“You shouldn’t talk to me. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I can tell you don’t know how things work around here, and you need to know.”
I picked up the apple and took a bite, and just digging my teeth into the apple was painful for my head. Maybe a hot shower would increase circulation and get rid of this headache naturally. “I don’t give a shit about doing my job well.” I didn’t care about their drugs, the millions they were making off our hard labor. Fucking disgusting.
“You should. Because every week, they pick the worst worker for the Red Snow. If you don’t eat enough and feel like shit, you don’t work as well, and over time you get weaker and weaker…and then it can be you.”
I took another bite of my apple and turned quiet as another man passed, his footsteps loud because he was close to the edge of the table. When he was out of my peripheral vision, I addressed what she said. “Red Snow?”
She nodded behind her. “The woman hanging.”
I stared at my apple, thinking about the pink drops on the snow.
“They hang them, and while they choke, stab them to death.”
I had to set down my apple because now I really couldn’t eat.
“And they make us watch…”
My fingertips moved up to my lips because I thought I would be sick. “They do that every week?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“But they’ll run out of workers that way—”
“They say they’re pulling weeds, getting rid of the weak and keeping the strong. There are always new girls being delivered, so it’s survival of the strongest, basically, the least difficult. It makes the group more and more submissive as a herd.”
It was fucking disgusting—but also brilliant.
“And good behavior is rewarded with extras. You know, books, medication, treats…”
“Like a fucking prisoner.”
“Yeah…that’s exactly what it is.”
5
Eaten by Wolves
I sat in the bathtub, my neck resting against the porcelain rim as I kept my eyes closed. The hot water made the migraine subside slightly, but not by much. I was sitting there, just existing in agony.
The door unlocked before it opened.
My arms immediately crossed over my chest, hiding my tits from view.
A woman set the tray on the chair, another meager meal while the well-behaved workers got something much more filling. She kept her eyes down and darted out again.
I closed my eyes, not eager for food because I still felt like shit.
The door didn’t close, and then heavy boots entered.
My eyes opened again. “Do you mind?” I pulled my knees to my chest and kept my arms crossed over them.
“Not at all.” He approached the bathtub, standing over me in the same attire he’d worn this morning and yesterday. I could tell it was the same guy because he had a distinctive voice, one that was threatening but also sarcastic. “What did I tell you?”
“Sorry?”
“I heard you had a rough day.”
I held my silence, refusing to give any acknowledgment of my pain. I didn’t even care that much that I was naked under the water, because the pain made me disregard my vanity. There was no mirror in my cabin, so I had no idea what I looked like, if one side of my face was completely black and blue.
“I’ve got some good shit—if you stop being a pain in the ass.”
“Pain in the ass?” I whispered. It was best not to yell. Otherwise, the pulse in my temple would increase, but he provoked me, and my self-righteousness got the best of me. “I’m a pain in the ass because I deserve better than this? Because every woman here deserves better than this bullshit? Fuck off.” I turned my neck to look elsewhere, to focus on something besides the tall man who stood over me, his hood placing his head in perpetual shadow.
He remained for a few seconds, the direction of his gaze impossible to see. There was no vapor inside the cabin, so I couldn’t even distinguish his breathing. It was impossible to read a man with no face, no breath, and no voice.
Then he turned around and walked out of the cabin, locking the door behind him.
Every man in that camp deserved to die because of their crimes against humanity, forcing us into servitude after snatching us off the streets. They threw us into a frozen prison, controlled us with food and the threat of a brutal death. I hated every single one of them, especially the man who had just walked out of there.
But I also knew he was different from the man who had struck me. He wasn’t nearly as hostile or violent. He didn’t pound my face with his fist every time I talked back. I tried to remind myself that it could be worse, that the guard assigned to my cabin could be one of the monsters from the clearing.
When I woke up the following morning, the headache was gone.
But I still felt like shit.
The door unlocked, and he stepped inside. “Up.”
I groaned as I rolled out of bed, pulling on my boots and securing them over my pants before I stood up…and felt every muscle in my body ache at the movements. I swayed for a second, feeling the soreness everywhere. Carrying those heavy boxes all day really forced my body to work.
“I suggest you stretch before bed. Now, hurry up.”
I grabbed my thick jacket and put it on, zipping up the front to trap my body heat before I went outside into the cold. I walked out the front door while hardly looking at him.
It was the same day as yesterday, the same clear sky, the same suffocating quiet of the outdoors. In the distance, a large bird circled the skies, probably finding a dead carcass in the snow.
My eyes scanned the cabins, wondering which ones housed the men who ran this camp. Did they sleep separately or together? Who was the leader of this camp? Where did they store supplies? To travel a hundred miles in any direction to civilization, they needed a reserve of supplies. “Do you live here?”
“You think I commute?”
I walked beside him, seeing the other women stepping out of their cabins with their guards to be escorted to the clearing to begin work. “I’m just trying—”
“I know what you’re trying to do.” Clouds of vapor erupted from his hood. “Let me save you some time. Not a single prisoner has escaped this camp. The ones who have tried to run were hunted down then hung. One woman made it farther than the others, but when we found her, she’d been eaten by wolves. Don’t try it.”
“So, I’m just supposed to live here for the rest of my life?”
“No. You’re supposed to live here until someone stronger replaces you. We’re the largest coke distributors in Europe. We need to work fast, every single day, to make sure these shipments get out.”
That meant wagons must carry the drugs out of here often…back in the direction from which I came. “You couldn’t hire people to do our job?”
“When we’re just going to kill them? No.” Another cloud of vapor came from his hood.
Every morning, I awoke from my dreams to the same nightmare—over and over. “Why do I have my own cabin when the rest of the girls bunk together?”
“We keep the difficult ones in isolation.”