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Prologue
AMBER
Months Ago
Never again!
I twist, pulling away from those that seek to confine me, but their hands are relentless.
How many are there? Four? All older and tired looking. Broken, bedraggled souls.
Not to be mistaken for kind. There’s not a decent one among them.
“Keep quiet girl! You’ll only make things worse,” one of the women holding me captive says, her tone frustrated.
“They’re monsters!” I clutch between my legs, still shocked by what just happened.
They pull back my arms, pinning me onto the bed.
While most of the women avoid my gaze, one looks directly at me as she worms her tongue around her broken teeth. “And you think it’s better anywhere else? Better they taste yer tender young flesh than the dead.”
“How about I keep my tender flesh to myself?”
A cold, wet washcloth is smeared between my thighs. “This is the price you have to pay in this world for safety.”
“Safety? How am I safe when he could have very well busted my rib?”
“You’re being dramatic,” another mutters. She’s the youngest of the bunch. Forty, if I had to guess.
“The white of my left eye is red!”
“Maybe if you were more compliant, you wouldn’t be suffering so.” Worm Tongue’s tone is smug, like she actually agrees with what’s been done to me.
“You mean if I’d just laid there, spread my legs, and took it?” I sneer. “No, thank you!”
“Don’t act like you was some innocent girl before all this!”
“Innocent or not, whatever that means—this isn’t right!”
“Right or not, if you don’t start listening and doing what you’re told, you’ll end up in the box.”
“So be it!”
Worm Tongue chuckles dryly. “Perhaps I misspoke. What I meant to say is that if you don’t start behaving, it won’t be you who ends up in the box—it will behim.”
I blink back at the hag, confused. “No—you’d never!”
“Then stop acting like yer better than everyone,” the younger one says.
I turn my attention towards her. “What were you doing a month ago?”
She avoids my gaze, digging her fingers into my calf to keep me immobile.
“How about a year ago? Were you a farmer? Or did you always peddle little girls?”
Her neck practically snaps as she turns to look at me. “I was a teacher! And I’m hardly peddling little girls. You’re eighteen. A woman grown!”
“I’m not even legally allowed to drink liquor!”
