by Alana Terry
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Slave Again
a novel by Alana Terry
The characters in this book are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons is coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form (electronic, audio, print, film, etc.) without the author’s written consent.
Slave Again
Copyright © 2014 Alana Terry
Cover design by Damonza. Cover image elwynn/Shutterstock.com.
Scriptures quoted from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Slave Again (Whispers of Refuge, #2)
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
PART 3
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
PART 5
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART 1
CHAPTER 1
“Kick me again, and I swear I’ll kill you,” Mee-Kyong growled.
She fell backward, exposing the small swell of her abdomen. Pang didn’t miss his opportunity. As soon as his heel connected with the underside of her belly, a warm gush streamed down her leg. “What did you do?” Her voice faltered. “What were you thinking?” She gawked at the puddle beneath her.
Pang shook his head. “You shouldn’t provoke me like that.” He sank down beside her. “You know how hard it is for me to keep my temper.” Mee-Kyong didn’t try to stand. She stared at the blood-tinged liquid on the floor. He groaned. “I asked you to help me not get so angry anymore.” He scooped her up, and a smaller leak cascaded down to the ground. “You’re bleeding.” He brushed her cheek with his lips as he laid her on the bed. She was too nauseated to open her eyes. Pang curled down beside her on the mattress, wrapping his arms around her and stroking her hair. “Next time, try not to make me so upset. At least not until our child is born.”
She intertwined her legs with his, wincing as her nerves shot fire through her belly in protest. He pressed himself up against her back and ran his fingers around her navel. “I would never do anything to hurt either of you.” His hot breath tickled her ear. “You are my family now.” A shiver started at the tip of Mee-Kyong’s tailbone and scurried all the way up her back, finally erupting into goose bumps across her shoulders.
He buried his face into the curve of her neck. “All I want to do is love you.” Her whole body shuddered.
Half an hour later, she stood over him and focused on his snoring. Not yet. Wait a few more minutes. She held her breath. Invisible iron fingers clamped down on her uterus. Her discharge was now mostly blood instead of clear liquid. He’ll be sleeping soundly soon enough. Don’t be an impatient fool. Wait a little bit longer. A contraction forced the breath out of her, and Pang shifted on the bed. She froze. He couldn’t wake up. Not yet.
She held her abdomen, pressing her fingers against the hard swell. You can do this. She stared at her bruised belly. Pang twitched in his sleep. Mee-Kyong rose slowly, keeping her hand over her midsection. She tiptoed to the far side of the cabin and turned around long enough to study her lover. She had endured so much as a prisoner in Camp 22. She could make it without Pang. But did she really want to? He was the father of her child. He had purchased her freedom with his own. He gave up everything — his job, his standing with the Party, his personal safety — just to help her escape the gulag. You owe it to him to stay with him.
Pang grimaced and let out a loud snore.
Mee-Kyong wrinkled her nose. I hate snoring. She reached into Pang’s traveling bag and pulled out his knife. Do it now, or you’ll never have the courage, you coward. She wished Pang weren’t asleep, but it had to be this way. If he was awake, she would never follow through. He would thwart her just as easily as he would swat a mosquito. Whether with his fists or his kisses, he could always find a way to stop her.
She grimaced when a contraction seized her abdomen. More blood oozed down her leg as she studied the former prison guard. Scratch lines ran across one side of his chest. She stood above him, etching his muscular frame into her memory. Even in his sleep, he made a fist.
The contraction tapered off, but she still hesitated. You’ve always been too pathetic to do anything. She should just take a nap like Pang and sleep off her worries. That night, the broker would come and hustle them into China. Once they were out of North Korea, Pang wouldn’t be so tense. He wouldn’t get so angry. She put her hand protectively over her abdomen. Her other hand trembled, almost dropping the weapon. “Maybe we should stay,” she whispered to her womb.
Pang choked on his own snore. His mouth hung open as he lay splayed on the bed. Mee-Kyong gripped the steel handle. He looks so pathetic when he drools. She breathed in and plunged the knife into Pang’s chest.
CHAPTER 2
Mee-Kyong slid down against the wall, clutching her abdomen and gaping at the blood on her arm. What are you sitting down for? She shivered and refused to look toward the bed. She hadn’t expected Pang to wake up. She had imagined it would be easy. Quick and painless. Merciful, even. She leaned over and vomited. Quit acting like a baby. She spat and wiped her mouth on her shirt. You need to leave, or you’ll end up even worse off than him.
She staggered to her feet and leaned against the wall for support. Her eyes caught the blood-stained blanket on the bed, and she retched again. Mee-Kyong picked up the knife and wiped it clean. At least if she had to use it again, she’d learn from her mistake and angle it right. She thought about Pang, held her stomach, and groaned once more. Nice planning, you idiot. Now you’ve got to find your way to the border by yourself. How was she supposed to make it to China without him? She could have put up with a few more days of his assaults, couldn’t she?
It’s only nerves, you wimp. Of course her stomach was a little upset. She put one hand on her abdomen and steadied herself with the other. It’s only nerves. Nerves that she would have to overcome if she was going to escape North Korea with her hard-earned freedom.
Pang had never mentioned the name of the broker who would lead them into China, but Mee-Kyong had to decide what to do before he showed up. She either needed to get away from the cabin before he arrived, or she’d have to find a hiding place for the body, clean up the entire mess, and think of a compelling lie to convince the man to help her escape without Pang.
Right now, it looked like her only real option was to run away. She couldn’t move the body by herself, not with the continuous cramping in her uterus and searing pain in the small of her back. She didn’t have the fortitude to even look at the corpse, let alone clean away the filth of death. She w
asn’t about to check to confirm her suspicions, but the odor from the bedside made her guess the blanket was soiled with more than just blood. And even if she hid the body, she had no money to pay the broker.
Money. You fool. Why didn’t you think of the money? She bit down on her fist. Pang always kept his money in his pocket.
She willed her body to turn toward the bed and swallowed down another rush of bile. Even Pang’s pants were filthy. Now look at what you have to do. She straightened her spine as best she could with her swollen abdomen. She had persevered through an entire childhood in a North Korean prison camp, relying on her own wits and strength. The gulag raised her. She was born behind a barbed electric fence, but she endured. She had eaten raw rodents. She had lanced a boil with her teeth when no better medical care was available. She had survived her relationship with Pang, even though he always threatened to be the one to kill her. If Camp 22 had taught her anything, it was how to survive.
And right now, what Mee-Kyong needed to survive was an envelope full of cash.
She trudged to the bed, averting her gaze. She didn’t want to face her lover’s eyes again. The stench of death’s final humiliation assaulting her nostrils, she grimaced and crept her hand toward Pang’s pocket. She felt her way, finger after finger, until she found the cash. She snatched it out and then doubled over gagging. She tried to twist her body away, but a stitching pain in her side stole her breath instead, and she stumbled to the ground. Clumsy buffoon. Propped up on one elbow, she pressed down on her waist. Her uterus was as hard as the cement floor of the dorm back at Camp 22. Mee-Kyong shut her eyes. Her whole body felt like it was orbiting around a point just above her head. After vomiting once more, she fumbled toward the door, wondering what she had to do to forget the corpse that lay on the mattress, defiling her senses and her memory.
She didn’t even make it out of the cabin before she staggered again to the ground. Get off this cursed floor. As she rocked back and forth on her elbows and knees, anguish from her abdomen radiated through the rest of her body. Her arms trembled as she struggled to hold herself up.
The baby wasn’t supposed to come for another six or eight weeks. That’s what the nurse Pang brought from Onsong had said. Mee-Kyong planned to be safe in the Chinese interior by her due date, not stuck in this cabin next to Pang’s corpse. What was she supposed to do if her child was born here? She couldn’t bring it with her to China. She would have a hard enough time surviving by herself. How could she expect to take care of a newborn? Pang never mentioned it, but she always assumed he would whisk the baby away and get rid of it somehow. They had both hoped the Onsong nurse would take care of the problem for them, but it was too late into the pregnancy for that.
By nightfall, she was still on the floor. Her body had decided to expel the child with or without Mee-Kyong’s consent. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth. Don’t be such a sniveling wimp. In the prison camp, she had endured all of Pang’s violent outbursts; she could endure something as universal as childbirth. Like Pang’s temper, this delivery wouldn’t last forever. At some point, it had to end. The only problem was that when it was over, instead of having a lover to comfort and soothe her wounds, she would have a baby she didn’t know how to care for, a baby she didn’t even want.
No matter what happened, it had to end soon. Either she would die, or her body would evict Pang’s baby from her womb. There would be no more waiting. Mee-Kyong gritted her teeth. Drenched with sweat, she barely had time to inhale before she needed to bear down again.
Her skin burned. She clenched her eyes shut, and with one more push, she stretched wider than she thought was physically possible. Another small squeeze, almost an afterthought, brought her child into the world.
Soft fuzzy down covered near-translucent eyelids. Perfectly formed nails tipped the ends of ten wrinkled fingers. It was a boy. Mee-Kyong held him up in detached scrutiny.
Pang’s baby was dead. At least she wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with their bastard son. She struggled to clean herself up, using the already bloody blanket to wipe off as much of her filth as she could.
Repulsed by the sight of the child, she wrapped the corpse in Pang’s undershirt and shoved it away in a corner of the cabin. Her legs trembled as she dressed. You are not going to give up now. She had to survive. Who cared if she had just delivered a baby? So had every other mother in the course of all human history.
She lifted her chin, steadied herself with her hand against the wall, and staggered out the cabin door. She only made it a few steps before she collapsed. Don’t stop moving, you lazy idiot!
She got up and counted her steps until no degree of self-degradation could coax her body farther. She was bleeding even more heavily than she had been before the delivery. She was still within sight of the cabin when an aftershock gripped her uterus so tight a sob escaped.
Stand up. Her body refused to respond. She tried to blink away the blurry lights in her field of vision, but her sight didn’t clear. Forget the pain. Another contraction, the byproduct of labor, made the ground spin around her. She wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Suddenly chilled, she curled up into a ball and tried to warm up by hugging herself. If you lie down, you’ll never get back up again. She tried to resist the drowsiness that encircled her shivering, aching body, but right now she only had the will to sleep.
Tomorrow, she would continue on her journey.
CHAPTER 3
Min-Ho had already examined the young girl from head to toe and then all the way back up again. Now he focused on the way the bottom of her throat trembled when she spoke. “My teacher said you could help me get a job.” She swept her bangs across her forehead.
“You’re kind of young, aren’t you?” Min-Ho smiled to calm the girl’s nerves. He wasn’t about to scare away a catch like this.
Sun focused on her hands. “My family needs the money.”
He didn’t ask for any more details. Details didn’t matter. He hadn’t met a girl like Sun in years. Numbers and figures raced through his mind. “You’ll need some new clothes.” His fingertip grazed the sleeve of her sweater, and he gauged her reaction when his knuckle brushed the back of her hand. “Much prettier clothes. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
She glanced down. He was pleased to note the red creeping into her cheeks. He pursed his lips. “You know, I could get you a job here in North Korea, but there’s no guarantee you’ll earn a single won. If the Dear Leader doesn’t pay your boss, you can’t expect your boss to pay you. You understand how it all works.” Sun blinked a few times but said nothing. She didn’t understand at all. Another good sign. “How old are you?” He wasn’t sure if the child was wise enough to lie, but he guessed not.
“Fifteen,” she whispered. No, not very wise at all.
“You know, I’ve helped girls even younger than that find jobs across the border.”
She touched her smooth, olive cheek. He picked at one of his pimples and shuffled closer to her on the park bench, watching her expression as his leg brushed against hers. “You’re smart enough that I won’t lie to you. It’s risky. Lots of people would take advantage of a young girl if she doesn’t have someone looking out for her, you know.” Her eyes grew wide. He put his hand on Sun’s knee, making sure not to touch the skin underneath the skirt of her school uniform. “I could help you find a good job in China, though. A better job than what you could find here.”
“And you’d help me get there?”
He nodded. “Of course. It’s too dangerous for you to cross the river alone. I’d be there to help you. I even know most of the border guards.” He paused to let her suck in a little breath. “We have certain ... arrangements. In fact, several of them are my friends. They’ll let you cross.”
“And when I want to come back home?”
His hand was still on Sun’s knee, but his thumb brushed her skin. “You just let me know, and I’ll come and bring you back to your family, safe and unharmed.”
“With al
l the money I earned?”
Min-Ho scratched away at his chin. “Exactly.” His other palm now rested completely on Sun’s warm leg. They sat for several moments in silence. He finally cleared his throat. “You’ll need to be very brave when we travel. I have some medicine that will help you sleep.” He stroked her skin. “You won’t wake up until we’re across the border. Can you do that?”
Sun nodded and hugged her arms across her chest. Min-Ho coughed. “You might also be asked to do other kinds of things. Scary things, for example, that you’ve never done before.”
She turned to meet his gaze. “I’m old enough.”
Min-Ho grinned. “Of course you are, child.” He stood up and took her by the arm. “One more thing. We need to make it look like we’re a couple, or people might get suspicious. When we walk, put your arm through mine like this.” The promise of a large steak dinner whetting his palate, Min-Ho paraded with Sun through the park. “Stand tall. Nobody should be able to guess your real age.” She hadn’t stopped blushing since he took her elbow. “We’ll toss out that school uniform, too. Anyone who sees you dressed that way will know you’re just a child.” Sun frowned, but Min-Ho prattled on, scratching his cheek with his free hand. “Don’t worry about a thing, though. I told you I’d take care of everything, didn’t I? I have some new clothes that will fit you. You can try them on at my apartment.”
“Your apartment?”
Min-Ho patted Sun’s shoulder. “I have everything we need there. Remember, I’ve helped lots of girls do this before. It couldn’t be easier. But first you need new clothes, or else everyone over the border will see you’re an illegal alien. Do you know what happens to runaways if the police catch them in China?” Sun shook her head. “They get sent home.” Min-Ho picked at a second pimple, pausing so Sun could feel the weight of his words. Then he smiled. “Come on. It’ll only take us a few minutes to get there.”
He watched the nape of her neck constrict. She looked up at him with wide eyes. “You mean right now?”