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“You’re hurting me.”
“Of course,” he agreed pleasantly. “You asked for it.”
Richard straightened up and wiped his fingers upon the silk that covered her damp, trembling back. He resumed buttoning his shirt.
Diana let out a gasp, her hand going to her ear. “I’m missing an earring!” She knocked the stool back, and rushed to the rumpled bed. She climbed onto her hands and knees, and scrabbled through the bedclothes. “It must be here, in the bed. You were so rough.”
Richard stared at her smooth buttocks. The scrap of lingerie hid nothing. Her back arched, taunting him, inviting. He could smell the hot scent of her sex from across the room. He groaned inwardly. He’d just bathed, for God’s sake.
“I have to go,” he said plaintively.
“Yes, of course, Richie. Go back home to wifey. Don’t let me stop you. I’m just looking for my earring.”
Richard unfastened his trousers and let his penis spring out, heavy and red and ready as he approached the bed. He gripped her hips, jerked them into position. Diana trembled with eagerness as he breached her slick opening and slammed against her, with the unchecked violence she craved.
He used his private trick to make himself come. In those rare instances that he was overly tired and could not bring himself easily to climax, he had only to close his eyes and bring to mind those blood-drenched Parisian girls tied to the bedpost. That image revived a flagging erection—and brought him to an explosive orgasm.
Yes, he reflected, with chilly detachment, as the pleasure pumped through him, he could handle Diana. She would give him no trouble at all.
The whole world was like that. Easily managed. Begging to be used, for his convenience, his advantage, his profit, his pleasure.
What could he do but oblige them all?
Sveti listened intently at the door of the private quarters of the guards. She could hear muted sounds of some sports event on their cable TV. She clenched her teeth and knocked. No answer.
She knocked louder. The door was yanked open so abruptly, she sprang back with a yelp.
It was Yuri, the one she feared the most. Yuri was tall, shambling, had stubble on his fishbelly skin, snaggled yellow teeth, blond hair hanging in lank ropes. He liked to pinch and grope, and his dirty, squared off nails left cuts and dents along with the black bruises. All the children scrambled to keep out of range of those cruel fingers.
He stared at her, his shiny lips stretching into a wide grin. “Look who’s here,” he crooned. “It’s the Snow Princess. Did you miss me, beautiful?” He seized her wrist, and jerked her into the dim, fetid room, lit only by the flickering TV. A soccer match blared. The sportscaster chattering, the horns tooting, it all reminded her of Papa. He’d loved soccer.
It was a match between Ukraina and a team from a country of dark-haired people. Italy, or maybe Spain. The dark team was ahead. The room stank of smoke, rank male feet, fast food grease.
Yuri lifted the hand-rolled cigarette to his lips, dragged on it till the tip crackled and glowed, then wheezed out a cloud of sweetish smoke into Sveti’s face, making her cough. Tobacco and hashish. Aleksandra had taught her what that smell was. Among other things.
“You like your new room, your majesty?” Yuri taunted. “Happy to be off that stinking boat? Want to show me how grateful you are, ey?”
“Shut up, you degenerate,” Marina barked at him from where she lay stretched on one of the couches. “What do you want, girl?”
Marina was a muscular, horse-faced woman with close-set ice blue eyes. Her bleached hair was chopped off in jagged layers, and hung dry and motionless as dead straw. She was hard and cold, but Sveti vastly preferred to deal with her rather than Yuri. Marina kept Yuri in check.
“It’s Rachel,” Sveti said, struggling to pitch her voice loud enough to be heard over the blaring TV. “She’s got an ear infection again. Do you have any more drops? She’s been crying for hours.”
She swayed on her feet, caught herself. She herself hadn’t actually slept in the six or seven days since they’d been moved from the stuffy cabins of that boat. They had rocked and swayed in a hellish infinity of nausea, vomit, whimpering misery, for weeks, maybe. Time had no meaning on the boat. Time had no meaning here in the concrete dungeon, either. But at least it did not plunge and heave.
“That whining brat is always crying about something,” Yuri sneered. “I’ll come down and give her something real to cry about, ey?”
Sveti kept her eyes fixed on Marina’s pale blue ones. “She’s hot,” she said. “It’s a bad fever. She could die.” She paused. “Like Aleksandra.”
A blinding flash of pain as Yuri smacked her with his knuckles. She hit the cluttered table, but when she looked up, Marina was on her feet, rummaging through her stash of boxes, muttering.
Sveti sighed in relief. Bringing up Aleksandra was a risk. She’d overheard arguments. Someone had been angry about Aleksandra. Someone the guards were afraid of.
So, then. It was not in the guards’ interests to let the children die. It left her baffled, but it was something.
Marina pulled out a glass bottle and sent it sailing through the air. Too high. Sveti leaped, scrambling to catch it. It bounced off the tips of her fingers and thudded and bounced on the ground, landing on a patch of gray, synthetic industrial carpet. It did not break, thank God.
Sveti dove to the floor to retrieve it, trying not to cry. If she cried, it would be worse. She forced her stinging eyes to focus on the bottle. Amoxicillin. Yes. That would help. She started scrambling to her feet, and was forced down by a heavy boot pressing against the small of her back. She twisted, looked up into Yuri’s bloodshot eyes.
