Page 2 of Daddy's Damaged Little Girl

My heart was already galloping in my chest, and now it felt like it was going to burst from it. “How do you know my name?”

The four men in the room laughed.

“That’s not important,” the main guy said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What happens to me now?”

A man against the far wall spoke. “Jesus, she’s a cool one.”

She looked at him. “I’m trying to hold it all together because I’m afraid if I get hysterical, I’ll get hurt.”

The man against the door hooted. “Ohhh, isn’t she a smart one, too.”

“To answer your question,” the head man said. “You’ll be picked up sometime tomorrow, and you’ll be taken to another state.”

She hated thinking the words, much less saying them. “So, you’re human traffickers?”

They all laughed.

She looked around at all of them. “I wonder what your mothers would think right now knowing what you do,” Sage said. They all stopped smiling. “I’m sure if people like you had her, they would treat her better than I’d be treated. Right? What about a sister or a niece?” She looked at each man. “Nah, they’d be destroyed like the rest of us.”

“Get that bitch out of here,” the boss yelled.

The guy against the door gripped her upper arm in a tight hold and dragged her down the hallway. He pushed her into a dim room with a dirty mattress on the floor and a bucket in the corner. There was one window, and it was small and barred.

After the door slammed shut, she turned in a circle. The only thought going through her head was that she was going to die in a room like this, and no one would know where she was.

Sage sat in a corner and hugged her bent legs against her chest. She didn’t even think praying would work, but she’d do whatever she could to keep from screaming.

It was hard for her to act tough when her normal temperament was docile. She liked the man in her life to take care of her and deal with the day-to-day things. It was something she never got from Nicolas, her fiancé. She thought with time, she’d grow to be independent enough to feel more mature and capable. Now, she knew she wouldn’t ever get a chance to find out.

The light in the room darkened. She looked around for a light switch, but there were none. She sat with her back against the wall, hugged her legs tighter against her body, and pressed her face to her knees. She was terrified of the dark, and hated not being able to see. The sounds around her would be magnified and make the next few hours even worse than they were already going to be.

If she made it through the night without screaming, she’d be proud of herself.

Chapter Two

Sage jerked awake, sat up in bed, and frantically looked around the bedroom as her scream echoed throughout the room. The light from the bathroom brightened part of the room, and then she had a few night-lights on every wall because any kind of darkness made her panic.

Would she ever be able to sleep again and not have a nightmare? The doctors told her she’d have to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for the rest of her life. But with time and medicine, if she wanted some, she’d be able to deal with it a little easier.

She flipped off the covers and walked into the bathroom. She splashed water on her face to get rid of the sweat and tears and help vanquish the nightmare.

She didn’t want to, but her eyes rose until she could see herself in the mirror. The person staring back at her was a stranger. Where did the Sage she knew disappear to, leaving this shell of a woman? She knew she had good reason to change, but to what degree? Her skin was pale, like she’d never gone out in the sun. Her cheeks were concave because she’d lost a lot of weight. After all, they hardly fed their captives to keep them docile and weak.

She’d been a full-figured woman, and she had loved her body. Her fiancé hadn’t liked her curves and always pushed her to exercise and eat less, but she thought she was pretty. Sage knew that the beautiful dress he’d bought her a year ago was an incentive, and he wanted her to fit into it. It was boxed up with her other things. She had been told where all her things had been stored after her abduction, but hadn’t found the courage to go to the storage facility.

She almost smiled. The dress had been a size two, and at that time, she was a size ten. She couldn’t remember ever being that small, and she never thought she could until now.

Since it was six o’clock in the morning, she decided to shower and get ready for the day. Lacey, the director of the business, always had something for her to do, and it helped to keep her busy—less time to think about her life. Sage sometimes thought she and her husband, Cason, made up stuff to make her feel better.

Out of all the people that had been housed in the huge building, she had been there longer than four months like all the others, but then she had no one to go home to like the others.

Sage got dressed and stood by the door like she did every morning, waiting for the sound of others walking down the hallway. Once she knew she wasn’t alone, she opened her door.

A few of them smiled, but otherwise, they all left her alone. Being solitary was not something she ever wanted, especially after the … incident, for lack of a better word. She’d never tell anyone how envious she felt when she saw the others being picked up by loved ones and taken home after they were rescued and brought to Lacey’s place, The House of Compassion.

She had no home, and the people she thought cared about her were not in her life. She sometimes thought she should care more than she did, but it took too much effort. She walked out of the elevator with a group and headed toward the office.

---