skin, weight on her bones. Jesus, she’s worth a fortune.”
Chris cast a worried glance toward Slim, who shook his head slightly, but shrugged.
What the hell? These guys were willing to sell me as a sex slave to some unknown man in Russia or the Middle East, but they had concerns about the warlord buying me? Who was he?
Greg turned to Chris, his eyes wild. “You cannot let him buy her. You can’t.”
Slim laughed. “Don’t see why not. He’s right, as am I. You can’t afford her.”
“You should stay out of it, you don’t even run the girls, Slim. Stick to your weapons okay? I’ll work the debt off.”
“She’s going to go for over a million if she’s a virgin. It will take you a lifetime.” Slim shot Greg an incredulous look.
“Okay then, don’t sell her to me, but you can’t let that thing buy her.” He jabbed his fingers at the warlord, what was his name? I wracked my brains, trying to remember what they’d called him in the canteen.
“Thing? I’ll break your fucking neck you speak to me like that again,” the warlord said.
“Jackson…you’re Altered,” Greg whispered the words.
Well, at least I got his name again. I stared at Jackson as he considered what Greg had said.
“Yep,” he muttered.
Yep.
Yep?
He admitted to being Altered so casually? No one did that.
It was an open secret. A rumor that everyone spread, but no one could prove.
Not one person admitted to it. Not the hefty guards on our bus, not the kid at university who could practically outrun a cheetah. No one admitted to it.
We were human, and there were those of us in the Safe Zones, those outside in the Dark Zone, the Ferals, who had gone crazy and lost all regard for societal norms. The half-starved souls seeking survival in the desolate and barren open land. But we were all human.
Our humanity was polar opposite to the infected, the others, or the Foamers, as some called them. It was what bound us together. We were special. Precious. Rarer each year as the ranks of the Foamers grew.
