EMMA

"Open the cage. I'll be escorting this one to Stage B."

He stood as he instructed the guard to free me, his hands sliding into his pockets while he waited for me to crawl out of the cage and climb to my feet. Having his hands tucked away had given me a false sense of security as I approached him, the guard stalking behind me, his gun held to his chest.

I should have known the imminent threat wasn't the man behind me, but the one who waited patiently for me to come within reach.

Between one second and the next he was standing casually in wait and wrapping his hand over the back of my neck, his fingers digging into the tense, fear-laden muscle. I cried out in both shock and pain, my body hunching forward as if that alone would free me of the aggressive hold. Jerking me up, he dragged me closer to his body, not caring that my hair was still wet from the shower and would leave marks over his expensive suit.

His mouth was close to my ear, hot breath brushing down my neck as he spoke. "You're not going to enjoy this. Being the professional that I am, I thought I'd give you the warning. Are you sure you don't want to change your mind?"

Closing my eyes now that being perceived as rebellious no longer concerned me, I swallowed down the desire to beg for my life. It was a choice that was difficult to make, an impossibility to process as I pondered whether life was worth it if one had to live it enslaved. Being raped, being tortured, being forced to endure the agony I'd watched that poor woman survive, I wasn't brave enough to live through it. I preferred the easy way out.

"I'd rather eat a bullet than be a character on your stage."

His head fell back, his lips parting on boisterous laughter. Deep and vibrant, the sound shouldn't have been something that compelled those who heard it to smile. It was carefree, warm, and it had no place in this vile building filled with torture, horror and death. How a sound like that came from a monster was beyond me, but still his shoulders shook with mirth, with amusement and an unsettling display of humor I would have sworn was impossible in a man such as him.

"A bullet?" He finally responded, still chuckling as his hand gripped my neck harder. "I'm sorry, but that option has passed, my sweet girl. Because here, in my wonderland of fantasy and film, there are so many better uses for you. Come, I'll show you one now."

The guard and his gun followed closely behind, his booted steps beating behind us and echoing off the walls. We'd entered a small hallway that dipped left than right, only to come upon another damn door. Where this one led, I wasn't certain, but what I did know was that the scene kept getting worse for each room I entered.

The director reached with his free hand to open the door and shove me through, the guard closing the metal partition at our backs. Even the slamming door hadn't been enough to jar my senses and strip my focus from the scene laid out before me.

A chain link fence ran the length of the room, what lay behind it obscured by a black tarp. No walls were visible from where I stood, just a ceiling that was at least twenty feet above my head. The floor was bare concrete, much like the room where we'd first been brought in upon arriving. Scarred and gouged, it was a sea of grey stained with brown splotches. It wasn't difficult to determine what had caused those stains.

I swallowed down the anxiety I felt to focus on the face of the woman currently locked to the chain link fence with handcuffs around her wrists and shackles at her ankles. Recognition hit me within a split second - it was the woman who'd been led to the left, the one with asthma who, according to the asshole currently holding me in place, wouldn't do for the long run.

A chill coursed across my bones to become a tremor through my arms and legs. Barely able to remain on my feet, I darted my gaze to the cameras set in place, the small director chairs with their wood frames and canvass seats, and to the props set aside from the main scene, discreetly tucked away outside of view. Metal gleamed beneath low lighting, the razor edges of instruments intended for cruelty and torture. My lips parted and a question flowed out before I recognized I was speaking.

"Why? Why are you doing this to her? To us?"

The skin wrinkled between his eyes as he glanced down at me, his piercing gaze capturing mine for only a split second before he refocused his attention on the woman bound and helpless against the chain link fencing. The silence in the room became deafening as I waited for an answer that never came, my attention drawn to the labored breathing I hadn't noticed before. Forcing my eyes away from the man holding me and back to the nameless victim waiting for whatever sentence he'd determined would be her fate, I understood that she was in the midst of an asthma attack - one for which no help would be coming.

The director's hand released me as quickly as he'd originally grabbed me, his palm slamming against my chest as he shoved me back toward the guard. "We don't have much time left, hold on to her," he ordered.

The guard wrapped an arm around my neck, tightening my back against his chest. I could feel the cool metal of his gun pressing into my skin, the heat of his flesh the perfect counterpoint to the icy hard surface of his weapon. My senses magnified by fear, I could count every exhalation of his breath, could feel his languid pulse beneath his skin, could smell the faint scent of laundry detergent on his clothes. My eyes, however, could only focus on one man, the man who stepped toward the scene at the other end of the room, the same one who turned his head toward a person I'd not seen hiding within shadow, only the low hum of the director's voice audible when he gave his instructions.

Within minutes the room filled with a production crew, much like the first, but smaller and more intimate.

"We should begin," the director called out as he waited patiently for each member of the team to take their place, to ready their instruments for sound, lighting and film. The room around me darkened except for where two spotlights beamed down on the woman I wished I could help.

The hum of a machine rattled to the front left of the scene, a pungent scent filtering into the room as white fog filled the ground below where the woman was tethered. Lifting just slightly, rolling when any of the crew moved around, the fog settled thickly at the woman's feet.

Her face was absent of emotion, her chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breath. The fog only served to make it more difficult for her to draw in air. That alone was torture enough, but when a door opened to the right of her, when the hinges screamed as if rusted and old, her head snapped up, her eyes darting to the sound.

So focused on the victim, I failed to see the woman holding a clapboard until she announced that filming would begin.

"Breathe, take one." The top of the clapboard slapped down, the ricochet of sound ebbing off until only the low whir of the smoke machine could be heard.

A man stepped in, his body covered head to toe in a form fitting black bodysuit, his face covered so that his identity was obscured. As soon as the woman saw him, she opened her mouth to scream, but her lack of breath left her voiceless, her lungs coughing and spurting in a violent attempt to draw in air. That alone made me dread the title given to this particular film.

After she ceased her efforts to cry out in response to the approaching man, the stygian silence of the room wrapped around me, numbing me, holding me in place as focused on the scene as every other person. I feared my racing heart boomed through the space as loud as in my head.

The way the man in black moved was oddly graceful despite his size. Fluid and boneless, his broad shoulders and long legs swept along as if choreographed to music I couldn't hear or interpret. Approaching the woman, he stood within inches of her right side, his neck bending as his face peered down at her, his height dwarfing her from how closely he stood.

He was a shadow that stood in threat, his tall, broad form shockingly still despite the small tremor over his shoulders. Softly laughing at a woman much smaller than him, he took pleasure in her inability to scream, in the battle she fought to take a breath with him at her side.

I didn't know much about asthma, didn't know how long the attacks could last and if there was a method to catch your breath again without medicine, but what I did know is that the woman's knees were buckling beneath her, that her face had been drained of color, even her lips taking on a blue tint.

The man brought his hand toward her, opening his closed fist one long finger at a time while her frantic eyes traced the movement. An object he'd held was exposed to light, but I couldn't see what it was. The director motioned silently and a member of the production crew holding a smaller camera ran to get a better angle. With the cameraman in the way, I couldn't determine what the object was that the man held, but slowly the cameraman moved away and I watched the woman's eyes follow the object as the other man stepped over to place it at the end of a long table.

A light click as the room went silent, the low whir of the smoke machines and slowly rotating fans turned off all at once. My eyes tracked the woman's gaze to the object she obviously wanted.

When I squinted hard enough from the distance I stood away, I finally realized what is was.

A small, blue asthma inhaler.

Relief flooded me for only a second. I allowed myself to believe they would help the woman as she was unchained from the fence to be led to the opposite end of the table. The man positioned her, allowed her to splay her hands on the wood surface and catch her balance. Stepping back, he said nothing, did nothing, as she darted a look around the room before leaning forward to grab it.

Her lips fell apart as she struggled to drag in a breath. Her eyes widening impossibly more as she leaned so far her naked breasts pressed against the table. Arms and fingers fully extended, she'd almost reached it when her fingertip tapped it, knocking it back more. With both her focus and mine locked on that small blue inhaler, the forgotten man in black moved forward.

He'd removed a hidden codpiece that had been fitted around his hips, his long, hard erection the only flash of skin that poked out from the bodysuit that disguised the rest of him. Slamming a hand down on the woman's back, he prevented her from moving forward to reach the inhaler she needed desperately. And without remorse for what he was doing in front of a camera, lights and a production crew, he kicked her legs apart, fisted her hair and shoved himself inside her body.

Her mouth stretched into a barely perceptible scream, only the high pitched, breathless sound she struggled to force out.

The woman was dying, she was running out of air while being raped from behind. My knees locked beneath me in horror and anger.

I stepped toward the director. To do what, I had no idea, but my body acted before I knew what my mind was doing. The guard's hand clamped over my shoulder.

Turning, I looked at him and found myself unimpressed with his threatening glare. Eyes narrowed, but with a snide, gloating grin, he waved the gun he was holding slowly between us. Behind me the room was silent, except for the sickening slap of skin. I turned back and wished I hadn't.

The woman's lips were blue, her body was slumping forward and her mouth open and closed like a fish trapped out of water. A few more minutes and she'd die horribly, her last memories that of a nightmare she couldn't escape.

Panic gripped me in its icy fingers, the nails digging down into my skin until I was shivering and tugging at the guard's hand. Unable to move, unable to surge forward and at least attempt to help that poor woman who'd done nothing wrong in life besides being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I made a decision that went against every survival instinct I had. What did it matter, anyway? I'd already chosen to die. There was no way I'd choose to fuck as that monster had told me.

As the woman's body slouched lower, as the man behind her thrust so hard the legs of the table holding the woman were scraping over the floor, I broke the one fucked up rule that bastard director had given me. I opened my mouth and I screamed.

"Stop! You're killing her!"

"Cut!" His deep voice roared, his body pivoting to face me, his silver-grey eyes pinning me in place.

The entire room went still, the stage crew darting shocked glances in my direction, their bodies locked in such stunned disbelief that they resembled mannequins playing the parts of a once live production team. Staring at them kept my attention off the director, until he was creeping up on me, coming so close that the heat of his body could reach out to mingle with mine.

Not creeping. Not this man. No. His steps had been a pounding drumbeat so in tune with the pace of my heart that I'd missed his approach entirely. At least until his fingers were on me, at least until I felt them gripping my jaw and sending a pulse of pain across the bones and teeth.

Yanked forward, I barely stayed on my feet. My balance was precarious, my heels pulled up above the floor as the skin beneath my toes was stretched taut by the manner in which I'd been pulled toward him.

"What the fuck did I tell you about not making a sound?"

I'd assumed he'd yell and roar, that he'd demand a bullet being lodged in my brain so far that it left a gaping, open hole on the opposite side of my head. I'd assumed his anger would bellow out of him to match my fear and desperation. But instead, his anger was cold, it whispered, it swept in on a low voice that was more menacing than any loud, powerful sound he could have made in censure of my outburst. If given the choice, I would have preferred that he yelled, because the deep voiced, clipped whisper of words was more terrifying than anything else.

He'd never intended for me to answer, and without giving me even a second to process his question, he asked another one...and another.

"You've ruined this film, do you know that? There is no second take, no possibility of fixing what you've destroyed. Would you like to replace that woman on the table just so you can make it up to me?"

I couldn't talk around the way he gripped my face, but if I'd had the ability, I would have laughed like a mental patient and reminded him I didn't have asthma. How the fuck would I replace a woman they were killing by using her own health against her?

"I should have you killed for your outburst-"

Yes, please. Make it quick.

"But, I have better uses for a woman like you." Leaning closer, his lips brushed across my cheek when he said, "You won't like them, but I will."

Releasing me as quickly as he'd struck out to grip me in the first place, he watched as I lost my balance, as I tumbled backwards and landed squarely on my ass. The shock of bone against concrete raced up my spine like an electrical current shooting pain though every part of me.

His gaze dragged up to the guard standing behind me with his gun tucked to his chest like a security blanket. "Take her to the cages. I'll deal with her later."

Cages? What the hell did he mean by cages? I didn't have time to voice the question before the guard grabbed me and dragged me away. The director was still staring in my direction as I was escorted through the door to find out just what he'd meant by cages.