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Still, his calm was bleeding through the connection.
How are you so damn calm?I screamed at him. I could almost feel the amusement flowing through him.
Because I know we hold the upper hand. How many females are there?
I looked around and could make out the silhouettes.
At least seven.
He didn’t respond right away, but before I could ask anything else, the door opened and the chain was yanked so quickly every one of us was pulled to an awkward standing position. One female held up the next while we huddled together, and it was a small piece of comfort. We were all screwed, but maybe subconsciously, we weren’t ready to give up. Not all of them anyway. I know I wasn’t. I never would be. I’d had hope for the first two years of my servitude. I could keep it up now.
Probably.
The clank of the chain answered why I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. That and the damn burning from the fucking cuff on my wrist. I winced as the female in front of me moved and I was forced to follow behind her.
The light in the hall was dim and led down a narrow passage outside. I drank in the air with a fear that this would be the last time I’d smell the fresh air again. The small gap between the jail and the next building blocked out the sun, reminding me just how bad this could all be.
One by one, someone pushed and shoved us into the new space.
“Clean yourselves now,” said a gruff voice.
I think we’re taking a shower?
Perhaps keeping my hope alive made more sense than accepting this new normal. It was weird the internal dialogue in my head wasn’t just me. Not just me and my wolf. No, it was also my mate. A mate I still barely knew. And yet, somehow I knew he would come for me.
Even if the asshole was silent right now.
* * *
I wasn’t the only one who started and looked back as the door locked behind us. One by one, the shackles were removed. Dim light left this place looking more like a jail than whatever it was. No windows broke the grey of the wall, or at least not any that I could see out of. The room was simple. Cement blocks stacked high with a large pool-like-tub in the center. The corner of my lip turned up. I wasn’t the only one questioning the cleanliness of the pool. My feet slid over dirt on the cement floor.
I rubbed my wrist, thankful that the burning had stopped for now.
“Wash,” the lady said and pushed me towards the wall.
There were buckets around the edge and that seemed much more appealing than the pool doubling as a sewage dump. I wasn’t alone. I’d rather a cold bucket of water than whatever was in that cesspool, and I thought I had low standards.
“You will remain in here and clean yourselves. There will be no fighting. There is no escaping. There are guards posted outside this door. Wash yourselves thoroughly. Then head to get your hair done. You will be issued a dress there.”
I followed her finger as it pointed from there to here. She had bitter written all over her face, as she nodded over to a smaller room aside from where we were. Candles lined that room where this one has some light trying to find its way through bars near the ceiling.
Each of us seemed to turn our faces up trying to feel anything, but the sun would have been nice. I sighed. This was hopeless. The light peeking through was pathetic. I hated to tell the sun it was futile and just go set already. My heart sank realizing that all the cement didn’t lend well to burning the place down either. Fine, I’d do what I was told until I could figure out what else I could actually do.
Probably.
Someone shoved me, and I started to pull a cloth from the bucket. It was impossible not to watch the slow, scared motions of the girls. I’d been here before. Not here, here. But forced to wash to be presentable. Forced to be where you had to be, even if you didn’t want to be. The memory had me looking around. Nessa had been on that truck. Where was she now? No one spoke, so I couldn’t pick out her annoying voice. Sad. Maybe she wasn’t in here after all. The rag rubbed away my skin like sandpaper. Not much better than the pool.
“Excuse me?”
I raised my hand like it really mattered if I spoke out of turn and waited for the bossy hag to come over.
“What?” she asked tersely.
“I’m under the impression we are to actually look clean. My bucket feels like the whole of the desert is in here.”
She grunted and pointed at a door.
“You just volunteered. Grab the buckets and fill them fresh.”
