by Layla Pierce
I remind myself that I am safe now. Whatever Galbraith wants he’ll have to wait, because he knows that the men here want to protect me. And they will, for now.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The train ride is long and filled with memories of the past. We see ruins and rubble from the society that existed before the purge, houses that are decaying giving glimpses into a life filled with electricity and technology, things that we’ve lost because of the EMP. Rumors say that Purgatory has electricity, that their items run off it and not natural gas or other fuel.
I watch as the buildings go by and the flat land gives way to mountains. The train moves up the slopes bringing us closer and closer to Purgatory.
Xavier puts a hand on my knee. “Nervous?”
“As a woman going to see the inner workings of the purge? Why would I be nervous?” I give him a glare. “We’re walking into the heart of everything.”
And nobody knows what we are going to find there. Lucas laughs. “Maybe it’s an all exclusive paid resort for women.”
I snort. “Really?”
“And that’s why they don’t come back.” He plops down on the other side of me.
“It’s more likely a brothel.” Antony sighs. “Made for the government.”
“Or a slaughterhouse.” I mutter, and Xavier wraps his arm around me and pulls me close.
Matthew is eerily quiet this whole ride, and I wonder what he thinks. I open my mouth to speak, but the train’s breaks squeal, and we come to a stop. I look out the window and see nothing but men in suits and soldiers walking around. I scan for Sergeant Galbraith, but I don’t see him in the crowd.
A knot curls in my stomach, churning the lunch we ate not long ago. Matthew stands from his seat as the doors of the train slide open, he holds his hand out for me. “You need to stick close. This isn’t the wasteland, and it’s not a simple city anymore.”
I entwine my fingers with him and we all walk out as a man in a suit greets us. “You must be the official that Sergeant Galbraith has invited. My men will take your suitcases to your room, and you will meet with Sergeant Galbraith in the meeting hall. Follow me.” He spins on the heels of his shiny shoes, and I become very aware that I am the only woman that can be seen.
Eyes follow my every step, and I move closer to the men as if they can shield me from the prying eyes of the others. Xavier steps up to my other side while Antony walks in front of us. Lucas brings up the rear with his strange happy step. I feel like we are doing a weird dead man’s march as we follow the man in the suit through the crowded docks of the train.
I feel protected in the center of the men, but something just seems to raise the hair on my arms every time a man looks at me. I worry about what we’ll find when we get to the office. We’re led to a massive white building with windows and doors on each level. I frown at the fading brick and plaster of the walls. It looked like an original building, not a scavenged one like I found in the city.
We step up to the doors, and they open on their own. I tilt my head in wonder. Electric doors. So it was true, they had electricity here. What a lazy thing to waste it on. We follow the man into a large lobby of the building. Above our heads hangs a chandler with little electric lights in it, they currently aren’t on as natural light fills the room, but I want to know what it looks like when it is turned on.
The lobby is empty except for a lone woman standing behind a counter. Around her neck is a black ribbon, she meets my gaze and her mouth forms into a little ‘o’ of surprise. Her hand goes to her neck, and she turns away from me.
“Pay no attention to her.” The man in the suit continues forward and down a hall. “She’s surprised to see you is all.”
That much is clear, but she is the only woman I have seen so far. Maybe they really do have a slaughterhouse here. I start to tense as we walk, I hope that my men aren’t leading me to my death.
My men. In just a few short days that’s how I started to think of them. We stop in front of a dark wood door, and the man knocks.
“Send them in.” Comes Galbraith’s voice from the other side.
We all walk in, and the man leaves us there. Galbraith wears a plain button up dress shirt now, but his symbol is still pinned on the front. He meets my gaze, and he gives a wicked smile. “Glad to see you all could make it. Shall we start our tour? Then we’ll go to the processing of the women.”
I don’t like the way he said it. If they do slaughter them, I don’t want to watch.
Matthew forces a smile. “Yes, we’re ready to stretch our legs after such a long journey.”
Galbraith stands up and walks around the desk, leading us back out of the office. “You’ve noticed that the rumors are true, we do have electricity here. We were able to get the generators and the factory up and running about two years ago. We are still working on finding sustainable ways to make this possible in all cities.”
He walks us up a staircase that leads to a loft looking over a large room. “This is where the women come at the start of the day.”
The women? I look over the room from the loft, and I see at least a hundred women filing into the room, like the woman in the lobby they all have some type of colored band around their necks, but what catches my attention is the bands on their wrists, simple silver cuffs that wrap around them.
“You see, scavenger. Almost every woman taken in the purge ends up here. Alive.”
But the question is, what was being done to them?
To be continued.
Please look for the second installment: When Walls Come Down
Coming late January
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About the Author
Layla is an author of erotic fiction. She’s a lover of Funko Pops and WoW and runs on a mix of chocolate and coffee. You can follow her on Facebook at: http://bit.ly/laylaauthor