Page 82 of Nobody Wants Me
It had been a long time since I had seen Ivan lose his cool.Within seconds Ivan stood toe-to-toe with The Beast.
“That is my sister.Do you understand me?That is my flesh and blood and I promised her she would have a life.She’d been lied to all her life.Abused, pretty much tortured by people she thought were family, but they knew they were not her family.She is a Volkov.She is an Abdulov.She is family,” Ivan said.“And that has just put Eric at the top of my list of enemies.He came in, uninvited.I don’t care what it takes.Freya is coming home in one piece.”
“He’ll get more doing it piece by piece,” The Butcher said.
This drew my attention to her.“What?”
“Eric is black market.He is a sick fuck, and there is a chance Freya will stay alive, but for how long, I do not know,” The Butcher said.“It’s not going to be easy, or pretty.This is going to be hard for her.”
“What are we talking about?”I asked.
The Butcher and The Beast shared a look.
“Eric is not ...he will do anything he wants,” she said.“Rape, torture, beat, anything to get the viewers ...ready.”
“Viewers?”
“There’s a whole black market for this kind of thing,” The Beast said.“Think of it as a cattle market, only Eric serves people.Some people want to see sick shit, and they’re more than willing to do it.”
And with that, I lost it.
****
Freya
All my life I’d been in a cage of some kind, or at least I thought it was a cage, or a prison, or something.
Back with Harris as my dad, I thought I lived a normal life, although it was a prison, with random acts of punishment from him whenever I didn’t do the right thing.I could live with that.I had lived with that.
Then being married to Victor.Scared to move around in case he saw me, and then discovering my fake father had put a hit out on me.
One long cage for another.
Only, now I realized they hadn’t been true cages.
I stood in a cage right now.I wasn’t the only one.The man who had taken me had a whole supply of people locked in cages.I spotted five other people—three women, two men, and then me.
I’d been dumped in this cage with a bucket as a toilet.My stomach was causing me pain, and I feared what that meant.
It was dark.Barely anything could be seen.
“What are you in for?”a soft feminine voice asked.
I turned and could just make out a shadow.The dark terrified me.Shadows made it even worse.I felt sick.This was not good.
“Being alive,” I said.
Even though I was sitting, the world kept spinning, and I had no choice but to lay flat on the floor.I don’t know if there are rats or mice, or even spiders.There is no bed.There is nothing.
The pain kept getting worse in my stomach.
I tried not to think about Victor.I tried not to think about anything.
Taking deep breaths in, what I tried to think about was saving this baby, of becoming a mother.Even though I was terrified of being a mother, I wanted to be one.I wanted to have a son or daughter, make cookies, help them with their homework, hold them when they scrape their knees.I wanted to have a big family.
“Yeah, me too,” the voice said.“I’m ...Emily.”
“Hi, Emily.”I was able to see the hand that stuck through the cage.
