Page 1 of Dark OZ

Chapter 1

“Itwasonlyamatter of time before I found myself leashed to the inside of one of these shipping containers.”

“But you’re her niece?” The girl tethered next to me made a pitiful look of remorse.

The dim light from the crack in the door did little to illuminate the interior, allowing the shadows to easily swallow her slight form. The truck hit a bump, sending everyone in the back jostling into the air. Until the chain linking us all together yanked us back to the wall. Pain spiked in my side on impact, streaking a blinding flash of light across my vision.

“Ow,” I cried, adding to the chorus of moans. Before the doors had been sealed, I’d counted nearly a dozen women in this shipment. Small, compared to some of The Farm’s deliveries. When they hauled me onto the truck, I was gaped at with a mix of confusion, desperation, and from some—vindication.

These unlucky souls didn’t know; they never did. To the girls behind the bars, I walked the halls like a princess. To the men behind the guns, they saw only a ghost. But to my Aunt Em, I was nothing more than a burden. Reminding me I would fetch her far more than I was actually worth was her favorite pastime.

“It’s true,” I continued, not caring that this girl didn’t ask to hear my story. I’d never been good with silence, and it wasn’t like she was sharing. I didn’t even know her name. She was just another number on a roster.

It had stung being told by my only family that I had a price tag, but not as much as the day she decided to start cashing in on her investment. What more could you expect from someone who ran a shipping company that also dabbled a bit in the transportation and sale of human beings? Definitely not love. Even asking for safety was asking for too much.

“I learned early in my childhood not to rely on anything but my wits. Of course, it was probably those same wits that landed my ass next to yours.”

The only dependable thing in my world was disappointment, and that my willpower was stronger than any punishment Em could levy. I might be victimized, but I was never going to be a victim.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Are you always this meek, or is it an act that you put on to try and discourage attention?”

She didn’t answer me. That was probably how she’d survived as long in this hell as she had. I, however, hadn’t been born with thekeep your mouth shutgene. The only thing that had kept me alive was being the niece and heir to The Farm, but that fuse had run out and blown up spectacularly in my face.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it. If it wasn’t you, I’d have been caught trying to free some other girl.” Flexing my fingers, I tried to force some blood back into them. The chaffing at my wrists had long since passed raw. Dried blood crusted the edges of the plastic ties. The ache in my arms and my spine made it feel like we’d been here for days, though I knew it couldn’t have been more than one.

The passage of time in the dark interior was impossible to track. I’d tried for the first hour to count, but the stifling air and the pain in my side made it too hard to focus. The temperature of the metal wall was considerably colder than it had been when I was first shackled to it, so chances were good that night had fallen. I needed air, something fresh to breathe. I was beginning to feel lightheaded, and it was making the dark, enclosed space of this truck feel infinitely smaller.

“Keep talking, Dorothy. It helps with the anxiety.” This girl would know, and despite her tears, she seemed to be very calm about being shipped out to a new owner.

I swallowed back the debilitating fear, or maybe that was bile.

“It’s not Dorothy, call me Thea.” If I could scrub that name from the world, I would. But, if Em was disowning me, then she could keep the name Dorothy with her. “Em didn’t take my betrayal well.”

That was an understatement. Five days ago, Aunt Em tossed over a table, screaming about how the world “never gave her a goddamn thing.” Of course, a woman who stuffed her mouth with the spoils of selling other women would consider herself the victim.

“Help me with this.” I poked at her fingers until they found the same nut I’d been trying to wiggle free. I needed some fresh air, even if it was an infinitesimal amount. Together we slowly worked at the rusted metal.

“For months I did everything I could to undermine her.”

The nut finally spun, and I was able to push the bolt free. Cool air and a tiny stream of light poured in from outside, allowing me to take my first real breath in hours. Fuck, I hated the dark.

“Like what?”

“It started as small acts of rebellion, but eventually, I got quite good at passing messages from the women trapped on The Farm to the outside world.” Not women, girls—since that’s what most of them were.

They werestolen,robbed of all free will, or at the very least tricked out of it. I couldn’t sit there and watch as each was processed. Their value was calculated in exactly the same way Em calculated my own worth. Then, they were sold to the highest, morally corrupt bidder.

Well, fuck that.

I had less than nothing. But, I did get open access to most areas of The Farm. It wasn’t enough to make real changes. But, one girl at a time, I tried.

“I got away with it the first few times. Anonymous tips had been made, and a few trucks had been stopped.” Stopped, but never searched thanks to Em’s high-placed contacts. Once the trucks passed over the border into Oz there was very little that could be done. In Ozmandria, so long as the people at the top got their cut, nobody cared about the morally right, gray or otherwise.

My aunt was good at greasing the right wheels. The stacks of money she moved were fat. It was enough to make the Quadrants stop asking where the money came from or what she was moving over the border.

“Yeah, I bet fuck all came from those stops.” Ah, so 07151237 did have a personality.

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