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.”
Audrey didn’t have time to think about any of that, even if it probably was the truth. She’d rather die than live like this, and that might be what happened. There were double-wired doors across from the cargo box, and although getting to it would have been impossible under normal circumstance given the fact there should be a guard, it was currently unattended, and the lock wasn’t state of the art. As long as she could find a piece of debris to pry open the latch, she could make her escape, or at least try.
She swallowed, knowing these might be her very last moments, but preferring to die trying than face a world where she didn’t have a life.
“You’ll die.” Audrey stopped and looked at the woman that had warned her at first, and who was clearly concerned. Yet she wouldn’t look at her.
“I have to try.”
With the slavers trying to control the other woman, Audrey pushed open the cargo door and slipped out. Her heart was beating wildly as she moved toward the double gates, keeping her focus on the men that were now surrounding the woman. She’d managed to get a piece of what looked like metal and held it to her throat.
“Get the hell away,” the woman screamed.
“She’s worth a lot, and due to be a breeder. Don’t harm her irreparably,” a slaver said to the men that were creeping closer to her.
Audrey wanted to help her, but she didn’t know what to do. And then the woman looked right at Audrey and screamed out, “Run.” She then moved the metal across her throat, red blood gushing out of the gaping wound.
Half of the slavers turned and stared at Audrey, shouting, and that’s when she turned and ran toward the gate. Wrenching it open was far easier than she thought it would be, but then again, this was a floating auction they had to be able to pick up and move to the next location without having to break down many things, severe locks included.
But as she ran, she saw a pile of debris from the auction set up. Grabbing a piece of metal, which Audrey realized must have been where the woman got her weapon, Audrey shoved the shard in the latch, pulled, and heard a click as the latch came undone. She wrenched the door open with so much force she all but swung backward with the gate.
She heard shouting from the slavers, but she didn’t dare look behind her. The closer she got to the thickness of the woods, the more hope she had. Audrey could hide from them, and, she hoped, live through this. But no matter how positively she thought, there was that voice in the back of her head that told her if they caught her, the life she’d lead would be far worse than death.
The terrain in this part of the country was rugged, with massive mountains in the background, snowcapped peaks topping them, and thick, dangerous forests surrounding them. She didn’t care, though. Her village had been in the center of thick woods, and she knew she could survive long enough to get away from the slavers.
I can do this.
There was a strange whooshing of air behind her, and a second after she heard it, there was a sharp pain in her side. Crying out but forcing herself not to stop or even slow down, Audrey pushed herself even harder. She ran faster, her lungs burning, her heart racing.
The shouting was so loud her ears rang, but she didn’t stop, not even when she felt wetness warm her flesh. She glanced down briefly and saw her white gown covered in blood at the side, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t.
She could hear their yelling the same words over and over again.
Barbarian.
Savage.
But Audrey ignored them. She didn’t care what she faced in these unfamiliar woods. As long as she was away from her current situation, she’d face off with a three-headed ligra.
She might not be familiar with this part of the country, but a forest was a forest in the most elemental sense, right? There might be different beasts that resided within, but she’d been taught well enough how to survive, do minimal hunting and foraging, and even survive in harsh weather. It was all they’d had living in poverty, almost even like they were in a different time altogether. Whereas the cities were thriving with science and technology, where Audrey was from was like a primal story.
It wasn’t until she made it into the woods that she dared a glanced behind her. The slaves were slowing, waving their arms in front of them and looking among each other. She knitted her brows when they stopped altogether, not taking a step in the woods. But even if they’d stopped chasing her she didn’t slow.
The more she ran and the deeper she went into the woods, the darker everything became. The trees were thick, the canopy above her dense, blocking out a lot of light. But she refused to stop, not even when she became lightheaded, not when sweat covered every part of her, or when it felt like her heart would burst through her chest. Audrey didn’t stop when thorns and branches tore into her flesh as she pushed through the foliage.
Her hair was in wet strands stuck to the side of her face, and she pushed it away as wave after wave of nausea and dizziness slammed into her. Stumbling forward, she fell to her knees, shaking her head and trying to clear her vision.
What’s wrong with me?
She glanced at her side, her once white gown dark from the dirt of running through the woods and covered in blood. The entire length of her side was red, the material a grisly display of what the slavers had done to her. Taking told of the material, she found a gash in the side and tore it open. Blinking back the double vision, Audrey looked at the wound. It was deep, but she couldn’t understand why she felt the way she did, or what they’d used to injure her.