Chapter 5

Freya

Day 165 of captivity

The new girl was coming around quicker than I had expected. I sat back quietly watching, waiting for the screaming, and crying and panicking to start. I expected that tonight would be another sleepless one. Not that I begrudged the woman her horror, after all I had been here for months and still struggled to come to terms with how man could to this to other living beings.

She groaned as she opened her eyes, feeling her head and her hand came away bloody and I wondered just how bad the wound was, would she even make it until morning? They hadn’t all. Her hand dropped from in front of her face as I saw the second se realised she was in a cage, but she didn’t panic like the others had, she didn’t scream of cry, she just lay there and tugged on one of the bars.

“Hello.” I uttered then winced, so much for keeping to myself, so much for scared and meek. Shit, this girl had been here all of an hour and I was blowing it already, but she was different somehow, like she wasn’t quiet as sheltered as the girls before her and that had me wondering, which was a dangerous thing in a place like this, when it was unlikely that she would be here in a couple of days.

“Where are we?” The girl asked, her voice scratchy but she kept the volume down and didn’t shout at least.

I contemplated for a moment before answering, surly it wouldn’t hurt to have a conversation, I just needed to remember, scared and week. “I don’t know exactly, an old cabin in the woods somewhere.”

“How long have you been here?” The question was a little terrifying when I thought about it.

“I lost track after the first month, I think about six months, but I could be wrong.”

“Do you know who they are?” she asked again, and I wondered at her strength, she seemed to be handling this better than I had in the beginning, calm and cool and find out as much as possible. It was a shame that after so long here I couldn’t give her better answers

“No, they are shifters, a couple of them have funny accents but I don’t know where they are from, they don’t talk around me much. I hear them in the cabin on occasion but never anything important.”

“What’s your name?” she asked the most dangerous question of all because this as the one that made us human, that forged an attachment. I swallowed hard before answering, I so desperately wanted to answer, even though I knew it would be a mistake, because if I gave mine, she would give hers and I wasn’t sure how many more times I could watch one of these girls get dragged kicking and screaming or killed in cold blood.

“Freya.” The word slipped from my mouth before I decided to speak it and I winced as I waited for her next words.

“I’m Cali.” She uttered, and those two words literally cracked my heart open Cali. “Well Freya, I would say that it’s nice to meet you, but under the circumstances.” She trailed off and I huffed a laugh. Truer words were never spoken.

I watched her for a while as she sat with her eyes closed and shifted on occasion in the cramped space, she was probably in one of the smallest cages there was in the room.

“Freya, do you know why we are here? What do they want?”

“I think they take us to sell us as slaves.” I uttered, that seemed to be the general rule, except for me. That one I still hadn’t quite figured out.

“What?” The girl asked seeming horrified at the thought, and who could blame her. But still she stayed calm, didn’t panic, or scream and I scrunched my eyes in thought as I studied her. She was well dressed in smart clothes, not the kind of thing a rogue would wear and with the exception of the blood on her face, she was well put together hair neat and shiny like it was washed often with conditioner. She did not look like the type of person to be collected like this, but then I guess looks can be deceiving.

“Sixteen other girls have been here since I was taken, and about a week after they get here a group of men came, they look at us then pick a girl and leave with her. They don’t talk in here so it’s hard to figure it out exactly, but I think they are buying us to use as slaves.” I informed, giving her the only information I had on the topic, truth was most of my assumptions were just that, I honestly had no idea what happened to the girls once they left here.

“Well shit. Freya, I think we might end up having to get ourselves out of this mess.” She uttered from across the room and my eyes widened at the thought. This was certainly a new one, none of the other girls had suggested escaping until at least their second day.

“I’ve tried. I’ve tried everything I can think of, I offered them money, but they asked for more than I could get them, the cage is too small to shift in, one of the girls tried it not long after we got here and broke almost every bone in her body, took three weeks for her to heal and her bones didn’t heal straight because she couldn’t stretch out properly.” I swallowed hard at the memories of the screaming that had echoed around the room for nights as her body took its time to heal, the poor girl had probably suffered worse than anyone else here.

“The locks on the cages don’t budge, they let us out of the cage once a day to use the toilet but at least four of them do it together, there is no way I could overpower them even if shifted. Cali oh god I want to get out of here, I just don’t see how that’s possible.” I cried letting my desperation for freedom show for the first time. There was something about this girl that broke down my filters and I shook my head, I needed to stick to the plan, if nothing else at least I was coming across as scared.

Silence fell in the room, and I watched the girl for a while before sitting back against the bars of the cage and closing my eyes. There wasn’t exactly a whole lot to do here, what I wouldn’t give for a little freedom, the chance to shift, to see the stars, small the air, read a book. All the small things in life that I had taken for granted now seemed to mean so much.

I wanted to take a soak in a bath, run a brush through my hair, eat a hot meal drink a glass of wine, hell drink a cup of tea. I just wanted my normal back. Wishing for things that would never be, wouldn’t get me anywhere, but sometimes it was nice to dream.

I had no doubt that even if I got out of here today, my life would never be the same again. I vowed to do whatever I could to take down the trafficking ring and everyone involved in it. I would rip them to shreds to give them just an ounce of the pain that they had caused me. That they had caused all of the girls who’s lives had been changed by these men. I would do whatever I could to track down the girls and free them, take them home to their families and give them their lives back.

No person should ever be made to live in a state of captivity, against their free will and under threat. I would make it right. I had to.