AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Emery
I can’t begin to understand how I got here. I mean, I guess I always knew my stepfather was off, but I never expected this to happen. Not even when he drug us away from our home after my big brother died, landing us in some crazy cult that wouldn’t let me leave even after I was eighteen.
David was ten years older than I was, already in the military when Mom married Harvey. I thought he was slimy back then, but my words didn’t mean much since I was only nine. The only one that ever listened to me was David, and the first time he came home on leave, he threatened our stepfather that if he did anything to hurt me, or even just upset me, he’d pay.
Harvey was scared of David, which kept me safe—at least until he died. He was killed overseas by an IED and Harvey had us in the car before his body was even shipped back to us.
Since then, I’ve been surrounded by crazies.
I didn’t fit in at the ‘homestead’ as they called it. Probably because I wasn’t brainwashed like the others, especially the ones around my age that’d lived there since they were babies. I spent sixteen years on the ‘outside’ and knew the real world wasn’t literally burning to the ground. The cult is led by some religious doomsday prepper, going on and on about how the world’s about to end, and that we ‘the chosen’, were the ones that would repopulate the earth when all the sinners were gone.
Except the only ones allowed to have children are those that our stupid leader allows to wed. Which is what led me here. Only here isn’t an actual marriage as the others believed the ones of us recently chosen to be put up as brides were supposed to become.
No, instead I’m stuck in some freaking cage in this huge warehouse where the man that ‘bought’ me brought me, telling me he was putting me up for a real auction. Adding on that my virginity would sell for a high dollar—even if I were too fat for his tastes.
That’s one of the reasons I was never offered up as a bride before now. Our leader said I needed to lose weight and to do that, I had to work more. I’ve spent the last three years trying my hardest to escape, but the damn preppers have every inch of the woods covered with cameras and always brought me back. I honestly don’t know why they 1—wouldn’t let me go, and 2—why they’d offer me up as a bride now, let alone offer me as a bride to an outsider.
Only a handful of other girls were ever offered to outsiders. Usually it meant we never heard from them again as they were sent off to a supposedly ‘sister’ homestead on the other side of the country. I never quite bought that there was one out there, because if so, why did Harvey drag us from the east coast to the west?
To be honest, I wasn’t too upset being the only one offered to an outsider since it meant getting off the homestead. Heck, even if I was supposed to be going to one across the country, that gave me plenty of time to escape. I figured I’d be able to slip away from them or get someone to help if I was already on the outside. I just didn’t anticipate this.
How could I considering I didn’t know auctioning off someone’s virginity was a real thing. Sure I heard about it on TV shows or in movies before I was thrown into a digital blackout five years ago, but I didn’t think they actually existed. Let alone someone like me would find themselves forced to be part of it.
I’m the complete opposite of the other girls here. They’re all skinny while I’m nothing of the sort. I haven’t weighed close to what they do since I was thirteen. I shot up a bit more putting me at five-six. Leaving me towering over most of the others in my grade, but I also started growing boobs—fast. Then my hips widened, and my ass grew, along with my middle, no matter what I did to try and prevent it.
My mom even took me to a doctor to make sure I didn’t have some hormone imbalance or thyroid condition when I was fifteen, but everything came back normal. I was the ‘chunky girl’ before being drug out of school. Alright, leaving the jerks that made fun of my boobs and weight wasn’t that upsetting, but being stuck in that place for the last five years, definitely didn’t make it better.
I can’t help but wish that my brother never died, so I wasn’t pulled into this insanity. Two more years and I would have been able to be as far from my mother and Harvey as possible. David told me if I wanted to go to college or just find a job somewhere close to where he was normally stationed, he’d look for an apartment we could rent off base to help me out.
Two years was all I had left until I’d have been free. Now, it’s been three more and I can’t see any way to get out of this mess to finally be free.
It seems like a couple of the other girls are feeling the same way. They’re huddled together along the wall, whispering, and hugging each other. I’m pretty sure they’re friends, knew each other before getting put in here before the rest of us were brought in here one by one.
The only ones that look to be enjoying themselves are the two bottle blondes lounging in another space. Theirs has freaking couches in it and they’re smiling, laughing even. The only reason I’m certain they’re here for the auction as well is that their photos were taken in the same way as the rest of us and they were given these stupid dresses and flip-flops as well.
The man that appears to be in charge is quietly fuming at the jerk that ‘bought’ me and brought me here. Jonah is what he claimed his name was when he forced me into a van and immediately zip-tied my hands together before buckling me in. I swear if my hands had been free, I’d have killed him for bringing me here. It was bad enough that the girls back at the homestead were only wed off if the leader was compensated for it, but to go from that to this…I honestly think I’d prefer the homestead right this moment.
“You promised me another girl, if you don’t deliver, it’s your head. Her photo’s already online and there’s been far more interest in her than that fat thing you picked up,” the other man seethes at him and Jonah smirks with a chuckle.
“Sadie will be here. My men are on top of it,” Jonah states before heading towards the door. His expression darkens when his back is to the man, and I hope that it means this Sadie person got away. Because if she did, then maybe I can as well.
Hours slip by bringing us closer to tomorrow and the auction, and I pace along the edge, furthest away from the men near the doors that have guns. I need a plan but every time I start to think up something that just might accidentally work, I’m still left with the fact that I’m in this cage and have to get out of it first.
The door opens and my head flips over to it, hearing Jonah’s voice answering someone else as to why he’s back empty handed.
“Checking up on my investment,” he says, before letting out a huge groan as something knocks him down from behind.
Another man steps into the space, a gun in hand. He’s dressed in all black and my breath stops in my chest as my eyes glide up to his face and recognition sets in.
“Gage?” slips from my lips almost silently, as a tremble rushes through me.
I’ve never met the man in person before, but I saw several photos of him starting when I was fourteen. He was in the same unit my brother was and I had the biggest crush on the moody giant in the photos—even if he was way too old for me back then.
“What the hell is this?” the man running things demands, holding up his hands as Jonah groans, struggling up to his feet.
“You’ve got something that belongs to me, and I’m not leaving here without it,” Gage states, his voice making my knees weak, and I glance at the others here, but none of them seem to recognize him. The two that were huddling together earlier look even more terrified, and the three others on our side all press into the walls looking at each other shaking their heads.
