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The lock turns with an almighty clang that I feel right down into the marrow of my bones. The hinges scream as he opens the door and his boots are ominous as he crosses the tiny room to where I’m lying. It can’t be more than five paces – almost certainly less with his size – but it still seems to take an eternity for him to reach me.
I’m too terrified to look but I know when he arrives at my side. The air thickens and my body shakes uncontrollably, instinctively sensing the imminent danger.
“There are rules of course. I have to keep their perfect little premium as pure as freshly fallen snow, but I’m allowed to have some fun. I brought my knuckles and knives with me, so I can enjoy another taste of your blood, and not all of your holes have to be untouched.”
I dry retch as he whips the blanket off me and stares down hungrily at my naked body. There’s nowhere to hide.
“Are you ready to bruise and bleed for me, juicy little Peach?”
* * *
A strangled, choking sort of screaming sound jolts me back to my bedroom and it takes me a moment to realise that I’m the one making the sound.
But I can breathe again, and I don’t have to relive that awful night with scar face. Or any of his many visits that followed after that.
As I try to calm my racing heart, I consider what I know: My mama sold me to Joe. If that was even really his name. And I was supposed to die at the end of the transaction. Why? Why would she do that? Why would he?
Was everything a lie?
Maybe they had no choice. Maybe they were both forced to do this. Maybe there’s a bigger force at play. But then…why me?
My weak attempt at grasping at straws sounds feeble even to my own ears. What am I hoping for here? Of course Joe was in on it. He never tried to save me. Never came looking for me. Never returned to check on me once I was home.
He never loved me.
And my mama will never change.
Weirdly, it’s this knowledge that has my heart rate calming. The tightness in my chest eases and I’m able to breathe once more.
I saved myself from a total meltdown with the realisation that the only people in my life who really love me are the ones living under this roof. And even as I finally relax enough to drift off to sleep, I comprehend one thing: I’m not the only one who’s been keeping secrets.
I have to find a way to block these horrors out.
Inspection was…humiliating. Painful. Horrifying.
I can’t even begin to process the things done to me.
Or the reasons why.
Once it’s over, I’m stamped on the back of my hand, a single word in blood red ink, and separated from the other press of unwashed bodies packed into the tiny cell alongside me.
Premium.
I can’t stop staring at it. I don’t want to be a ‘premium’, can’t think about what it entails. My brain isn’t getting the memo though, as it seems fixated on the word.
Premium.
To pay a premium. Premium rate. Premium insurance. Premium price. Premium income. Premium tax. Premium meat.
Which am I?
All I know is that since they discovered the truth about me and labelled me, I’ve been treated marginally better than the others in the place I came from.
I haven’t returned to the press of unwashed bodies, I’ve been given a small cell to myself. It even has a thin and filthy mattress on the stone floor with a threadbare itchy blanket and a bucket in the corner.
I definitely don’t want to think about why I’ve been separated from the others or what is going to happen next.
Not that my brain is listening to me about that either.
