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Twenty-Nine
Skye
Present
They put me in a cell with three women, none of them Britney. I think I stood there for an hour straight before I was able to build enough courage to remove the cloth hood.
The girls don’t talk to me, they don’t even look at me, and I sense they’ve been here a while and know what this place is about.
The architecture is different here. Brick walls, cement floors, and barely any lighting. The room is long; it’s like a hall but wider, and our cage is just one of many. As I look around, I see that the other cages are empty. Which means I think we’re on the chopping block for something coming.
“What are we waiting for?” I ask, but the girls don’t answer. “Come on, guys, help me out here.”
They don’t.
This is ominous as fuck.
“You’re going to leave me hanging?” I sound exhausted. “Give me something.”
They don’t.
They have the deadest eyes, like their souls have been ripped straight out of them, and they’re wearing the same thing: a black, thin see-through gown that ends just below the curve of their butts. I glance warily at my jeans, wet with sweat and possibly pee.
Why haven’t I been forced to wear that?
I wrack my brain as I approach the black bars, bringing my hands up to wrap around two of the bars. This place stinks of sweat and blood. From a distance there’s shouting, but I can’t see anything from where I am.
It’s not the pleading kind of shouting. It’s raw and violent; guttural and desperate.
“I know what that is,” I whisper, looking back at the girls now. “It’s the fighting pit, isn’t it?”
I look back in the direction it’s coming from. The shouts and cries—
I’m suddenly worried that I’m next in line for whatever horrors they’ll want me to do.
“This is nothing like he said it would be,” I murmur, crestfallen. “This is—”
Worse. So much worse.
Footsteps sound out.
The cloaked figures are back at the cage, unlocking it. I step back, crossing my arms like I’m shielding myself from them. The sight of them is jarring. Their masks make chills run down my flesh. They look like they belong in a cult—
“Out,” one of them orders me.
I look back at the girls who don’t even flinch at their presence. Then I glance back at the man, pointing at me to come. I stall like a fucking idiot, pointing at myself.“Me?”
“Out.”
My footsteps aren’t steps at all. I move to him one terrified inch at a time. He raises his voice, impatience leeching out of him as he shouts, “OUT.”
“I am sort of fucking scared,” I retort, feeling a panic attack coming on.
The man has no fucking chill as he stomps into the cell and grabs at me. I wince because they keep grabbing me on the same sore spot on my arm. I should participate, like I so stupidly thought should be easy to do. But instinct has me resisting. I find myself pulling away from him, shaking my head. “Give me a minute, alright…”
But I’m out of the cage a second later and dragged down the long hall. I pass empty cage after empty cage. The air is so stagnant, the atmosphere so loaded with disquiet as he forces me along. Out of the room and into another corridor. He turns left, away from the brawling sounds.
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer. “Is this about money?”
