“I don’t see either,” I spat. Terrance opened his mouth to berate me, but I cut him off. “What are you going to do? Tell your daddy on me? I don’t think he’d like how you treat your toys.”
I had to keep him talking. Robert and my father had been right. There were some weapons more powerful than a gun. The longer I talked, the longer I lived. The longer I could wait for someone to find us.
Of course, a gun would have been pretty helpful in this moment, too.
“Why do you think my father got you for me? It’s all pretty clear what he means for me to do with you. And I’ll do so much better at the job than he did. You know how much I’ve despised that man? And here he bought you for me because of what you can do and didn’t even tell me.” Terrance laughed bitterly. “Maybe he didn’t buy you for me after all. Maybe he wants you for himself.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, glancing around the room for something, anything I could use to attack him.
“But he told me. He’s always telling me things. I heard about how they were going to get rid of you. The council. They were going to say you ran off into the big, bad woods. And when you never came back, they would tell your people the Isolationists got you.”
What I could do. So he knew that I could give birth without dying. Bile ran up my throat, and I wanted to throw up again. Had his father purchased me to continue his line? Was I meant for him or his sons? And did that mean Regan was like me as well? Wasn’t it all pointless now that the whole damn world was falling apart?
“Who told you? You said your father didn’t, so who?” I asked.
“There isn’t anything that goes on here that he doesn’t know about,” he replied, taking a step toward me.
I scrambled a few feet away from him using my elbows. The rug burned painfully against my skin. “So, what? You’re here to seduce me? Doing a pretty shit job,” I challenged, looking desperately toward the door.
James. He had seen this. Which meant he would know. He would come for me. I just had to stall and give him time.
“I don’t need your permission,” Terrance said, bending forward and grabbing one of my ankles. With a growl, he yanked me across the floor toward him. I yelped, trying in vain to claw my nails into the ground for traction.
Terrance was on top of me in a matter of seconds. His breath whipped me in the face, and I could faintly detect the smell of shine on his lips. I squirmed and thrashed, but he was so damn heavy. I curled my arms around him and clutched my hands into fists. I hit him as hard and as long as I could. Terrance reached back a hand and slapped me brutally across the face. My mouth tasted of blood.
“You think you can walk in here and not pay a price for the freedom we gave you?” he grunted.
Freedom? He, or his kind, had never even let us say the word. I screamed again. I screamed for the girl I found stabbed, bleeding out in a closet as Henry and I ran from the council. I screamed for Louisa. I screamed for Stephanie. I screamed for myself. I screamed with everything I had inside of me.
His hand clamped over my mouth, silencing me once more.
I grabbed the edge of his hand using my lower teeth and bit down hard. He cursed and pulled away. I had just enough time to scream again before he brought back his bloody hand not over my mouth, but wrapped around my throat. I moved my hands from his back to his wrist, pulling with all my might.
I could see the blackness dancing around the edges of my eyes.
It was calling for me once again.
Waiting.
Predator.
Prey.
But I couldn’t let it take me, because if I did, I was pretty sure I was never coming back from it.
“You were brought here for one reason and one reason only. And it’s about time you start paying up. It doesn’t have to be like this, girl. It could be so much nicer,” he whispered.
My vision blurred again. And then it was no longer Terrance who was holding me down but George.
You don’t actually think you can refuse me, do you?
I can have whatever of yours that I want.
You’re more foolish than the rest of the girls if you think you have any say in what happens to you here.
Now, now, Tessie, stop fighting and I will let you go.
George. He had been the one to tell Terrance. But why? How did this play into his plan?
Blackness clouded my vision. If I just stopped, gave up, shut down, would he let me go? I felt myself go still. I looked back up at the moon shining through the window, except the moon was no longer there. A cloud had covered it against its will. Only shadows remained, and I felt them running over my body without permission. They pulled my shirt off over my head, not bothering to apologize as my head hit the ground with a thud. They began to unbutton my skirt, tugging it off me, cursing when it got stuck on my ankles.