Fallen Daughters: A Dark Romance Page 6

  I glanced over my shoulder to stare at the woman, slightly confused as to why she would alter a time honored tradition and ceremony by changing the verse. Although, when I looked into Ruth’s eyes, I could see the woman had wanted to offer something extra. It was her final farewell gift, and she simply wanted to give a little bit more.

  Raising my tunic—not caring about the bloodstains that would occur—I watched my dirty fingers fiddling with the buttons as an excuse not to look at the women. I didn’t want to cry. I didn’t want to break down and shake with fear. It was my duty to remain strong. I was no different than all the others who had left before me. Everyone would eventually leave one way or another.

  Taking a deep breath, I made my way to the doorway and paused with my back to the women. Without turning to face them, I said, “As I say goodbye to you forever, I give you the gift of memory. May you always have it.”

  Walking out the door and down the dirt path, I knew it would only be a matter of time until I walked right up to the army to surrender. I didn’t know what that meant, or what consequences would occur from such an act, but I had no other choice. I didn’t look back once as I crested the hill that would remove any sight of my village behind me.

  Never look back. Never look back.

  Those were words I told myself time and time again when I had to leave or say goodbye to others. Those were the words I chanted when I walked away from my charred childhood home, knowing that not a single soul but myself had survived. Those were the words I recited as I tried to block out the image of my mother’s eyes, closed as if she were only asleep, but while my bloody father stared lifelessly up at me, eyes wide open. One parent looked so peaceful while the other looked so tortured, even in death.

  As I trailed up another rolling hill, I concentrated on the cadence of my heartbeat to move my hungry and tired body forward. Beat after beat, I marched, until the sound of the beats grew in intensity. Glancing up toward the horizon, I realized that the sounds were not from me but from the approaching Pike army. I had found them…

  Or they had found me.

  I stood in place, hoping that zero movement on my behalf would signal to them from a distance that I meant no harm. I would not attack, nor try to run. How one sacrifices to save others, I didn’t know. But all I could do now was stand in place and wait.

  Luckily, my plan seemed to work as a large caravan of men, both marching and on horseback, approached me. A large, covered, wooden wagon with bars on the windows was being dragged by mules. It slowly made its way behind the soldiers. At a glance, I assumed it was a prison transport of some kind.

  “So what do we have here?” a soldier asked as he rode up beside me, gazing down in both fascination and disgust. I knew I wasn’t clean, and my tattered clothes reeked of filth, built up over days of no access to fresh water. I had long ago given up looking into a mirror because the ghastly woman who always stared back at me haunted my dreams.

  “My name is Eden Rose. I am twenty-four years old and want to surrender myself to the Pike army. I come from Hollow Valley and am the only woman of age. Rather than wasting the time of your men to come find me, I decided it best to come and meet you instead.” I desperately hoped that my attempt to ward the army off with my practiced speech would save my home from any destruction from these brutes.

  The man laughed and called out over his shoulder to his men, “This little rat is by far the most foolish woman I have ever encountered. She is here to willingly give herself over to Pike.”

  The men laughed and mumbled their agreements in response, but I stood proud, refusing to let them take away the courage I was just given as a farewell gift by three women I had come to love.

  The leader of the army focused his attention back on me as I willed my body not to shake before him. His stare bored into my skin and seemed to sear my frail bones. He licked his lips slowly as he clearly was considering all his options. “Very well. Since you have decided to make it easier on yourself by not putting up a fight, the least we can do is spare you the pain of one.” He motioned for the man driving the mobile prison to dismount and take care of me. “Put this beauty to sleep, and let’s get her back to join the others. We still have a few more villages to hit on our way before nightfall.”

  The man rushed to me and reached for my hand. He grabbed my index finger and flipped it over. He then reached into his pocket, pulled out a small metal syringe, and pricked my finger with the needle before I even had the chance to pull away. A small drop of blood remained. I studied the tiny droplet, confused, trying to figure out why he would have done such a thing. He glared up into my face with a wicked smile as my eyelids grew heavy and my vision blurred. I tried to blink away the menacing fog, but the wave of defenselessness grew in intensity.

  The prick of the finger…

  Every muscle in my body weakened as the last words I heard faintly in the far off distance were, “Sleep baby sleep.”

  9

  Eden

  My mind woke before my eyes could open. Whatever the man had pricked my finger with had put me in a deep slumber, and my eyelids still suffered the effect. Testing to see if I could move any other part of my body, I was grateful to see that I could, although my muscles screamed with fatigue as the simple motion of lifting my arm seemed to take every last ounce of strength I had left. Shifting my weight some, I could feel something warm on both sides of me.

  Skin? Bodies? Were there people lying beside me? Were they alive? Dead?

  I didn’t have enough strength to sit up or move much more than what I had just managed with my arm. I could hear the wheels of the wagon crunching on the gravel of the road as my body gently rocked and jolted with the motion of the carriage. I was being transported—this much I could figure out without the aid of my vision.

  It seemed like hours had passed, although I dozed in and out of sleep, so judging time was almost impossible. But with the passing of time, I was eventually able to open my eyes and glance around the dark space. The warmth I had felt earlier was indeed from people, who appeared to at least be breathing. There had to be at least twenty or so women sleeping in all different awkward positions, as if their lifeless bodies had just been flung inside the moving cell with no regard for comfort. Each woman was completely nude, and with a quick glance down, I noticed I was no different than they were. Someone had removed all my clothes and my shoes.

  “Don’t let them know you are awake,” a voice whispered from a shadowed corner.

  I tried to make out the silhouette of the figure who loomed in the dark, but couldn’t clearly see. It had to be one of the captured women, though.

  “Lie down, close your eyes, and when everyone starts to wake up, do exactly what the men order you to do. Fighting them will be useless, and all it will do is make them prick your finger again, but this time they will give you a serum that you will not wake up from, and they will toss you over Moher cliff.”

  Moher cliff? That had to be at least a day or more’s travel from where I had first surrendered myself. Had we really been traveling that long? Yet, the pungent smell of body odor and human waste told me that indeed a great amount of time had passed.

  “How do you know all this?” The rasp in my voice and the lack of saliva in my mouth had me desperate for a drink of water. Although it wouldn’t be the first time in my life I had a thirst that would not be quenched any time soon.

  “I was already one of his captives. I escaped and tried my best to hide from Pike and his army.” The woman paused. “I don’t know what he will do to me when I return.”

  “Pike?”

  “No, my trainer. Pike rarely doles out the punishment. He just commands it. Whatever Pike says, the trainer is the one to do it. Each beauty has one.”

  “A trainer?”

  “Yes. Pike has too many beauties to care for or pay attention to. But he wants each one ready in case he decides to pluck her from the hundred or so imprisoned women. Your trainer will own you. It is his job to groom you into the pe
rfect beauty for Pike’s collection. And trust me, do not push or go against your trainer. When I return to mine, he may simply kill me, but I have a feeling his wrath will be far worse than death.”

  “How did you escape?” An odd sensation filled me. Hope? Was there a way out of this nightmare? Could I possibly escape as well, but not get caught like this poor woman in the corner awaiting to be delivered to her death?

  “There is no escape. Get that foolish thought out of your mind. I’m proof of that. The best thing for you to do is submit. Do not resist. Don’t fight. If you do, it will only be worse. So much worse.”

  “Do what? Submit to what?”

  The woman huffed. “Whatever your trainer demands. And trust me, you will be asked to do things, to endure acts you can’t even imagine. But if you don’t, they will beat you, or torture you, and when they are done, they will still expect you to do whatever they asked to begin with. I’ve seen them execute women for resisting. It’s all pointless.”

  The carriage slowed down and eventually came to a stop. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep as the woman advised, trying hard not to panic and give away anything. Everything she had said about death, punishment, submitting… I was doomed.

  The crunch of rock beneath the approaching men’s boots, and then the opening of the prison door caused me to flinch and breathe heavily. They would know I wasn’t really asleep if I didn’t calm down.

  Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

  “Some of them are stirring,” one soldier said. “Hurry up and carry them to the shower room before we have them waking up, panicking, and then trying to flee out of here. I’m not in the mood for a run.”

  The shift of bodies told me that the other soldiers were following the command. Focusing on my breathing, I struggled not to flinch when my naked body was pulled harshly from the wagon and flung over someone’s shoulder. I remained as limp and still as I could, even though every step the man took had his bony shoulder jabbing into my stomach. If I hadn’t been starving and hadn’t had food in my stomach for days, I would have surely thrown up with the amount of pressure being applied to my empty gut. Resisting the urge to peek and look around, I tried to focus on the noises around me instead. The only thing I could hear was the sound of the man’s heavy steps carrying me, and the voices of several men all around, each mumbling about the stench or the weight of the woman they carried.

  When the sound of the gravel beneath the boots of my carrier changed to the click of soles against solid floor, my body was soon tossed to the hard, cold ground. I managed to not cry out in pain as my body hit the floor with enough force to knock the wind out of me. My head hit the back of a wall hard enough for my ears to ring. The sound of groans and whimpers of the women all around me was my cue that I, too, could stir awake. Keeping my ruse up, I also slowly opened my eyes with tiny moans and an added whimper or two for effect.

  Looking around, I could see that all of the captured women were cast around in one big room, with no windows and tiles from floor to ceiling. The stark white color made the room appear almost metallic in nature. Showerheads were lined up along all four walls, and there were several metal drains scattered around the floor. We had been delivered to the shower room, and although I fought back the madness of being more terrified than I had ever been in my entire life, the thought of taking a shower and having actual running water on my body delighted me.

  “Rise and shine, beauties,” a guard shouted, his voice echoing off the tiles.

  Every female had their eyes already opened or very near, and their obvious horror of the situation mirrored mine.

  “Get up and clean yourselves,” he ordered, taking a few steps back toward the entrance. He then flipped a red switch on his right, and water came rushing out of all the showerheads.

  When the freezing water hit all the naked women, some squealed, some cried, but others stood as I did and we began washing the grime off our bodies. The temperature didn’t bother me, especially if it meant getting clean. Not being sure if I would get in trouble or not, I decided to risk it and opened my mouth, quenching my parched throat with the first fresh water I had seen in ages. The refreshing liquid tasted metallic as it clearly came from corroded pipes, but regardless, I swallowed large gulps as the spray rained down on my face.

  “Be sure to clean those dirty cunts and the crack between your arse cheeks.” The man’s crude comment had the more frightened women whimpering even more than they already were. But again, I didn’t care. I’m not sure why the words didn’t bother me, but they simply did not. The day I surrendered myself, I knew that I was accepting darkness to take over. I had accepted that truth, and the guard’s harsh words would only be the beginning.

  Noticing that others were using bars of soap, lathering the suds over their soiled bodies, I glanced around until I found a bar of my own on a nearby ledge. Reaching out for the soap and rubbing it over my dirty skin, with water cascading all around me, I actually possessed a feeling of happiness. It had been so long, and even standing in a room with other captured slaves, showering beneath freezing water, under the eyes of a guard, I felt human.

  When the showers were abruptly shut off, we stood with arms wrapped around our shivering bodies, staring at the guard, waiting for him to tell us what was next. Water droplets hung from my hair, and goosebumps covered every inch of my skin, but I still didn’t care. I was clean. Some cried, others pleaded, yet I did nothing more than hold my head high and wait. Maybe it was speaking with the shadowed woman in the carriage that helped aid me in my courage. Maybe it was that I knew a little of what was coming, and the unknown didn’t haunt me as badly as it did the other women. Or maybe it was simply the fact that my life hadn’t been roses before, but rather the thorns. Could it really get much worse?

  “Get on your knees,” the man ordered as he opened the door and signaled for the rest of the guards to enter. Their black boots splashing on the puddled floor was all I could see as I did what was asked with no hesitation. Other women did not act on command as fast, or at all, and were rewarded with slaps to the face, or pulling of hair as they were forced to kneel before each approaching guard.

  “You better get used to it, beauties. From this moment on, you do exactly as you are commanded. The consequences will be severe if you do not.”

  The sound of metal and chain came before a heavy collar was clasped around my neck, hooked to a silver chain. I glanced up to see a man with a devilish smirk staring down at me, holding my leash as if I were an animal.

  “Get used to it, beauties. You all are Pike’s little pets. Whatever pride you have right now, you better get rid of it quick.” As he turned, he motioned for all the guards to lead their “pets” by their leashes. The few women who tried to stand were shoved back to the ground with a kick to the ribs or a slap to the ass.

  Trying not to pay attention to the cries of others, I crawled on my hands and knees as fast as I could so the collar wouldn’t choke me. My guard paid little attention to my struggles at keeping up. My knees kept slipping from underneath me on the wet tile, and a few times I fell, hitting my face on the ground, but not once did my guard slow. It only got worse when we crossed the threshold and my hands and knees made contact with the rocky path. Tiny pebbles dug into my palms and ripped my knees to shreds with every movement I made. I wasn’t given the time to tenderly or carefully maneuver my way, and was all but dragged by the tug of my leash if I slowed in the slightest. The bright sun had me squinting my eyes, but the rays of light did little to warm the chill in the air. It wasn’t exactly cold outside, but my hair still dripped down my back and my flesh was still damp, making the slight breeze bitterly cold. There were guards all around, and I should have been embarrassed at being in such a humiliating position, but they didn’t seem to care or notice that twenty or so naked women were crawling all around them. Was this the norm for their lives? It was as if we were just the backdrop to their every day routine. And the worst part of all for me was that I no
longer was clean. Dirt blackened beneath my nails again, my hands covered in dirt and blood. I mourned my moment of cleanliness for however short it had been.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs leading up to another building. My guard paused, and for a moment, I hoped he would grant me the mercy to stand and at least walk up the stairs.

  He did not.

  Yanking hard, he climbed the steps, dragging me behind. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t crawl up the stairs quickly, the awkward position of my body doing so spread my legs apart. I knew all of my privates were on full and vulgar display. But there was nothing I could do as I gagged and wheezed for breath as the metal of the collar cut into the skin of my neck.

  “Move it!” my guard snapped.

  But what could I do? The coordination to crawl up the steps did not come to me fast enough. I cried out, but no sound came from my strangled throat. Tears ran down my face and all I could see were the blurry boots of my tormentor before me. Would I die like this? Would my death be caused by crawling up the stairs? It was certainly not the most glamorous way to meet my maker.

  My guard, growing frustrated by my lack of speed, reached down and yanked me by the hair. The biting sting at my roots was welcome because it meant that I had a moment to gasp a large, life-saving breath, refilling my deprived lungs. Tossing me to the landing at the top of the stairs, he once again reached for my leash and led me the rest of the way into the building. I crawled as fast as I could, wanting to please my guard since, in a sick way, I felt I owed him a renewed obedience. He had given me mercy by pulling me up the steps—by my hair, rather than the metal and chain—the rest of the way.

  We stopped in a large empty room—an auditorium of sorts. Each woman remained kneeling, but we were all in a single file line facing the back of the room. The guards dropped our leashes, all walked to the side of the room, and stood against the wall. I glanced in both directions with my eyes, but trying to keep my head down, not moving an inch. I didn’t want to stand out or have anyone notice me. The woman to my right silently sobbed, while the woman to my left shifted her hands and knees, smearing blood on the grey concrete floor.