by L. E. Horn
When the door opened, noise and an overwhelming stench assailed them. Lianndra realized the partition wall must be insulated. Cries, screams, sobs—she heard almost every sound of human misery. The smell of sweat mixed with urine and feces nauseated her. Stepping through, she could see an entire wall lined with metal enclosures. The iron bars resembled something she might see in an ancient zoo. The cages housed women bunched together, their numbers impossible to estimate. Each woman wore a dingy yellow tunic covering the essentials. Sawdust with a familiar consistency bedded the cage floors.
At the sight of their captors the sound level declined. Some caged women glanced at the new arrivals before dropping their gazes and turning away. Many showed no interest, standing or sitting with bowed heads.
The men escorted the newcomers to a nearby room. Waiting at the door were two men familiar to Lianndra—she’d last seen the burly man and his smaller friend leaning on the hood of an SUV at the redwoods parking lot.
Were they watching us yesterday too? Lianndra’s thoughts raced. It put a different complexion on things. Their kidnapping wasn’t random—but planned.
Without a word, the dart gun holders retreated. Lianndra stared at one of the SUV men and she struggled to put the pieces together.
None of it made any sense. Her overwhelmed mind went numb.
The two men pushed Lianndra and Cassidy into the windowless room, locking the door behind them. Tables and cabinets lined two walls, and across from them was another door.
The smaller man unfastened their wrist manacles. “Strip,” he said.
The adrenaline finally kicked in—Lianndra bolted to the other door to find it locked. The two men just laughed. A welcome surge of pure rage flooded Lianndra, and she whirled with her back to the door, glaring at them. Cassidy stood in the center of the room. With her head hanging and eyes glazed over, she seemed lost in another world.
“Look.” The hulking burly man shrugged his shoulders, waving a hand in the air. “You’ve got two choices. Either you strip, or we strip you.” His eyes trailed along her body. “Although messing with the merchandise is frowned upon, we find the stripping process highly entertaining.” His velvet voice belied his crude words.
Cassidy heard him. She made a small moaning sound and began to strip. Her arms shook as she peeled off the wet suit. One man sat on a table to enjoy the show. The hulk crossed his arms, waiting for Lianndra to decide.
Lianndra felt Cassidy’s humiliation. How dare they do this to us! Chin up and eyes narrowed in anger, she unzipped her top.
“Atta girl.” The smaller man purred. “Much better.”
Lianndra locked her eyes with his, glaring as she took off her top. Be damned if I’m going to let these thugs turn me into a hysterical female. She tossed it straight at him, forcing him to catch it with one hand. The swimsuit followed, leaving her stark naked before them. I will not cower before lowlife jerks. While Cassidy cowered with her hands covering herself, Lianndra stood straight and unashamed with her fists clenched at her sides.
Oddly, the hulk seemed to respect her rage, regarding her with narrowed eyes before ambling to the wall and pushing a button. A buzzer prompted two unknown men to enter the room. They grabbed Cassidy.
More thugs. The operation’s size shocked Lianndra. How does it support so many employees? She moved to follow her new friend, but the hulk stepped between them.
“Don’t,” Cassidy said in a hoarse voice. “I’ll be okay. Just don’t make it worse.” Then they took her away.
Some of Lianndra’s courage went with Cassidy, but she tried not to show it. The hulk watched her.
The smaller man in the corner spoke. “This one’s got spunk. I think Juke will like her.”
“He should, considering he requested her. The kid with gray eyes looks promising too. Hope he’s happy with them. We don’t have much else to offer him this time.”
Lianndra’s mind froze at the hulk’s words. Not just targeted but requested? Me and Michael? What the heck?
The hulk walked to the cabinet on the wall. He opened it to withdraw a slim sixteen-inch round rod made from a shiny silver metal. As he handled it, it reflected the overhead lights and Lianndra thought she could see something etched on it.
Her attention diverted as the other man slid off the table, approaching her with the manacles he’d removed earlier. Lianndra backed away.
The hulk made a “tsk” sound. “Now, now, we’ve had this discussion.” His voice scolded like that of a father to a naughty child, and it penetrated her growing panic.
She froze, wincing as they firmly fastened her hands behind her back. The less these guys touched her the happier she would be.
The man grabbed her arm and moved her toward an unusual table. With an iridescent metal top, it had an hourglass shape and four sturdy legs bolted to the floor. The hulk laid the metal rod into a groove at one end as the smaller man marched her to it.
“Bend forward.” He pushed her torso over the contraption, her neck arching to fall directly across the metal bar.
Panic surged from deep within, making her push backward.
“I thought we had an understanding,” the hulk mocked. He grabbed her by the hair and hauled her onto the framework until her entire upper body lay on the smooth metal top. His accomplice strapped her down while the hulk held her in place. From beneath the table he swung a rounded mesh cage, which he snapped over the back of her head.
Obviously, an established routine between the two of them. Lianndra found herself held immobile with little effort on their part. She bit back a sob, struggling to find the anger that had sustained her so far.
Her bladder ached with the pressure of the table on her pelvis. Be damned if I will lose control in front of these jerks! The rage helped her to focus, to suppress the fear. I’m not livestock even though they’re treating me like I am. She felt exposed and vulnerable in this position. If they try anything, I’ll pee on them. An image shot into her mind—a sheep recruited for a vet class that urinated on her as she fastened it into a restraint chute.
Neither man seemed interested in taking advantage of her current situation. They focused on adjusting her head and neck position with minute cranks of handles attached to the mesh restraint. Finally, the hulk gave a grunt of satisfaction, dropping his hands to the rod lying in the groove. He put a hand on both ends before squeezing, handling it with surprising dexterity for one with such large fingers.
The rod hummed. With her head restrained, all Lianndra could see out of the corners of her eyes was a pale glow as it seemed to light up from within.
What the hell? Heat came from the metal beneath her neck.
“Don’t even swallow.” The hulk removed his fingers from the rod. “Remain still. Take small, slow breaths. Believe me, this advice is for your own good.”
Immediately, Lianndra wanted—no, needed—to swallow, but she believed him. She fought the urge.
“When I tell you, take a deep breath and hold it.” He was silent for a few moments. “Now,” he said.
She gulped as big a breath as she could.
The metal moved. It rose from the groove on each side of her neck, sliding along her skin like a warm, smooth snake. A tremor ran through Lianndra’s entire body.
“Hold still,” the hulk snapped at her, just in time.
Lianndra’s eyes strained to see what she could only feel. The warm metal enclosed her neck, continuing to move in a rolling motion. Then she experienced a crawling sensation from beneath, and a sharp pain as something penetrated her skin, moving deep into her skull behind her ear. She wanted to scream, the lack of oxygen caused spots to swim before her eyes.
I’m going to black out! Lianndra longed for the darkness to come.
“You can breathe now.” The words were barely out of his mouth before she gasped for air.
She heard catches releasing, freeing her from the restraints. The hulk helped her to stand on wobbly legs. The metal rod felt warm—alive—against the skin of her t
hroat, and her skull ached. Beyond the physical sensation resided a deep-rooted horror of what just transpired.
My God, I’m wearing a collar!
Before she could recover, the smaller man grabbed her arm and pulled her through the same doorway as Cassidy. Dazed, Lianndra stumbled beside him through a second door and down a long hallway. She barely noticed the absence of manacles from her wrists before he shoved her through a heavy, barred door. Sawdust clung to the soles of her feet. The familiar substance coated the floor of the small enclosure with a solid back wall featuring a single steel door in the center. Lianndra turned to face the men through the bars just as the hulk wandered up, holding something in his hand. He swung the barred door shut and locked it before addressing her.
“I will demonstrate the restraint device on your collar, in case you entertain any rebellious thoughts.” With no further warning, he raised the device in his hand and pressed a button.
Pain lanced through her neck. It reverberated through her entire body with no beginning or end. When it stopped, Lianndra lay in the sawdust, gasping. In dismay, she noticed she no longer needed to pee.
The inner metal door swung open to reveal women wearing familiar collars and simple tunics that did little to hide their bodies from prying eyes.
“We’ll see you again soon.” With that parting remark, the hulk turned and strode off with his associate.
Lianndra staggered to her feet, swayed, and stepped forward into what could only be a new, darker future.
Chapter Four
NOTHING IN MICHAEL’S LIFE PREPARED him for life as a slave.
He regained consciousness in a solid metal cage, surrounded by men he didn’t know, with Trent lying on the sawdust only a few feet from him. Someone helped Michael to his feet, and together they moved a groaning Trent to a cot. The walls of their room were featureless metal, except for one door and rows of cots. In the corner resided a small commode, walled off with a curtain.
When it came to the collar around his throat, Michael admitted disappointment with his learning curve. Three seconds after he discovered it, he tried yanking the silver ring off. The collar zapped him so hard it knocked him off his feet and left him panting in pain.
“Don’t try that again,” a tall, sandy-haired man about Michael’s age advised, offering him a hand back onto his feet. “The zaps get more intense every time you grab it. Eventually, they knock you senseless, and when you come to, you ache for a week.”
Another man added, “Brendan should know. He tried it and moved like an old man for a long time afterward.”
Despite the truth of such advice, Michael could not leave the collar alone. A part of him objected to it on an instinctual level, like a wild horse objects to a lasso. The first night he received two more corrections when he tried to pull it off while falling asleep. Only then did his body learn to avoid touching the collar.
Michael slept little that night for many reasons. His thoughts swirled between grim reality and nightmares. He worried about Lianndra and Cassidy. Where are they? He thought of his family. Surely the authorities will search for us? Yet logic intervened. His captors would be experienced in covering up the disappearances. In Michael’s case, eliminating the boat would go a long way to explaining their theoretical demise. Tow it out to sea and sink it. Boat goes down, bodies washed away by the ocean. Happens just often enough to be possible.
His family would think he had died.
Despair wasn’t part of Michael’s usual repertoire of emotions. He spent the first night alternating between trying to sleep and pacing, checking for any chinks in the room’s armor.
“Trust me when I tell you there is no way out,” the sandy-haired man, told him as he watched Michael pace.
“You can’t just give up!” Michael vented.
The man’s brown eyes flared, but his voice remained even. “I haven’t given up. I am biding my time.”
Brendan introduced Michael to his cellmates: Max, Tyler, and Justin. Although the room held twenty cots, there were just the six of them.
Trent reacted badly to the dart gun drug, suffering bouts of dizziness and nausea. He lay flat on the cot with an arm flung over his eyes, unresponsive to questions. Michael stopped trying to get his friend to talk and sat on his cot to think, but moments later, his restless thoughts got him up to resume pacing.
He had to find a way. Then they could find Lianndra and Cassidy—and get the hell out of there.
“NOW CLOSE YOUR EYES AND let your mind drift.” Andrea’s soft voice transformed into a hypnotic purr.
Lianndra followed her suggestion, shifting on the cot, searching for the comfort zone the lotus position theoretically provided.
On the narrow cot next to hers, Andrea folded her long legs to keep them from spilling off the thin mattress. Neither of them wanted to sit on the floor even though the sawdust here remained cleaner than elsewhere in the facility.
Lianndra slanted a glance at the other woman. Andrea’s dark skin glowed, her black hair cropped short. An Amazon of a woman at close to six feet in height, she’d been a life coach, plus a yoga and fitness instructor before she’d become merchandise.
Lianndra’s first impression of Andrea was that of a friendly, open, outgoing person, someone supportive whom you could trust. As time passed in such intimate quarters, she came to understand the face the African-American woman showed the world differed from what lay underneath. Beneath the cheerful façade, she hid deep inner pain. Lianndra only caught the briefest glimpses of agony within her.
We all have secrets, Lianndra thought with a mental shrug. She enjoyed the woman’s company. She’s an excellent coach. It’s not her fault I can’t do a lotus.
Lianndra considered her new friend beautiful in an unusual and exotic way. Andrea’s body rippled with muscle, the veins popping out with a minimum of encouragement. Yet she remained feminine, with expressive eyes, broad shoulders, large breasts, and curved hips below a narrow waist with legs that went on forever. She fit every interpretation of the Amazon vision, right down to her jaded—often humorous—opinion of the opposite sex. The tall woman had a natural presence, making her the leader of their group.
Lianndra finally settled for an approximation of the lotus position and tried to enter a meditative state. As usual, she had a hard time stopping her mind from drifting down familiar corridors.
Her thoughts never strayed far from Michael, Cassidy, and Trent. She didn’t know their fate. She’d neither seen nor heard anything about the guys since she’d walked out of the truck. Does Scott ever think of me? Does my mom miss me? Lianndra worried about her family. They must all think I’m dead.
It amazed Lianndra that a slavery ring could be this established in such a privileged country. The women she now lived with must have people who cared for them, families who missed them after they vanished, and who searched for them. The slavers’ success spoke of an intelligent organization at the top level. They’re good at covering their tracks. I bet they sank our boat, so the ocean would be blamed for our deaths.
Lianndra hated that her family likely grieved for her. She tried not to think of them too often.
The room in which she lived appeared nothing like the cages she’d seen upon first entering the warehouse: this room seemed separated from the building’s main area. The walls were solid steel, not barred, with a row of cots lining one of them. A single toilet and sink stood in the corner, with a ragged old curtain providing a modicum of privacy. She hadn’t noticed such accommodations in the cages in the other part of the warehouse. They were cruder affairs than this.
Other than the door, the only break in the metal walls was the slot through which they received their meals. Every day the guards escorted the women through the door, down a hallway, and into a large room where they took part in strength and aerobics training. Aged equipment, everything from treadmills to gymnastic rings, filled the room.
After hours of exercising, they moved on to the showers, where they stripped out of the simpl
e tunics and dressed in fresh ones afterward. Guards armed with collar remotes guided them back to the room where they whiled away the remaining hours.
Although she could not see out from her prison, Lianndra often heard the passage of people outside their room.
At first, Lianndra tried calling to the people she heard in the hall, but no one answered. She theorized the guards stopped the slaves from responding. The size and scope of the slave operation intimidated her. That it could function so effectively in a civilized society remained both baffling and terrifying.
The lights stayed on twenty-four hours a day but dimmed for half the time, which made sleep easier. If she faced the wall and tented her blanket over her head, Lianndra found it blocked most of the light, and made her feel less like a fish in a bowl. Sleep often proved elusive, offering only nightmares. Throughout the day, they could keep busy enough to ignore whatever fate awaited them. At night, the fear and uncertainty crept in.
During those times, Lianndra thought of Michael. It surprised her that she brought him to mind and not the other people in her life. She worried about him. In their brief time together, he’d shown a level of openness and honesty that touched her. Lianndra chided herself for being hopeful in a hopeless situation, but she couldn’t help it.
If Michael finds a way to free himself, he won’t rest until he finds me. As silly as it sounded, something deep inside her believed it.
The days rolled into weeks without a break in routine. Lianndra wondered if they would ever move from this facility. The familiarity comforted her, in a way. Better this than whatever the future might hold.
Then came a day when all went quiet. The men didn’t arrive to take them to the gym or showers. In the morning, she heard a commotion and heavy trucks moving. Then—nothing but silence.
Their usual routine resumed the next day. The lack of traffic in the hallway pointed to a marked reduction in the number of slaves in the warehouse. It led to a discussion among the captive women as to when and to whom they might be sold. Their captors seemed in no rush to move Lianndra’s group anywhere. The days slipped by with their routine unchanged.