Chaotic Anger (The Seven #1) - A.R. Breck Page 0,2
nothing but a reminder that I’m still alive. My body shouldn’t be shocked, really. It’s always in some sort of trauma, but the horrendous aches somehow always make it seem like the first time.
My dream ended up being a nightmare, and my nightmare is nothing but reality.
I don’t often dream about the worst day of my life, but on the unfortunate chance that I do, the rest of my day usually ends up being a pile of shit as well.
My life has been uncertain, teetering between life and death every day since. If I were toe in either direction, I’d tumble straight into the unknown. The thought alone scares me, because the possibility of going into something new terrifies me. I might live in hell now, but I know my hell. I can expect every move and I’ve perfected the game of chess that is my life.
I don’t think I’d survive learning the rules of a new game. A new hell.
I swallow down the bile at that thought and slide my legs across the cool sheets, planting them on the limestone floor. The chills don’t go away as the cold from the ground seeps into my feet. If anything, they get worse.
I hate this place.
I’m always cold, and you would think that being in Mexico would mean I’m always hot, but that’s not the case. It’s not only the temperature, although it does get cool at night.
It’s this life.
Kidnapped at the age of fifteen, it feels like I’ve been living here an eternity. It hasn’t been that long, though.
Only five years.
Five years I’ve been living in this compound called La Guarida. I get treated like a prisoner and a queen all mixed in one. Mostly a prisoner. A prisoner that can walk free and explore, but not too far. No going outside the perimeter. I tried that once in my early days here. It ended in broken and busted bones, and my insides felt torn in half.
I’ll never make that mistake again.
I was initially taken with the intent of being sold at one of their popular auctions. I was treated like a dog, much like they do all their recruits. They break and beat them until they are nothing but a pile of bones, emaciate them until they can barely move. They enjoy watching the recruits struggle to survive, arching their backs in agony and begging for relief from their overwhelming pain.
Only the strong survive, they say.
The weak ones die and get thrown into the wild. The skittish but savage starving coyotes will get to them. Any remnants are buried within the dessert sand over time and no one asks any questions.
Once you get through the first test of being sold, you’re filled with food until the color blooms back into your skin. They allow you to flourish and become healthy once again.
Then they whip you into a docile cat and make sure you know that you will submit, on every level.
If you disobey, well, what I said before about being thrown into the wild, rings true here, as well. They like to toss you out like the trash they believe you to be.
If you survive this test, you make it to auction.
I made it to that test, dolled up like a beauty queen, and set up on stage where a bunch of leery, creepy men from all over the world pay an obnoxious amount of money for you to become their slave.
The word turns my stomach into fire.
I’ve seen too many girls who could’ve been great friends turned into slaves and shipped away to different countries never to be seen again.
As I stood up on the stage and felt the heated gaze of the men sitting before me, the numbers started to raise on my bids. The thousands turned into hundreds of thousands, and a light sheen of sweat appeared on my skin. My legs hummed with the need to flee, but the knowledge and warnings of the punishments that would be bestowed upon me kept my knees locked beneath my shimmery dress. Just as an overwhelmed dizziness filled my head, the lights cut out. A dark figure emerged from the back right corner of the room with a cloud of smoke from the cigar pitched between his lips swirling around him like a bad aura. I could tell before he fully stepped out of the shadows that this man was powerful. More powerful than any of the other millionaires and billionaires in the room.