Someone grabbed her arm roughly and jerked her back. She wore another white dress, similar to her nightgown she’d been wearing when taken from her home, but this one was ornamented with lace and even a few gems. It was to attract buyers, to make her seem more appealing.
It was so she’d fetch the highest amount she could get.
“Move,” the slaver ordered her and all but pushed her off the stage. Tripping over her feet, she braced a hand on the fencing that had been erected around the auction block.
When she’d woken up after the drugs had worn off several days ago, she’d found herself in the back of a cargo vehicle, a handful of other kidnapped women sitting around her. They all stared at her, but none would make eye contact. So, she’d sat in the back of that cargo vehicle, the clear roof above her giving her a shot of the sky as it went from light to dark.
Once they’d reached their destination, which had been days’ worth of travel, the slavers had taken them out of the back of the vehicle by pulling on the chains that were wrapped around their necks.
And then she’d been put in a room, fed scraps, given filthy water, and only allowed one bath since her capture … and that bath had come right before this auction.
The auction, or “Floating Sale” as it was known in this country, moved around. But buyers came from all over the world to purchase slaves. Today had been about the sex slaves, and she’d been thrown in with the other young, fertile, and healthy females.
Some of the females would be strictly be used for sex by their “masters”. The fertile females would be used as breeding stock for their masters and their wives that couldn’t have children. And then there were the rare “Gems”, as the slavers called them, which were sold for astronomical prices due to the fact they still had their virginity intact.
Audrey had been one of the Gems thrown up on the block.
“Get in the back with the others and wait for your buyer to claim you.” The slaver pushed her forward, and she stumbled, nearly falling over and onto the girl in front of her. The chain around her neck was removed, and although she wasn’t restrained at the moment, there were several slavers around with electrical prods that they used on the disobedient “stock”.
“Fuck you,” a female said, her voice loud.
Audrey looked to the side and watched the situation unfold. She remembered the woman from earlier today. She’d been the first to be placed on the auction block, sold as breeding stock. She’d been feisty, though, and even if she’d been slapped around, gotten the electrical prod, and had a split lip, she’d still gotten large sum from a buyer. She also hadn’t stopped fighting.
Maybe Audrey was too weak to fight back, but any little disobedience she displayed resulted in her getting slapped around and threatened to be sold as a Doona: a female that was bought for the sheer purpose of being the punching bag to a sadistic buyer.
“I won’t be some vessel for a fucker. Screw all of you,” the woman kept shouting, not caring that the slavers were slapping her, ordering her to behave. The woman was as good as dead if she kept it up. The only reason she was still alive was because she’d been sold. But it was also obvious the buyer must not care if his “property” was bruised, because the slavers had no problem hitting her.
“You keep looking and they’ll turn their wrath on you.”
Audrey looked at the woman in front of her, but she had her head down and didn’t say anything else. Audrey didn’t speak either, because she knew the other woman was right. This situation was already bad enough, and she didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to herself. Of course she also needed to figure out how she could escape, because this was not a life she wanted to live. She’d rather kill herself than be a female that was only called upon to please a man that bought her.
“Put them all in a cargo box until their owners pick them up,” a slaver ordered, and Audrey and the other handful of women were pushed into a cargo box. It was transparent, with material that allowed oxygen to exit and enter, but was sealed from the outside. The door was shut, and just as the slaver was about to lock it the woman that had been causing the commotion broke free from the slavers holding her. The slaver that was about to lock the door charged after her, and Audrey saw her escape.
This is it—your one and only escape.
She looked at the women in the cargo box with her, and wanted to help them escape, as well.
“Come on, we have a chance to escape.”
No one looked at her aside from that one woman that had warned her just moments before.
“You’ll get captured before you make it into the woods.”