Page 1 of Liberator

Chapter 1

I could do this.Dancing and eating cake were supposed to be fun.

It was far from the life I’d been living just a few days ago; a life that had been forced on me because I’d had nowhere to go after turning eighteen and being tossed out of foster care.

The problem I was having had to do with being in a group of people who knew each other well and acted as a family. I didn’t belong, and I had no clue how a person was supposed to pretend they did.

I’d been tossed from one foster home to another all my life and hidden in my room where I was ignored in each of them. I was never asked to join in any family’s activities. In fact, they all made me feel like an intruder, a criminal, because whoever my parents were hadn’t wanted me.

The day I turned eighteen I was kicked out and handed a trash bag that contained my few belongings, mainly a couple of pairsof jeans, three t-shirts, and a teddy bear I’d dug out of the trash bin when I was five.

For three months I wandered the streets. No one had ever explained that there were places I could go to for help. The system hadn’t done its job in my case.

I thought I’d hit the jackpot at the end of the three months. A very handsome man in a suit offered me help. He said I was the perfect girl for the video he was making, and I’d be a star. He promised to give me a room to live in, food, and clothes.

When a girl like me was offered those things from a man in a fancy suit and smooth talk, she didn’t question his motives. She jumped at the chance he was offering.

It was the biggest mistake I’d ever make.

I knew better now. I’d learned the hard way.

He took me to a room, but it was just so he could rape me repeatedly. He kept me locked up and begging for my freedom. He said he was grooming me for the job I would have for the rest of my life, one I’d never wanted or asked for.

After a week of his torment, he was done with me. He claimed he’d broken me in for my clients, but I was just broken apart. I was shoved into a filthy, dark room without running water, heat, or air. My bed was a dirty, stained mattress on the bare floor.

I wasn’t alone. Four other females, ranging in age from sixteen to thirty-five were in there with me. We were to be sold at auction.

After a month of eating one pitiful, cold, mushy meal a day and going to the bathroom in a communal bucket that was emptied once every two days, the day of the auction came.

We were moved to a nice room, scrubbed to rid us of the filth, dressed in provocative clothing, and checked for illness. It was discovered that I was pregnant by my rapist. They auctioned me off anyway. My new “owner” was willing to wait until the babywas born to take possession of both of us. He was actually gleeful that he’d have the baby to sell.

My wants and needs were never considered since I was a prisoner, a slave.

I vomited on my new owner’s shoes when he tried to kiss me for a quick taste of the goods, so I was sent back to the filthy room with a new group of women.

Liz, the woman I was to give my baby over to tonight, was one of the women. She was allowed to remain as my caretaker until the baby arrived. I’ve never been sure why.

She quickly became the mother I’d never had even though she was only eleven years older than me. She wasn’t afraid and for some reason remained hopeful we’d be rescued. I wished I could share her kind of faith, but I was more realistic because I’d been through the auction already and seen my fate.

When we were moved to the shipping container a few days before the baby was due, we assumed we’d die there, that is all of us except Liz.

This hadn’t happened the first time around. The shipping container was something new, which made us believe they’d decided we weren’t worth selling. I assumed my owner had forfeited his ownership and gone on to someone better. We were starved, unwashed, and sick by the time I went into labor.

Ginger’s body was covered with torn pieces of our ragged clothing and laid next to me while I screamed in agony. I couldn’t look at her skeletal body or her sweet, innocent face.

Then, the Serpent Sinners came had saved us. I’d received a miracle and was grateful for it.

Sweet and Jemma, the bride and groom at this wedding had been the ones to release us from captivity even though they’d come for Jemma’s kid, not us.

Rage, the man with the sandy blonde buzz cut and full sleeve tattoo who was now toasting the bride and groom, had carriedme out of the prison where I expected to die. He’d been so gentle, which was surprising since he was choking on smoke and injured. When I was supposed to be left behind for the cops to deal with, he’d defied everyone and took me and Liz back to the Sinner’s clubhouse. He was the first person to touch my baby as it slid from my body. He’d been gentle with her too, his big hands cradling her small form.

He was right. I owed all of them a happy celebration. So, I’d eat cake and dance before I kissed my baby goodbye, handed her over to Liz, and walked away to search for some kind of life of my own.

Chapter 2

I proposed a toastto Sweet and Jemma. I wanted more than anything for them to be happy and for Jemma to feel safe with us.

She and her son, Jackson, had been through too much because of her idiot ex-husband. Thankfully, he was dead, and good riddance to him. But the cartel would always pose some sort of threat to her and to the Sinners, especially now that we’d hit them hard by blowing up their warehouse and releasing the women they were trafficking.

---