The truck eventually rumbled to life. We braced as it bumped through whatever remote parking area we’d been in and sped up onto a main road. The light inside the truck faded as day slid into night, and we slept fitfully to the swaying, bumping motion. When dawn came we were still moving, our filthy water and loaf of bread long gone. By the time it started to become uncomfortably hot, the truck slowed, bounced over what were either speed bumps or some serious potholes, then jerked to a stop. We sat, sweltering in the heat, inhaling the wafting odor of our excrement and sweat as we waited. When our captors finally rolled open the back of the truck bed, we were blinded by the unfamiliar bright light.

When my vision adjusted, I saw we’d driven into a huge distribution-warehouse sort of building. It was one cavernous, open space with what looked like a stage against one wall, racks of folded metal chairs next to it. Along another wall were doors and shuttered windows—offices perhaps. The other wall was just one huge block of cement, a soda machine humming in the corner. I wasn’t about to turn around and see what was behind me, but I envisioned a row of bay doors.

Three men stood outside the truck next to the two drivers who’d tossed the water and bread in to us. None of us so much as twitched. We were like rabbits, holding very very still in hopes the wolves at the door didn’t notice us.

“Damn, Serge. You testing our ability to make diamonds from coal or something?” A man took a step closer. He was short and built like an elongated triangle with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Acne scars divoted his cheeks like pockmarks. His face twisted as he got a whiff of the inside of the truck.

“They’re just dirty,” one of the drivers said. “They’ll clean up nice. King picked ’em out himself. Look, we even got a really young one. I’ll bet she’s a virgin too.”

Mess moved to stand protectively in front of Kitten. I heard Pillow inhale sharply.

“Well, let’s get them out of this truck and see what we’ve got.” Pockmarks stepped back and rubbed his palms together. The small door near the front of the truck opened and we were trapped, the two drivers herding us forward with broom-handle sticks. There were no steps to climb out of the truck, so we each knelt and hopped down unaided, stumbling and falling as the three guys laughed.

None of us had eaten more than a few pieces of bread, and we were all seriously dehydrated and shaky. One of the women who’d been huddled up front the entire ride, a tiny Asian girl who didn’t look a day over fifteen, tripped climbing out of the truck and fell. Her skirt slid up around her waist, and as she stood tugging it down, blood ran from a cut on her knee.

The heat was oppressive—dry as the hard cement we stood on. Pillow swayed next to me, and I put out a hand to steady her, even though I could barely stay upright myself. The three men looked us over while behind us I heard the drivers closing up the truck.

“Yeah, they’ll do,” Pockmarks said to Serge as the drivers rejoined them. “They all under eighteen?”

“King said two are over eighteen,” Sergio pointed to Mess and Baa. “And the blue-haired one is eighteen. She and the hookers are real pretty though, and the Oriental chick doesn’t look anywhere near legal. We’ve took her ID and she don’t speak no English, so we’ll sell her as fresh meat and no one will know the difference. Her and the curly-haired one will bring in some serious money. Everyone wants them under sixteen nowadays.”

“What about the redhead?”

Serge shrugged. “King said she’s a bonus. We picked her up in Philly. Look at that skin. Someone is gonna pay top dollar to put their marks on that.”

“Miller’s gonna love that.” Pockmarks’s gaze slid from me to Pistol. “Maybe he’ll take two. Or three. Red, white, and blue.”

One of the other guys laughed. “Miller can be patriotic.”

We stood there like a row of mannequins as they started to evaluate our various assets. I learned that King had originally only wanted to buy Mess from her pimp, but the man had offered Sugar as an extra in a deal that supposedly was too good to be refused. They moved down the line of us, making fun of Lacy and Baa for their lack of English, then laughing as the drivers recounted their tale of punishing Tasha in the woods, claiming she’d give them no trouble at all after what they’d done to her.

And I believed them. The girl followed their conversation with wide eyes, cradling her arm. Her face was misshapen and discolored with swelling and bruises, making it impossible to tell what the girl really looked like. One of the drivers reached out to touch her face and she flinched, whimpering as he stroked her cheek.

“See? She’s a good girl now, aren’t you?”

Tasha nodded, choking back a cry as the man pinched her bruised face before moving on to the next girl. Pistol. One of the guards turned her around, squeezing her ass and kicking her legs apart to slide a hand between her thighs.

“I might try this one out tonight. Ass or pussy though? Or maybe both.”

With a strangled “no,” Pistol jerked away from the man and made a run for it, shoving past a surprised Serge and running around the side of the truck. Two of the guys snapped to attention, grabbing the broom poles and keeping the rest of us grouped together as Pockmarks, Serge, and the other driver ran after Pistol. Footsteps echoed off the walls, as did loud laughter, and Pistol’s shrieks. I heard a scuffle, and winced at the sound of fists hitting flesh.

We moved closer together, huddling to either hide or gain collective comfort, I wasn’t sure which. Kitten began to quietly cry, resting her head on Mess’s shoulder. Pillow began to do the same, like a chain reaction. I couldn’t help but look at the two women who didn’t speak English—Baa and Lacy. Both had that stoic wariness of people who needed to be constantly vigilant. Tasha looked like she was going into shock. Sugar and Mess appeared…resigned. And oh so very tired. For some reason, it was for them I felt the biggest surge of sympathy.

Serge and Pockmarks dragged Pistol back around the truck toward us, then kicked her as they shoved her on the ground in front of our feet, the other two guys holding us in a cluster with the broom poles. She curled up in a fetal position, clutching her stomach. Blood coated her face from a slash above one of her eyebrows, and her nose was crooked. Mess walked forward to go to the girl, and was shoved back with a sharp rap across her chest from Sergio’s broom handle.

“We’ve got an extra,” Pockmarks announced. “We’re supposed to have eight, and we’ve got nine. One dead still keeps us at quota. Keep that in mind, girls, when you start thinking about running away from us.”

We were frozen in fear, huddled together with the truck at our back and guys with wooden poles holding us in place. Any spark of unity we’d begun to feel on the truck had fractured with Pistol’s beating. At this moment, every single one of us only wanted to survive, and survival depended on being very quiet, very still, and very obedient.

A lone memory broke through and surfaced—there were rules. I’d been all about following the rules, setting rules, organizing appropriate corrections for those who didn’t follow the rules. But I’d fallen in love and realized that some rules were better broken. I tried to remember the one I’d loved, but his image swam away from my awareness, almost as though he’d been without shape and form. He’d changed me. He’d made me a better person. He’d opened me to a whole world that had previously been unseen to my eyes. But when the critical moment came, I fell back on the old me. I went back to the rules that should never be broken, to the intractable self I’d thought had broken free from her chains.

It seems some chains never completely loosened.

I’d complied, fallen in line with the rules once before. And I was paying for it now. The part of me that wanted order and obedience and adherence to the rules fought against the knife-sharp memory of pain and shame and loss and guilt. The rules-me cracked and I ran forward to Pistol, dodging the guards to bend over her. One hit me on the ass with a pole. I sucked in a breath, but held position, shielding Pistol with my body.

“You okay?” I wiped the blood from her face. She looked up at me, her mouth a tight line, her eyes blurred with tears. I wanted to gather her up in my arms, to hold her and rock her as if she were my child, but from the way she was clutching her stomach, I feared such a move on my part would only cause her additional pain.

“Can you stand?” I knew these guards would want to move us soon. It would be easier for her if she had someone to help her as opposed to trying to stand and walk on her own.

She took a shallow breath and nodded. I helped her to her feet and back to the group, remembering what she’d said in the truck. She had a family, was in college. People would be looking for her, missing her. Maybe, just maybe that would be what saved us, because I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone looking for the rest of us.

Especially not me. No one would miss me. The certainty of it nearly drove me to my knees. Additional memories trickled like tiny droplets of water through my mind. Parents who had given up on their wayward addict daughter. Years on the streets, trying to earn or steal enough money to score a daily hit. A craving so strong it eclipsed every other emotion. It was all like watching a movie or the life of a stranger. This wasn’t me, it was somebody else. But that was the past that sprung up in tiny flashes like a silent movie.

There was another past, overlying those faint memories like a thin blanket. A terrible choice. Loss. Guilt. Self-recrimination. In a way those memories were worse than the faded junkie ones. They weren’t truly memories, but echoes of painful emotions. But far off in the distance of guilt and loss, there was a light. If I could just find my way to the light, I’d be forgiven. I knew this deep inside, and the thought was a lifeline that I clung to in my despair. There was something I needed to do, and I believed it had something to do with the fate of these eight women.

“Get them cleaned up,” Pockmarks said to one of the other men. “And we’ll see what they look like under the dirt. I hope King sent us some good product. We’ve only got five days until the sale.”

We were herded through the main building then through a door at the end of the row of offices that led into something that looked like it used to be the cafeteria. There were cot mattresses lined up along one side and cabinets with a brown countertop along the other. A gaping hole was in a corner where a fridge or vending machine must have once stood, but the sink fixtures were still there. Sheets and a blanket sat on the end of each cot. I was relieved to see they looked relatively new and clean.

It was terrible how a few days in a filthy truck with stale air made someone appreciate the relative luxury of clean sheets and a cot bed.

“You’re the big money girls,” one of the guards commented. I caught a whiff of his breath and grimaced at the overwhelming aroma of onions. “New beds and the works. Can’t have the product arriving at the sale covered in lice and stinking of old sweat, can we?”

None of us answered him. We continued through another door to a windowless room in the rear that reminded me of a school gym bathroom. There was an open large stall with four shower heads and benches, two sinks with mirrors and plastic tubs on the floor that held towels and washcloths, and two stalls that housed the toilets. The two men stood guard, broomsticks in hand and instructed us to shower.

Everyone hesitated. None of us wanted to get naked in front of these guys, but the lure of cleaning the filth from our skin beckoned with an irresistible call.

“Screw it.” Mess yanked her grimy tank top over her head and dropped it on the floor to unsnap her bra. We all followed suit, Mess helping Tasha disrobe without jostling her broken arm, and me assisting Pistol. Each of us grabbed a wash cloth and towel, and headed into the open-air shower spot, trying to ignore the guards who took in every bit of our nakedness as we walked past them.

Hot water and soap never felt so good. The water ran brown off our skin, washing away any shame of being naked in front of our captors as well as the collected dirt and grime. There were metal dispensers on the tile walls, and we were liberal in our use of soap, shampoo and conditioner, Mess again helping Tasha to shampoo and rinse her hair.

I felt better just being clean—stronger, clear in mind and even more determined to get us out of here. Glancing at Pistol’s face, I could see she felt the same. They’d hurt Tasha. They’d hurt Pistol. But we couldn’t just stay here and let them turn us into living sex toys, to profit from and to use until we died or were of no more value. They’d beaten Pistol, but now that she was upright and rinsing the grime from her body, I saw the resolve, the fire, return to her eyes. They’d beaten but not broken her. She’d risk another beating, or even worse, to get out of here, and I knew right then and there that I’d support her all the way. If Pistol could be strong, then so could I.

She was smart, sensible, as were Mess and Sugar. The four of us were the eldest. Kitten was terrified. Pillow looked equally scared as did the three others. Whatever plan we made, whatever we decided to do, it would be up to Pistol, Sugar, Mess, and me to lead the way, I thought as I rinsed the conditioner from my hair.

I had no idea where the heck we were—what state, if we were in an industrial complex in a big city or some old warehouse out in the middle of nowhere. If we escaped from here, we might need to hike for hours through the woods or fields or swamps to get to some sort of town or a road busy enough to flag someone down. Remaining undetected and getting help would be easier if we were in a big city, but we would still be at a disadvantage there—in an unfamiliar area that our captors probably knew well.

Could we steal the truck or some other vehicle? Did any of us know how to hotwire a car? Could we overpower these guards and get out, or manage to sneak away as they slept? Or should we wait and make a run for it when, or if, they tried to move us? Surely they couldn’t mean to prostitute us out of here. They’d mentioned a sale, and that would mean they’d need to transport us again to deliver us to a buyer. That might give us our chance to escape, as long as they didn’t divide us up before then.

The thought sent a bolt of panic through me. I needed to save these girls. If I saved them, then maybe I could forgive myself for whatever sin I’d committed in my past. But I couldn’t save them if these men split us all up.

The showers turned off and the guard who reeked of onions motioned us to get our towels. None of them had made a move to grope, pinch, or slap any of us, although their eyes had done quite a lot of roving, and one had made lurid remarks under his breath to the amusement of the other. As we got our towels, catcall-guy pulled out a trash bag and began stuffing our clothing into it. I eyed it nervously, getting the impression that they weren’t going to be laundering our outfits and returning them.

“We’ll wear what they tell us to wear,” Mess muttered. “If they let us wear anything at all, that is.”

“Might be fun to keep you girls naked,” Onions said. “Make it easier when we want to spend some quality time with you. Sampling the goods, you know?”

“Also make it harder for you girls to hide anything you might decide to use as a weapon,” Catcalls added.

“They could still stick a shiv in their asses.” Onions grinned.

“I’d rather stick something else in their asses.” Catcalls laughed.

They continued to comment on all the other orifices they’d like to stick things in as we dried off. The towels were warm and soft. We all tied them around our bodies, then headed over to the sinks to brush our teeth. I noticed little baskets with combs and feminine hygiene products in addition to the toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash. It was weird. Somebody cared enough to make sure we had clean sheets, soft towels, all the toiletries we might need. I was pretty sure that someone wasn’t any of these guards.

Onions waved one of the broom handles at us. “Hurry it up. Time for the demon to take a look at you all.”

Demon? Did he mean Pockmarks, or was there someone else who needed to see us naked and clean? I didn’t like the idea of anyone who had the nickname of “demon” looking us over.

We hurriedly brushed our teeth, then walked out clad in only towels. I looked around, already searching for possible means of escape. The guards must have sensed the change in our attitudes, because they suddenly became more assertive with their broom handles, poking us, and lifting the back of our towels to leer at our backsides, shoving the end of the broom handles suggestively between our legs.

I wasn’t too surprised when we were told to drop the towels and stand naked in front of the three men as if we were auditioning for a porno. Correction—three men and a woman.

Pockmarks was in the former-kitchen-now-bedroom standing next to a very elegant woman. She was stunning—Asian with long, straight black hair that hung like a glossy, silken sheet down to her hips. Her face was a perfect oval, her lips full and pink, her eyes dark and sultry. She was tiny—short and slight but evenly proportioned with an easy confidence that belied her small stature. Her tight forest-green dress barely covered her crotch and clung to her small breasts and narrow waist. She exuded sex appeal like a tangible thing. It washed over my skin, warmer than the water from the shower I’d just taken. Longing sparked through me, and I clamped my legs together trying to keep them from trembling.

“Towels off, now,” Pockmarks snarled, taking a menacing step toward us.

We complied and the woman looked us over, her gaze stopping on Tasha and Pistol. “They have been here less than half an hour and you’ve already taken your fists to two of them?” Her voice was soft with a lilting accent, and a core of steel.

Onions and Catcall shifted, turning their heads. Pockmarks tensed. “The drivers had to teach a lesson to the Russian girl about trying to escape, and the other bitch tried to make a run for it in the warehouse. What did you expect us to do, pat them on the head and give them a cookie?”

“I expected you not to beat the crap out of them, especially their faces.” The woman scowled. “I understand how difficult it is for you Neanderthals to keep your hands to yourselves, but try not to damage the merchandise.”

Pockmarks shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You can fix whatever bruises or broken bones they happen to get.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Every repair I do increases the risks of them dying early. Not all of our buyers are like Miller. Most of them would like their purchases to live longer than a few weeks.”

There was a bit of a staring match between the two as the other guards carefully looked elsewhere. “Understood,” Pockmarks snapped. “But if any more of them tries to make a run for it, or proves to be uncooperative, then you’ll be fixing more than bruises and broken bones.” Then he turned to the other guards. “If you need to hurt them, hurt them. Fuck ’em. Beat ’em. The demon can fix them up before the sale.”

I felt a rush of fear and panic at his words. The price for an escape attempt would be steep, and from what they’d said, we’d be expected to willingly service these guys until the auction. The nightmare didn’t begin in five days, it started now. But who was this woman, and how was she expected to fix any of our injuries in the short time before we were sold? Was she a doctor? She’d have to be a pretty good doctor to have bruises and cuts vanish in less than a week.

The woman waved her hand. “So tell me what you would like me to do here with these women, besides repair the injuries you fools have inflicted on them.”

Pockmarks walked down the line of us, commenting about each individual’s assets and flaws as the woman watched. The other two guys kept their eyes on us. I took the opportunity to look around at the block and drywall for anything that might be used as a weapon—or an avenue for escape.

The joints in the concrete appeared to be tightly mortared—nothing crumbling or gaps that could be enlarged with a spoon or stick. Who knows what was on the other side of the drywall, but I doubted the Sheetrock was the only barrier between us and the outside. Besides the mattresses and the old kitchen cabinets, the room was completely bare. The cement floor had a coating of shiny gray epoxy on it—the stuff used to coat garage floors. There wasn’t even a pebble within sight.

So that left the bathroom. I hadn’t examined the toilets, but I figured the tank parts might prove useful. The arm attached to the float ball would hopefully be metal and not plastic, and the lift chain was usually copper. Tank lids were heavy. Whacking one of the guards upside the head with one would at the very least knock him out. Other than that, I could think of nothing there usable. We hadn’t been provided with razors, but I was assuming they’d eventually want us to shave. There wasn’t a big market in the US for women with furry legs and armpit hair. I’d need to see if there was an opportunity to slip the blade from one if they ever provided them.

How the heck did I know all this stuff? I frowned as the headache returned and I tried to remember if I’d needed to escape from somewhere before, if I’d needed to defend myself with toilet parts anytime in my past. There must have been a time before I’d become a drug addict when I was a scrappy survivor, but there was nothing in my memories to confirm this—nothing but a blur.

“What did you do to your hair?”

The voice as well as the jab of a broom handle brought me from my thoughts. “I…I dyed it?”

“At least it’s not green or blue,” Pockmarks commented. “That other girl’s is horrible, and it’s short. I don’t like women with short hair.” He turned to the woman. “Can you fix that? Grow her hair longer and make her and the redhead into blondes?”

The woman’s lips narrowed and her eyes flashed, then suddenly she became sultry and demure once more, hiding that powerful aura I’d sensed. “I suggest we use dye and hair extensions before we consider more extreme measures. I wouldn’t want to do so many modifications that they die on the auction block.”

Pockmarks scowled. “None of the other girls you fixed up died before the sale. This is cosmetic stuff. It’s not like we’re telling you to make them six inches taller or anything.”

The woman pouted, and every eye in the room turned toward her. She’d been beautiful, irresistibly sexy, before but suddenly she was like a magnet. Catcalls took a step toward her, transfixed. Then in a blink it was gone, and everyone took a collective breath. Pockmarks shook his head and glared.

“You do that again, and I’ll call the boss. He’ll have you in a bottle for centuries. Forget ever seeing Hel again.”

The woman lowered her head and her eyes, but I saw the quick glance of hatred she shot toward Pockmarks. “Box dye first, and then, if you are unsatisfied with the results, I will correct them myself. How long do you want the blue-haired one’s hair to be?”

Pockmarks looked over at Pistol, eyes narrowed. “Past her shoulders at least. Go ahead and make her and the redhead into blondes. We’ve got too many brown-skinned, black-haired girls in this group. I want more blondes.”

“It’s going to be difficult to bleach that red and blue to platinum,” the woman complained. “Let me dye that curly-haired girl’s a dark gold. Red can be a medium copper, and Blue will end up a dark ash-blonde.”

He turned a glare on her. “Did I say blonde? I think I said blonde. I don’t give a shit how you do it. I want four blondes and four brunettes. Got it?”

“Why can’t one of them be a redhead. I like red,” Onions complained, scratching the stubble on his chin. “Yeah, I like redheads, just not that color red.”

Catcalls made a few lewd comments about the supposed prowess of redheads in the sack. Pockmarks quelled them all with a glance. “Well I don’t like redheads, and the boss don’t care as long as they bring in the bucks. Blondes and brunettes only. Preferably blondes. They sell better.”

Guess I was about to become a blonde. Although judging from my skin tone and the faint hair on my arms, I’d been a blonde for most of my life. It made me wonder. I’d been the kind of girl that dyed my blonde hair a bright, unnatural shade of red. I’d been someone who’d turned to heroin for……whatever. I was someone who was a good choice to grab out of an alley or flophouse. Was I a runaway? Had my family thrown me out, disowned me because of the drugs and the crimes the need for them ultimately brought? I looked down at the backs of my hands, to see if they would give me any clues to my past.

Unlined, creamy skin with not a sunspot or freckle in sight. My gaze moved upward. The faint blonde hair on my arms was gone. Nada. Now that I thought about it, I’d been surprisingly hair-free during my shower. Had I subjected myself to all-over body waxing? Did I have some disease that was making all of my hair fall out except what was on my head? Had I gone overboard with the laser hair removal treatments? I couldn’t be one of those people with alopecia, or someone would have commented on my lack of eyebrows and eyelashes. And I wouldn’t have long, bright red hair either.

“Nice bunch, huh?” Onions asked the demon. “King did a good job this time. Got us some real beauties. Shouldn’t be too much for you to fix beyond the hair and some boobs here and there.”

“No, not too much as long as you all can restrain yourselves from beating the crap out of them,” she snapped back.

I glanced around and realized that Onions was right. Cleaned up it was very apparent that we were a bunch of very attractive girls. Very different, but each of us beautiful in our own way.

Pockmarks looked us over again with a critical eye. “They’re pretty enough, but they won’t draw top dollar without some work.”

“That’s why the demon is here,” Onions laughed.

Pockmarks smiled. “Exactly. Five days with her and these girls will be red-carpet worthy.”

“Silk sheets worthy,” Catcalls added.

What a bunch of comedians. They were all laughing now, but they’d underestimated us—underestimated me. I might not be able to remember who I was, but I was determined that five days would see the nine of us free.

I swore it. Right then and there I swore on all I felt holy that I would save these girls—every last one of them.