Miracle of all miracles, we were finally brought food. The guard who reeked of onions brought it in, grumbling about how he would have rather just let us go hungry. It wasn’t anything special, but a tray of sandwiches, a few bags of chips, and some sodas seemed like a four-star dinner to us.

None of us made a move until the guard had left, then Mess took charge of ensuring everyone got an adequate portion. It was finger food, which didn’t even give us the opportunity of pocketing a few dull knives or spoons to use as weapons. Once everyone got their food, the only sounds were people eating.

Four of us were hurting. Pistol sat dead-eyed on her bed, hunched over as she picked at her sandwich and chips. Sugar’s complexion was now perfectly clear, and she chewed slowly and carefully, wincing with every bite. Baa couldn’t even sit, her rounded, lifted rear so painful that she ate while lying on her stomach. Tasha was also hunched over, whimpering as she supported her larger breasts with one arm and ate with the other.

Yeah. Tasha’s arm was no longer broken, and hers as well as Pistol’s injuries were all gone. As uncomfortable as Tasha clearly was, it was clear she felt far better than she had before the demon had laid hands on her. I know the woman had fixed Tasha’s arm to get her ready for the sale, but for some strange reason, it made me feel a bit grateful—as if the demon woman had healed Tasha, fixed her arm out of the goodness of her heart. It was a stupid, naive thought, but looking over at the girl that feeling of gratitude persisted. I’d been worried about our ability to escape with Tasha so injured. Now, our chances seemed just a tiny bit better.

I knew there could be no escape attempt tonight. Tasha, Pistol, and Baa wouldn’t be able to run if they tried, and I wouldn’t leave them behind. Hopefully they would be in less pain tomorrow and feel good enough to possibly try to get away. Until then, we needed to eat and regain our strength—and try to determine what sort of weaponry we might have at hand.

I stood and went over to where the guard had haphazardly set the food. The sandwiches were on a plastic platter that wouldn’t serve as a shield, although possibly we could launch it like a Frisbee to distract them if we could find a way to hide it between the mattresses. The bags that held the chips, the plastic soda bottles and plastic cups were useless, as were the flimsy napkins.

“We could break the cups and use the jagged edges?” Pistol asked. “I cut myself once on a cracked red Solo cup. Bled like a pig.”

Her words got everyone’s attention. Sugar grabbed a few cups and shoved them under her pillow. Mess and Pillow got up and started examining the undersides of their cots, wiggling the legs and yanking on loose springs.

“Got one,” Pillow surfaced holding a twisted thick wire. “Think I can sharpen it a bit on the wall if I work on it tonight?”

“Probably.” Mess stood and showed us the three screws she’d slotted between her fingers. She closed her fist and swung at the air. “Think this could do some damage as long as I get close enough to hit one of them.”

Lacy watched us wide-eyed, then stood to look under her bed, shaking her head as she stood up. I motioned for her to follow me and we went into the bathroom.

Here was a dilemma. If we took the parts out of the toilet tanks, they would no longer work and we’d soon be found out. I motioned to the one at the far end, deciding that we’d need to restrict ourselves to using the front toilet. Lacy followed me and watched as I pulled the heavy ceramic tank lid off and carefully put it aside. We both peered into the tank. She said something, then reached in and touched the wire and the chain. I nodded, thinking that like Pillow, she could sharpen the end of the thick wire. The chain wasn’t long enough, nor probably strong enough to use as a weapon, but having it at hand couldn’t hurt.

Back outside we all sat on Mess’s and Sugar’s cots and talked.

“We were on the road for days,” Mess said. “I wish we knew where we picked Red up because that would give us a good idea of overall distance travelled and narrow down where we are.”

“The guard said Philly when they were all talking yesterday,” Pillow chimed in. “So we were headed south, at least for a while.”

“I felt the truck shifting downward to climb,” Kitten said. “West of the Rockies, maybe?”

Sugar shook her head. “No, ’cause the truck going up and down the mountains happened right after we picked up Red. We wouldn’t have gotten that far in two days, not at the speed we were going.”

Pillow nodded. “I used to live in Denver a while back. The truck wasn’t climbing long enough to be going up mountains of that size. I’m thinking that we might have been going over the Blue Ridge mountains, maybe in Virginia or somewhere around Tennessee or North Carolina?”

Mess chewed the tip of her finger. “That first day from New York to Philly to pick up Red, then onward to cross the mountains south and west?”

“The driver would have taken it slow, obeyed all the traffic rules and taken state roads and more rural routes when possible,” Pistol speculated. “I’m not sure we’re past Texas. Actually, we might be east of Texas.”

“So, Alabama? Oklahoma?” I asked. We’d stopped a few times where the truck sat for hours on end. Yeah, the guys could have been in getting something to eat, but every time they would have parked at a rest stop or shopping center lot, they would have run the risk someone would have heard us in the truck bed.

“Or Oklahoma,” Pillow replied. “There were two guys to share the driving and in case things went wrong. We didn’t drive straight through, we stopped a few times for hours at a stretch. It would have been easy for them to park the truck way in the back of someplace like a Walmart lot to sleep. I know from being on the street that lots of homeless with cars sleep there. Those big box stores are really tolerant of people overnighting it way in the back of their lots, and no one who is camped there for the night in their beat-up Dodge Neon is going to say squat about noise coming from a truck.”

“We weren’t exactly beating on the sides and screaming for help either,” Pistol said with a grimace. “We were afraid all that would get us was raped and killed, especially after what they did to Tasha.”

“So where are we thinking?” I asked.

Sugar lifted her shoulders. “Who knows? And does it really matter whether we’re in Oklahoma or Alabama or Tennessee? All that matters is how close we are to a major road or a police station. I’m thinking we’re probably outside of some podunk town. Someplace where most of the businesses have left and there’s a bunch of old, abandoned commercial buildings that no one gives a rat’s ass about.”

“Yeah, but even podunk towns have police. And we may be in a remote area, but it can’t be more than three or four miles from somewhere.” Pistol’s voice radiated hope.

“I can run three or four miles,” Kitten chimed in. “Even barefoot, I’m sure I can do that.”

Everyone looked down at their feet. Sugar laughed. “Actually I think that’s going to be our biggest problem right there. Even if we escape, running on rocky ground or down through fields barefoot wearing towels…yeah, we better make sure those guards are either dead or tied up, or they’ll catch us before we’re ten feet away.”

“I wish I knew how close we were to a populated area or a busy road.” Pillow shook her head. “Doesn’t help that they drove the truck right inside and let us out without being able to see anything to give us a clue about where we are.”

Pistol scooted forward on the bed. “But they had that huge bay door open to get the truck in. Did anyone smell anything? Close your eyes and think, what did you smell when they opened the back of the truck to let us out?”

We did as she asked.

Sugar snorted. “Air that didn’t smell like nine unwashed bodies and a pile of poop.”

“Diesel fuel and exhaust,” Kitten said. “Although that might have been from the truck we were in.”

“A plasticky smell.”

“Hot rubber.”

“Something sharp and hot.”

So we were in an industrial area? Or were all of those smells from the truck as well? Or the warehouse we were currently living in? I squeezed my eyes tighter and tried to remember the moments before we’d arrived. The truck had slowed quite a bit and was going over uneven ground—off road or potholes in well-worn streets? I’d heard a car honk, faint and filtered through the noise and the metal sides of our truck. A tire lifted on one corner as if we’d run over a curb. There was a jangle noise of rattling chains, the squawk of a gate opening, the rattle of corrugated metal as a bay door lifted. Then the noise of our truck intensified, echoing off the warehouse walls as we’d pulled in. My eyes popped open.

“We all agree that we’re probably in an industrial area. I remember hearing some traffic, so it’s either close to a road or not too isolated from other buildings or a residential section, or even the highway. We could be in a city, or we could be on the outskirts with other warehouses or businesses nearby—businesses that have traffic after hours.”

“At least we won’t have to go hiking miles through the desert if we escape,” Pillow said.

“No, we’ll just have to keep from getting raped as we dash through glass-strewn ghetto alleyways dressed in only a towel,” Sugar drawled.

“That’s if we can escape.” Kitten chewed her lip. “Three guys against nine women in towels armed with broken plastic cups and rusted screws.”

“Yeah, what could go wrong with that?” Sugar laughed and adjusted her towel. “I’ve been eying the guards, thinking that maybe we could distract them with offers of sexual favors, although I’m sure we’re not the only girls through here that have tried that.”

Mess shook her head. “Even if they do decide to have a little party, they would probably do it one at a time. If we managed to take down the guy with his dick out, we’d still have two guys with their pants on to deal with. No, I think our best bet is to wait until night when they’re taking shifts sleeping and surprise them.”

“But the door is locked,” Pistol said, glancing that way. “We’ll either need to jump them when they bring us food, or use some ploy to get them to come in, like say we’re sick or something.”

“They’d know something was up if we pulled that,” Sugar told her.

I was getting an idea. “Those toilet lids are really heavy. We ambush the guy who brings us lunch tomorrow, hitting him with the toilet lid and knocking him out, then we sneak out the door and make our escape.”

“That might kill him.” Kitten’s eyes were wide at the thought. “Are we okay with that?”

“I am most definitely okay with that,” Sugar replied. The other girls nodded, and I decided that I didn’t mind the thought of possibly killing one of our captors. I wasn’t going to hold back and risk us all just to make sure the guy didn’t have a brain hemorrhage. Go to bed with the devil, expect to get burned…or killed by a blow from a toilet tank lid.

“What about the demon woman?” Pistol asked. “What if her magic is more than just making hair grow and boob jobs?”

I remembered how my slap sent the woman across the room, the look on her face as she touched her reddened cheek.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to make a move when she’s not here,” I said. “And if not…don’t worry about the demon woman. Leave her to me.”

* * *

We’d barely finished checking our cots for additional loose wires and screws when the guards came back, one of them holding his cell phone and the other two with the usual broomsticks. The demon woman was with them, somehow managing to look both bored and annoyed at the same time.

“Why does that one girl still have the stupid red hair?” Pockmarks demanded.

The demon woman held up her hands. “We dyed it twice and neither time made any difference. I can run out and get some more dye and try to make it brown if you like, but I don’t think anything we do is going to make her blonde.”

Pockmarks glared at her. “You’re a damned demon. Demon her hair blonde if the dye doesn’t work.”

The woman’s eyebrows lowered. “These are high-dollar girls. I’m not going to mess with them more than I have to. You’ve got three blondes. If you really want, one more can dye her hair blonde, and I’ll get a box of brown for the redhead.”

Pockmarks scowled as he looked each of us over. “Fine. Do it tomorrow. Let’s go ahead and get pictures of them, and we can update those two girls later if we need to. I want to get their profiles up in time to generate some hype for the sale. Buyers are already asking to see what we’ve got to offer.”

The demon woman nodded and walked forward grabbing the arm of the closest girl, which happened to be Kitten, and leading her over to stand a few feet away from the wall. The girl trembled, her mouth clamped tight to keep from crying out as the demon woman removed her towel and positioned her.

Thirteen. She was only thirteen. My hands curled into fists, and I desperately wanted to launch myself at the guards and rip them apart with my bare hands. The demon woman stood back, out of the frame. Kitten whimpered, tears running down her cheeks as Pockmarks took pictures of her from several angles. They had her turn around and he took more from the rear.

The demon woman stepped forward with the towel outstretched in one hand, then as if she’d suddenly changed her mind, she wrapped it gently around Kitten, tucking the loose end in the top to hold it snug. “There. We’re all done with you, child. Go back to your bed.”

If was the first real glimmer of humanity I’d seen in her. She’d held back on further enhancements to Pistol’s breasts but I hadn’t been sure whether she’d done that out of sympathy for us, or just as a passive act of rebellion against the guards. But this tenderness toward a young girl…it made me wonder.

Pillow was next. One at a time we were each led over to the wall and made to stand naked for our pictures. The demon woman posed each of us—head tilted this way or that. No one cried aside from Kitten, although Baa looked as though she were about to explode when the guards began to admire the demon woman’s work on her rear end. I was last for some reason. And I was surprised by the light, almost tentative grip the demon woman had on my arm as she led me over.

I dropped the towel, unwilling to let her undress me, and heard a soft gasp.

“Oh.” The demon woman ran a finger down my arm. My reaction to her touch was downright embarrassing. My breath hitched. My skin flushed. And something deep inside me leapt at the feel of her skin against mine.

“I don’t think I can get that on camera,” Pockmarks said as he snapped pictures of me with his cell phone. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about until I glanced down.

My skin was smooth and creamy, without visible pores, without hair, as if I were made of warm-tinted marble. It glowed with an iridescence, like it was covered with some kind of pearl dust.

“List her as one of those sparkly vampires,” Onions joked. “Or a Tinkerbell or something. All the weirdos are gonna want her with that skin.”

I want her. There’s nothing that says I cannot sample the merchandise as these men so crudely do. Maybe I will this time….

The words flowed into my mind, and I shot the demon woman a sharp glance. Was I meant to hear that? Probably not judging from the bland, expressionless look on her face. I’d been occasionally hearing the other girls’ thoughts since I’d woken up in the back of that truck. I guess it wasn’t too far a stretch for me to hear this woman’s as well.

Oddly enough, the idea of her having her way with me wasn’t nearly as unnerving as the thought of the guards doing the same. Again I remembered her reaction as I slapped her in the bathroom. It made me think that any interaction between us, including sex, wouldn’t be so very uneven as far as power and control went. Slapping one of the guards would get me beaten within an inch of my life. Slapping her had somehow put us on an even playing field, reminded her that I wasn’t just a thing to be used and tossed away.

Weird. I felt an equal to a powerful demon that could alter women’s bodies with a touch of her hands, but I was afraid of three human men with broomsticks.

“Miller is gonna want her with that skin,” Pockmarks announced. “Do you know how much he’ll pay to take a knife to that? There’ll be a bidding war between him and the other sickos. Our share is gonna be huge for this girl.”

Just like that, I snapped back to reality. The demon woman might somewhat respect me, but these guys sure didn’t, and they were calling the shots. I really didn’t like the idea of me, or anyone else, being sold off to this Miller guy.

The demon woman’s hand on my shoulder was gentle as she turned me around. “Yes. She’ll bring in a lot. Probably as much as the young one.”

She didn’t sound particularly excited about it. Maybe demons didn’t care about money. Her fingers caressed down my arm as she stepped back for Pockmarks to take the picture.

I wish I could buy her for my own. I wish I could buy them all.

My head jerked around in astonishment. Had she said that out loud? Had I heard that thought, or imagined it? Pockmarks cursed. “Hold still.” I complied, then turned again when I felt the woman touch my shoulder once more.

“Make sure they get something else to eat tonight,” she said. “And bring in the T-shirts and sweatpants from the front office. There’s no sense in keeping them naked now that we’ve evaluated them and taken their pictures.”

“But I like ’em naked,” Catcalls protested. “It’ll make it easier later when take them for a test drive.”

The woman’s fingers tightened on my shoulder and she pushed me in front of her toward the cots. “You’re not going to be trying all nine in one night. And it takes all of five seconds for them to take off sweatpants and a T-shirt.”

“We can make them strip for us,” Onions chimed in. “Then take turns fucking them. I get to go first.”

“You can go first tonight, then someone else gets to pick,” Pockmarks said. “One girl a night, that way we don’t need to keep track of two of them. The boss will have our asses if any of them escape.”

“I want the black chick,” Catcalls announced. Mess stiffened at the comment, remaining silent as she lifted her chin.

“No, me first.” Onions looked us all over, hesitating on Pillow, then sliding over to me. “Red. I like redheads, and she’s got that pretty skin.”

The demon woman sighed, turning me back around. “Can you try not to bruise and cut the pretty skin too terribly much?”

“Yeah,” Pockmarks agreed. “She and the young one are going to be the headliners of the sale. Screw all you want, but nothing that’s gonna scar or that the demon can’t easily fix.” Onions went to protest, only to shut his mouth under Pockmarks’s glare. “Don’t do anything that jeopardizes our profits, or you’re out of the group. And out of the group means you’re dead in a back alley. Got it?”

Onions nodded. “Okay, fine. But if she tries to scratch me or kick me in the nuts, I’m gonna hit her.”

Pockmarks rolled his eyes. “Tie her up then, idiot. And hit her all you want. Just don’t beat her to death like that girl two months ago.”

They beat a girl to death? My heart rate kicked up. They beat a girl to death?

“That wasn’t me,” Onions turned to glare at Catcalls. “Slapping around is one thing. I’m not the one who gets off on screwing some half-dead chick.”

Catcalls shrugged. “She had it coming. Besides, we had an extra.”

Pockmarks pointed a warning finger at the guard. “You’re damned lucky we had an extra, otherwise the boss would have cut your nuts off for that one.”

Catcalls licked his lips and eyed me. “Got an extra this time too.”

“No.” Pockmarks’s command was sharp. “Only what the demon can fix. You get carried away again, and it’s your body we’ll be dumping in a back alley. Got it?”

Catcalls glared sullenly at the floor. “Yeah. Got it.”

“Her.” Onions grinned at me. “Now. Me first, then one of you can take a turn with her. Then maybe I’ll take a couple more before we bring her back.”

The demon woman pushed me forward and Onions reached out to grab my wrist. The feel of his calloused fingers digging into my skin made me want to vomit. He pulled me along, and the other guards and the woman fell in behind him. At the door I glanced back to see the other girls staring at me—scared and relieved it wasn’t them. Onions yanked me hard enough that I felt the muscles pull in my shoulder. Then the door closed and I found myself out in the main part of the warehouse with three men and a demon.