Living in Darkness (Bloodbreeders) (14 page)

We came to a small side door, and one of the girls knocked three times,
then they left me standing there alone. The door opened and a large man offered
me his hand. When I say large, I don’t mean fat. The man was six foot and then
some, and from what I could see he was solid muscle. His hair was a brownish
blond and hung down freely past his shoulders. He was wearing a solid black
suit that fit his large frame somewhat unyielding, giving the impression that
the material would rip if he flexed his arm too much. As soon as I walked
through the door, I was overcome with a thunderous applause from the many
people that stood at my entrance.

“Did I not tell you it was worth the wait?” I heard Yvette say over the
noise.

I noticed that all of the people standing around the large room were
dressed accordingly to the way that I had been dressed. The room was
breathtaking. The high ceilings were adorned with crystal chandeliers, much
like the one in the front room foyer, but these were smaller in size and there
must have been at least ten of them. Black and red velvet curtains draped the
walls, and off to my left was a large stage surrounded by a thick, red velvet
rope. I was so overwhelmed by the gorgeous room and applause, that I didn’t
even notice the six girls standing on the stage.

“Place her with the others,” Yvette commanded.

As the man led me over to where the other girls stood, I saw that they
were all dressed the same as me. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, but
something definitely didn’t feel right, and by the looks on the other girls’
faces, I knew I was correct in my assumption.

“Shall we start the bidding?” Yvette asked the crowd.

“Yes, my lady,” a boisterous young man called out. “The night is not
getting any younger.” Afterwards, the rest of the crowd broke out in laugher.

Bidding?
I asked
myself.
What does she mean by bidding?
As I looked into the group of people, I saw more than one of them examining us
as like we were livestock. Then it hit me. We
were
the livestock. The other girls and I were being auctioned off
to the highest bidder.

My head was spinning. She tricked me, they all had. I looked around the
room and found Rebecca and the boys sitting at a table off to the side. They
stared at me from their comfortable seats, laughing at the deceit that they had
played on me. What have I done? I was flooded by images of recent events. The
realization of the truth was almost too much to bear. Then it hit me…How they,
especially Rebecca, had used little Johnny to get me away from Martin.
Oh, God, Martin.
I
knew as soon as his name entered my mind that it had not been him who had lied
to me, but those who betrayed me into standing here. He warned me about others
being our enemy, and I walked right into their trap. In retrospect, I had betrayed
myself.

“You lied to me, all of you,” I yelled loudly, and the words had barely
left my mouth, when I felt the blow of someone knocking me to my knees.

“Shut up, slave. Get out of line again, and I’ll do worse than that.” It
was the large man that had led me into the room. Pain shot up my lower back as
I stood up.
Slave...Did I really just
hear that?

“I must get a closer look before I make my bid,” said an unattractive,
fat older man from the front of the assembly.

He started walking toward me, past the rope, and then turned back to
the audience. “Let’s see if Mr. Lebrun knew what he was doing.” He laughed
loudly, as the other bidders joined in. My mind was going crazy, trying to
figure it all out. I thought to myself, how very much
they must hate
Martin to go to all this trouble to get me here. I looked over seeing as much
fear on the other girls faces as I felt inside of myself. The shame of being so
naive and the sinking of my heart as I wondered what Martin must be thinking
about the course of action that I had chosen to take was overwhelming.

The old man looked me up and down, like I was a cow at an auction. Then,
out of the blue
, he reached up and grabbed my breast. I
did what came natural, and doubled up my fist, slamming it as hard as I could
into his face, hard enough that he didn’t merely hit the ground—he bounced.
Yvette stood up with shock and a bit of what looked like panic slowly breaking
the content smile of satisfaction that she was wearing proudly seconds ago.

“Teach her some manners. Take her to the dungeons.”

Without hesitation, the doorman grabbed a hold of me, and I fought
back. I kicked him in the groin while punching him in the face, much like I had
the old man. I had never been angrier in my life, even when I thought Martin
had betrayed me. I reared back for another punch as the large man fought to
control my arms, when two more men approached and started beating me with long
wooden sticks. The three punched and kicked, until I was back on the ground
with my face a bloody mess.
 
I was all
but dead on the ground. I’m not sure what happened after that. The last thing I
remember was a boot quickly coming down toward my face.

*****

I came to while being dragged by my hair down stone steps that curved
in a winding, spiral shaped staircase. I tried to get a hold of the arm that
dragged me to keep him from pulling my hair out, but promptly felt a kick in my
stomach. My eyes were already swollen, but I could see enough to make out the
face of the person who had just kicked me. It was none other than Annabel.

“You better watch yourself, or I will cut your fingers off one at a
time,” she threatened with a chuckle. “You didn’t really think we were going to
just take you in, did you?” pausing briefly. “Oh, I’m sure you did. I can see
it on your face, you stupid little girl.”

The further down we went, the worse the smell became, and I could hear
people moaning, crying, and what sounded like begging for mercy. When we
finally reached the bottom, I realized that the odor that I smelled was like a
vulgar mixture of decay and human waste.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, desperately trying to understand
what went wrong.

“Shut up, bitch, or I’ll beat the shit out of you again,” the man said,
flinging me across the cell by my hair.

“Lock her up, I will deal with her later,” Annabel ordered, then came
over to me and kneeled down, speaking so close to my face that I could feel her
breath on my skin. “You’ll pay for hitting one of our best buyers,” she spit in
my face before she stood up. “Lock her in.” Then she simply stood and walked
away.

The tall man used his boot to kick at my back several times to get me
far enough into the small cell so that he could shut the gate-like door. Once I
was in, he slammed the door, locked it, and he too turned and walked off, just
like Annabel had left. I cowered in my pain on the filth covered floor,
smelling the decay of those that had been here before me, wondering what had
changed. Why did these people suddenly turn on me? Then it hit home that
nothing had changed. This had been their plan from the beginning. The pain was
overwhelming, but the horror in my mind was much worse. I tried to pull myself
into a sitting position using the bars of my cage, but it was no use. I stayed
where I was, with God knows what soaking me to the bone.

I felt horrible, not due to the pain, but because I had believed every
last word.
When I get out of this,
Rebecca, you are the first on my list,
I thought.
That is, if I ever
get out.
I put my hands over my face and screamed out in frustration

“You should do as they say,” I heard a small, distant voice say. “They
can make it a lot worse if you don’t.”

“Where are you?” I called into the darkness. “I can’t see you.”

“
Shh
! I am in the cell next to yours, but you
must be quiet. You can never let them hear us speak. Pray you are not here long
enough to find out what happens if they do.”

I knew dawn was close, I could feel it in my head.
Please come so I’ll be done with this night,
I prayed silently. I
started to slip into the only world that gave me any sort of solace, that’s
when I told myself it was just a dream, a very bad dream. Maybe if I said it
enough, it would somehow come true.

Chapter 12

I awoke in the same filth in which I had fallen asleep, knowing for
sure this was no dream. It was a nightmare. My body ached from head to toe. I
was positive that I had a few broken ribs, and I could feel that my face was
badly swollen.
Now
what?
I asked myself when I heard sounds coming down the dark hall. My
question was soon answered, when a male and female that I didn’t recognize
started coming toward me with a large hose. I could hear the others screaming
as they were being sprayed down, but I had no idea how water could cause pain
until they reached my cage. The pressure was awful, but the salt in the water
was worse. They were using ocean water. As it hit my body, I also screamed in
anguish at the stinging pressure behind the hose, and the burn as it soaked
into my flesh. Until then, I had no clue that I had been beaten so badly.

The young girl seemed to be uncomfortable with what they were doing,
and the man was too blank to read. Once the hose was turned off and to my complete
surprise, the young girl bent down and started to speak.

“You must obey, or your punishment will be far worse than it already
has been,” she said, with genuine concern in the voice.

“
Tanda
, what are you doing?” the young man
asked, obviously alarmed. “Do you want to end up like her? You know what would
happen if they were to come in right now.”

“Yes, Garvin, I know better than most, but they almost killed her on
her first night. I can’t just sit back and let it happen, now can I?” she
asked, her sympathetic blue eyes pleading with his.

He stood there for minute, silent, and then he sighed saying, “No, I
suppose not, but you must be more careful.” I listened closely as they spoke to
one another. They seemed to be against what was happening in this place, and it
gave me a little hope. I thanked the good Lord that they weren’t like the ones
who had brought me down to this horrid place. I was sure the others would kill
me within a week, if not sooner. I knew by the way I felt at this point, that I
couldn’t handle much more of a beating, much less any more unwanted twist of
events.

 
The swelling around my eyes had
subsided enough that for the first time I could clearly make out my
surroundings. The cell that I was in was so small that I couldn’t have stood up
if I had wanted to. The cage door was made of metal bars that were old and
rusted. The concrete floor was covered with grime, most of which I could tell
from the smell was human waste and some type of rotten decay. It reminded me a
lot of a slaughter house where people took livestock to be butchered. I
certainly felt about as helpless as cattle in a cage, awaiting my demise. But I
was no animal, and I sure as hell wasn’t going out like one.

I continued inspecting the room, and I was horrified by what I saw on
the wall across from my cell. A person, far too decomposed to tell its gender,
was chained to the wall by its wrist. The legs were so grotesquely misshapen,
that had I not seen the upper portion of the body, I wouldn’t have known that
they were legs
,
both feet were missing
altogether
. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what they must have gone
through. Next to the corpse was a young man, unconscious and hanging nude. His
body was hanging forward, his arms bent into a position that was far from
normal. He had obviously been severely beaten, and I couldn’t tell if his eyes
were missing, or if they were just too swollen for me to see. There was a
massive amount of blood between his legs, making it more than obvious that most
of his torture had been done in that area.

I heard Annabel approaching before she was in my view, and she was not
alone.

“Enrique, bring Martin’s whore to my special little play room,” she
ordered. “She will know not to disobey after tonight.” I heard Enrique walking
toward my cell, so I crawled as close to the back wall as I could manage. He
unlocked the door, bent down, and peered in.

“If I have to come in there and drag you out, you’ll wish you had never
been born...Now get over here,” Enrique demanded.

“Go to hell,” I spat. “If you want me, you’re going to have to come and
get me.”

“You’re going to regret this,” he said, crouching further to fit
through the door.

“I already regret it, you piece of horse dung,” I yelled.

He began crawling toward me, showing that he clearly hated touching
what I had been forced to sleep in. You could tell by the way he wiped his
hands on his pants every time he touched the floor. He grabbed for my leg, but
I pulled them close to my body. He inched a little closer and reached out
again, only this time, I kicked out with all my might, catching him right across
the face. He grabbed his nose, and when he did, he slipped on the grime covered
floor, landing right in the muck he had been trying to avoid.

“Ha, now you’re as nasty as I am.” I laughed.

Anger flashed across his face.
 
With
lightning speed and frightening accuracy he grabbed my foot, sliding backwards
with me in tow. Kicking and clawing the whole way, he yanked me out of the cage.
As soon as he was out, he swung me across the debris covered hall, right into
the hanging corpse with no feet. As I was slapping at the dried withered thing
that smiled back in its grotesque fleshless grin, Enrique was trying to get a
hold of my hair. I grabbed the chain that hung loose by the dead being’s side
and slung it around, using all the fear that was built up, missing Enrique’s
face by mere inches.