Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel Read online

  “I’m hungry,” she told skinny guy. “When do we get some food?”

  He lashed a foot out at her, kicking her sharply in the hip. Bright pain sparked afresh through her, and she bit down on her lip to stop herself crying out, not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

  “You get fed when we decide you get fed. No more questions, or that kick will be in your face.”

  Lily huddled back down, her eyes trained on the floor. She didn’t want to do anything that would cause him to kick her again. She couldn’t handle any more pain for the moment.

  The man snorted and then hawked a mouthful of phlegm. It splattered on the corrugated iron floor mere inches from her. Lily pulled closer to the wall, relieved it hadn’t hit her, and willed him to leave.

  Even the captivity and darkness were preferable to being in this man’s company.

  To her relief, he turned and left. None of the other girls had been taken this time, but the young woman who’d been removed from the container earlier hadn’t been returned. She remembered what Cigarette Hands had said. ‘A hundred of you little whores have come through here, and not a single one has come back.’

  The girl wasn’t going to reappear.

  With nothing else to do, overwhelmed by her situation, physically exhausted from the ordeal and lack of food, Lily drifted in and out of sleep. A pressing need on her bladder finally forced her back into consciousness. She suddenly wished she’d refused the water that had been given to her.

  She needed to pee.

  Though she didn’t want to bring the men back into the container, her need became urgent, her bladder full enough to hurt. She wriggled back up against the wall, and used her elbows to bang against the wall.

  “Hey,” she shouted. “Can you get in here? I need to pee.”

  She waited and listened, hoping for a response. “Hey!” She tried again, only louder this time, her desperation causing her to not care about the consequences. “I need to use the bathroom. Please, I’m desperate!”

  Hollow, cold laughter met her pleas, followed by a distant shout through the container walls. “Go where you’re sitting.”

  She froze in horror. Was that really what they expected her to do? But she glanced around at the other women, and remembered the stink in the container when she’d first entered, though she’d grown used to the smell now. Was that just another way of them removing any fight from their victims, by denying them even the smallest of human luxuries such as using the bathroom?

  No, she couldn’t do it. Never in her life as an adult had she been forced to wet herself. But the pain in her bladder only got worse, and though she shifted her position, trying to remove the pressure, nothing helped.

  “Please,” she tried again, giving way to tears. “Please, just help me.”

  As she’d expected, she got no response. Not even the other women—all of whom must have shared her humiliation and embarrassment—said anything. They’d all been in her position, had all been forced to commit the act she was about to do, and none had any words of comfort.

  With no other choice, Lily allowed her bladder to go. A flood of warmth gave her a moment of reprieve from the cold of the container, and with a flash of shame she realized she’d taken pleasure in the combination of warmth and relief.

  She shifted to one side to get out of the puddle, and put her head in her hands. “Oh, God.”

  Was this what she was to become? No better than an animal on a chain? No, even an animal didn’t mess in the same place it slept. These men were trying to reduce her to the most base of creatures.

  The warmth quickly left, and was replaced by her clothing becoming cold and wet. Despite the discomfort, she found sleep was her only escape, and she lay back down on her side.

  Her dreams were filled with violence and the certainty she was being chased. She ran through dark tunnels, the light behind her instead of in front, and when she turned to catch sight of the person chasing her, she only saw a male figure silhouetted against the light. She turned to run again, knowing she was heading into the utter black, but unable to do anything else. From her right, another man stepped out of the darkness. He lunged at her, a knife in his hand, and to her horror, sank the blade into her arm. The blade sank deep, but he withdrew it and stabbed, and stabbed again …

  ***

  The clang of the doors being opened woke her. A scream lodged like a piece of raw meat in her throat, her breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Her whole body was coated in a cold sweat, and pain cramped her right arm where she’d been lying on it in the awkward position with her hands still tied behind her back.

  But she didn’t have time to analyze her dream—not that it took much analyzing—and it skittered away from her conscious mind. She had far more real terrors to face.

  Both men walked in. This time they made their way directly toward her.

  She didn’t want to stay in this horrific, soulless container, but the possibility of what would come next terrified her more.

  “No, please,” she begged as they bent to grab her by the upper arms. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else. I’m not what you want.”

  Cigarette Hands grinned. “You’re exactly who we want. We don’t do these things on a whim, bitch.”

  Together, they hauled her to her feet.

  They’d come to take her to whatever fate had in store.

  Four

  A cloth bag was pulled over her head, blocking her view of the outside world, and she was dragged back outside.

  Because she’d been held at a port, Lily had assumed she’d end up on a ship, but instead she was thrown onto the back seat of a car. The softness of the leather upholstery beneath her face and body made her want to cry with pleasure after spending so many hours on the hard metal. At least this time she wasn’t being made to suffer the claustrophobia of the trunk. She guessed the reason for the change was that she wouldn’t be kept in the car for long. If they were already at a port, she assumed they’d simply be transferring her to a ship.

  Except the car seemed to be leaving the port, the sound of water and foghorns growing fainter as they drove away.

  Numerous questions went through her mind. How long would she be in the car for? Where were they taking her? What would happen to her when she got there? But after only an estimated twenty minutes, the car stopped and the engine switched off.

  Lily froze, trying to get some idea of where she was now.

  A thrum of engines met her ears, but not of cars or boats. No, they were airplane engines.

  Oh, God. A plane. How far was she being taken? If they took her to another country, she would never be found. She’d just become another statistic.

  Her mind reeled with fright. No one would be looking for her yet, and when they did notice she was gone, they’d never find her in another country. No one cared about her enough to push a search so far. Whatever awaited her at the end of this journey would be it, for good. She’d never get back to her old life. If she was to be subjected to the sort of life she’d imagined for the other girls in the container, she didn’t think she’d want to live a life at all.

  I’ll kill myself before I allow myself to be used like that, she vowed. What was her life anyway? Yes, she’d helped people, and that was the one satisfaction she took out of her existence. She regretted that the people who might have been in her future would no longer receive the benefit of her skill and experience, but they would find someone else. She was sure her patients wouldn’t want anyone else, that they’d swear she was the best in her field, and they would have been right, but others would be able to help them. They wouldn’t lose their lives because of what was transpiring right here and now.

  Unlike her.

  The car door opened with a clunk, and Cigarette Hands grabbed her by the arms and pulled her from the back seat. She twisted her head inside the material bag, as though she might be able to find a small hole she could see through, but other than a small amount of light filtering from the bottom, there was nothing.


  He picked her up and hauled her over his shoulder.

  The bag slipped down a little as he carried her with a jerking stride, and she caught sight of a strip of asphalt beneath her. Within a minute, the asphalt changed to metal steps, and he took them, climbing up and into what she assumed to be the body of a plane. He moved down the inside of the plane and dumped her on the floor.

  “Is this the one?”

  Lily froze. A different male voice, one she’d not heard before.

  “Yeah,” said Cigarette Hands. “Don’t know what he wants with her, though. She isn’t much to look at.”

  A snort. “She doesn’t look too bad to me. Big tits and an ass to match. No idea what her face is like, but I like a woman who jiggles when she moves.”

  The feminist in Lily wanted to shout out to them to stop talking about her in such a way, but though their words might hurt her feelings, they didn’t hurt in the same way punches or kicks did, and she’d suffered enough of those over the past twenty-four hours. She didn’t want to risk causing any more.

  Cigarette Hands laughed. “Well I prefer mine a little on the skinnier side, but whatever floats your boat, man. Anyway, I’m glad to be rid of this one. I prefer knowing my business a bit better. That guy’s one shady customer.”

  “Don’t pretend like most of your customers aren’t shady.”

  “Yeah, but not like this one.”

  His words made her blood freeze in her veins. Was this who she was being delivered to? A man so bad, even the traffickers thought he was dangerous. Her whole body trembled with fear and she bit her lower lip to prevent the sobs exploding from her mouth, bit it so hard she tasted blood. She didn’t care. If this really was as bad as she figured, it wouldn’t be the last time she’d taste her own blood.

  Cigarette Hands spoke again. “Well, I’ve got other girls to move, so I’ll leave this one in your capable hands.”

  She heard a couple of doors slam shut, and then the plane’s engines roared to life around her. The small plane started to move, and bumped and jolted as it taxied down the runway. Vibrations ran through her body, only exacerbating her shaking.

  The engines grew so loud they drowned out all conscious thought. She wished she could cover her ears with her hands, but they were still bound, so all she could do was press one ear against her shoulder, and use the cloth bag over her head to stifle a little of the roar that way. The plane’s momentum increased, and suddenly she felt the change in movement as it lifted into the air. She wasn’t strapped in anywhere, so she slid across the floor toward the back of the plane. Her feet snagged with something metal—the casings of a seat perhaps—and halted her motion. Finally, the plane leveled off and reached a cruising altitude.

  How long would the flight be? She got the impression the plane was small, so it wouldn’t be able to get too far without refueling. She didn’t dare fall asleep in case she missed something important. Who else was on the plane with her? She knew there was at least one other man, and there must be a pilot. What about a co-pilot? Did planes of this size need such a thing? She had no idea. Aviation wasn’t something she’d paid attention to in the past.

  Lily lay on the floor. Male voices came from the front of the plane—so she knew there was more than one man—but they were muffled by the sound of the engine. They remained fairly low until one of them said something, and the other burst out with loud laughter, making her cringe. With her senses muted by the cloth bag over her head, she struggled to tell how much time passed. Her bladder grew painfully full, and she desperately needed to relieve herself, but didn’t want to call attention to herself in case it earned her another kick, or even worse. She could hold it for now. She hadn’t reached the same desperation that had made her wet herself the previous night, though if she had to, she’d do the same thing again. Hadn’t she read somewhere that wetting yourself was a way of deterring a rapist? She was amazed anyone would go anywhere near her at the moment, considering the way she stank.

  They hit some turbulence, and she gave a small cry of fear as the plane dropped suddenly, leaving her stomach far behind. But after what she estimated to be three or four hours, her ears began to pop, her stomach left somewhere above her as they started their descent.

  The plane touched down, but no one spoke to her or tried to move her. She heard noises from outside, and figured they must just be refueling. Within twenty minutes, the plane’s engines started back and they took off once more.

  The drone of the engine made her doze, though she fought against it. She tried to figure out where they might have traveled for her to have been in the plane for this amount of time. Were they still in the United States, or had they flown somewhere out of the country? She had no idea what direction they were headed, or if the next stop would even be her final destination—they might only land to refuel again or pick someone else up, for all she knew. She hated the uncertainty of it, the fear of the unknown. At least if she knew what she had to face, she could build herself up to be stronger.

  You do know what you have to face, she told herself. You’re being sold into a sex slavery ring. These men traffic girls, and you’ve become one of them.

  She knew this. She’d seen the girls and the men who were moving them, yet something still didn’t sit quite right with her. Perhaps she was simply in denial. Years of not being touched intimately meant she struggled to even imagine how it would feel to be taken against her own will ... not that she wanted to imagine.

  I’ll die, she thought. My mind will shut down to protect itself, and my body will give up eventually. I’m not strong enough to handle this.

  Yet she knew the body and mind could be surprising at times. Sometimes it was stronger than she could even fathom, though she didn’t want it to be. She didn’t want to live for years and years at the hands of an abuser.

  You won’t have to. He’ll get bored with you and kill you, and then move on to some other poor woman he’s paid to own.

  Eventually, they started their descent again.

  The plane landed with a couple of bouncing bumps, and then she experienced a drag of g-force as the landing brakes were applied. She slid backward again, banging against something behind her. She winced as pain spread through her back, her teeth clamped together. She was struggling to remember a time when some part of her body hadn’t hurt.

  The plane continued to motor along, before finally coming to a standstill.

  Lily waited, every muscle tensed. She curled up into as tight a ball as she could manage, as though doing so would make the men forget about her. But within a minute, heavy footsteps approached, and then fingers wrapped around her arms and she was yanked upright again.

  “Please,” she whimpered, though she wasn’t even sure what she was begging for anymore. “Please ...”

  The fingers dug harder into her flesh and gave her a shake. “Shut it.”

  Lily fell quiet and allowed herself to be half-carried, half-dragged from the body of the aircraft.

  The moment she was hauled from the plane, the heat hit her. Even the air had a different scent, something changed, unknown. A dry heat against her tongue, inside her nostrils. She’d never left the country before, but she was certain she had now.

  “You are late,” a new male voice said. She detected a foreign accent, but couldn’t place it.

  The man who had delivered her said, “Only by an hour. We had strong headwinds coming over.”

  A sudden shove from behind sent her flying forward, a cry of shock escaping her lips. She collided with someone else and hands grabbed her arms, stopping her from hitting the floor. From the bottom of the bag over her head, she managed to catch a glimpse of the hands holding her. Though the fingers felt strong, the knuckles were folded and loose, the backs of the hands lined with wrinkles and a spattering of white hair. These were the hands of an older man. Was that who she was being sold to? Some perverted old guy?

  “You are sure this is the right one?” the foreign sounding voice said.

&nbs
p; “We don’t make mistakes. Do you have my money?”

  “Of course.”

  One of the hands left her arm, and she detected movement and a rustling, as she assumed money was exchanging hands. A pause, and a flicking.

  “It’s all there,” said the older man.

  “Sure.”

  She was pulled around and forced in another direction, away from the plane. Heat rose like an oven from the asphalt beneath her feet. She wanted to fight, but she knew it would be pointless. All that would happen was she’d be given another beating. Even if she did somehow manage to escape—bound and with a sack over her head—where would she go for help? She didn’t even know what country she was in. She needed to wait, bide her time, and learn about her location and her abductor. She had only one thing going for her, and that was her mind. She was smart, and she needed to use those smarts to get out of this situation, even if right now it all felt hopeless.

  The hands holding her pushed her into the back of another car. Lily landed with her face pressed against the leather upholstery. Did all these people insist on leather? Perhaps it was easier to clean the blood off than fabric. The door slammed shut behind her and she huddled into a ball as best she could, her hands still bound behind her back.

  She felt drained, empty. Another journey to another frightening possibility. Was the man now driving the car going to be the one who would own her? He hadn’t tried speaking to her, or giving her any instructions apart from shoves. Was that simply how it would be for her now—treated like an object to be moved around, while he raped her whenever he felt the urge?

  The interior of the car was cooler than outside, the air in the vehicle blasting.