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While one girl vomited and the other shivered, she’d fought the ropes that bound her. But their captors burst in, held them down and injected something into their arms. She’d come to in this horrid cell, alone, knowing she’d been sold…
Knowing it was only a matter of time before her owner claimed her.
Now, that time had come.
The giants dragged her down a long corridor that stank of sweat and human misery. They shoved her into a small room with stained concrete walls and a drain in the middle of the floor, and slammed the door behind her. She heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place but she threw herself at the door anyway, pounding it with her fists until her knuckles hurt.
Then she slumped to the cold floor, looked at the stained walls, at the drain. At the dark, wet stain around it.
She buried her face in her hands.
A long time later, she heard the bolt sliding open. Leanna began to tremble.
“No,” she whispered to herself, “don’t let them see how scared you are.” Somehow, she knew that would only make things worse. Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and lifted her chin.
A woman entered the room. Leanna sagged with relief. Two men with cold, dead eyes stood behind her but the woman’s bearing made it clear she was in charge.
“Do you speak English?” Leanna asked. No reply, but that didn’t prove anything. “I hope you do,” she said, trying to sound reasonable instead of terrified, “because there’s been an awful mis—”
“You will disrobe.”
“You do speak English! Oh, I’m so—”
“Leave your clothing on the floor.”
“Listen, please! I’m a dancer. I don’t know what you think I—”
“Do it quickly, or these men will do it for you.”
“Do you hear me? I’m a dancer! And I’m an American citizen. My embassy—”
“There is no embassy in Baslaam. My lord does not recognize your country.”
“Well, he’d better. Otherwise—otherwise—” The woman jerked her head toward the men behind her. Leanna shrieked as one of them moved faster than she’d have thought he could and grabbed the neck of her T-shirt. “Stop it! Take your hands off—”
The shirt tore to the hem. Leanna lashed out but he laughed and caught her wrists in one hand, lifting her off her feet so the other man could yank off her sneakers and her cotton trousers.
When she was stripped to her bra and panties, they flung her to the floor. Leanna scrambled toward the wall and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.
This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be real, couldn’t be—
She shrieked as a gusher of warm water hit her in the face. Her eyes flew open. A scraggly line of serving-women surrounded her. Some held steaming pitchers, some held soap and towels. The men had dragged in an enormous wooden vessel…
A tub?
“Take off your undergarments,” the woman in charge snapped. “Bathe yourself well. If you are not clean enough, you will be punished. My lord, the sultan Asaad, will not tolerate filth.”
Leanna blinked. She was in an improvised bathroom. That was the reason for the drain in the floor.
A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat.
The ruler of this godforsaken place had bought her, had her thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. He was going to make her into his newest sex toy.
But first, she had to scrub behind her ears.
Suddenly everything that had happened, that was happening, seemed unbelievable. Leanna let the laughter out. Peals of it. The servant women stared at her in disbelief. One giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough. The woman in charge slapped the one who’d dared laugh, barked an order, then rounded on Leanna in rage.
“Perhaps you would like to appear before my lord beaten black and blue!”
