Page 4 of Darkness I Become
That morning, she’d been woken with the Wastelander girls after a night of uneven sleep and futile plots to escape that never panned out. The Skulls had tied them together with rope, forcing them to walk together in a line with their hands bound. They walked all morning, and by noon, they’d reached what looked like the ruins of a small village…except people were living there, in the skeletal remains of whatever buildings were left.
The village was fenced in. The fence was well-maintained, while the rest of the place was a mess. Holes in buildings were boarded up or simply filled with mud. Everything looked to be in a state of disrepair. A river flowed through the centre of town, but the water reeked so badly that Asha’s eyes watered.
The residents themselves were a sight to behold. Most were sickly-looking, missing hair or teeth or both. Some had open sores on their bodies. All were painfully thin as they worked, tilling tiny, withered-looking gardens and hanging up pathetic-looking fabric scraps that barely qualified as laundry.
What the fuck is wrong with these people?Asha wondered, wide-eyed.Why do they live like this?
She quickly realized that the gang members in the settlement could be easily identified, since—although most of them also lacked the hygiene standards one would hope for—they looked more or less healthy. At least they didn’t look like they were starving to death the way the residents did.
“Welcome to Little River,” Pike said to Asha, Brigid, and Becks with a toothless grin. “Home sweet home.”
They’d stopped in one of the dilapidated houses, where they forced her and the other girls to bathe. They also made her unbraid her long black hair, letting it fan out down her back. Now, Barney came into the little room and threw Asha what looked like the equivalent of a burlap sack with arm holes.
“I’m not wearing that,” she said immediately, without thinking. “Give me back my clothes.”
“Shut your hole,” Pike snapped. “You’ll wear what we tell you. Your new owner decides if he wants your clothes or not.”
Somehow, she’d found her line in the sand. She wasn’t going to let these beasts march her out practically naked in front of the world. Her dignity was the last thing she had left, and death would probably be preferable to whatever they had in store, anyway.
“Fuck you,” she spat. “Give me my clothes, or you can shoot me right here. I don’t give a shit.”
Pike looked ready to murder her, but Barney rolled his eyes.
“Whatever, Pike,” he said. “Auction opens in five minutes. Let her wear whatever. She’s the best one anyway; it won’t matter what she’s got on. She’ll gofast.”
“Fine.” Pike left the room in disgust, then returned a moment later with Asha’s dirty shirt, pants, and underwear. He tossed them at her.
“Be ready in thirty seconds, or I’ll drag you out in whatever you’re wearing.”
Asha dressed quickly, hating that they watched and leered at her the entire time. But at least she got to keep her clothes, filthy and stinking though they were after a week outside. They were likely better quality than anything else she’d find out here.
Once dressed, they marched her outside again, where Brigid and Becks waited with a couple other gangsters. Both wore the burlap sacks, and Asha’s heart tugged at their expressions. Both girls, in contrast to the night before, looked absolutely petrified.
“We thought they were bringing us to live here with a man,” Brigid whispered frantically. “But they’re going to sell us to—”
“Shut up,” one of the men said, slapping her upside the head.
Brigid quieted, her bottom lip trembling. She suddenly looked so terribly young, and Asha couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. She desperately needed to escape, but for a moment, she wished she could save the twins, too. They may have been Wastelanders, but they didn’t deserve this, at least.
We don’t get what we deserve,Asha thought bitterly as the men led them down a dirt road, deeper into the village.But if I live through this…these idiots will. One day.
They bound all three women’s hands in front of them. Pike and Barney, along with their cohort of gangsters, then led the three women to a village square—an open marketplace where people worked stalls and sold things like sad-looking dried food and knitted sweaters. The only thing that didn’t look scarce was the gun stall, where ammunition and various other supplies crowded the table.
The market was full to bursting, and Asha got the impression that wasn’t its usual state. The residents seemed agitated, and it wasn’t hard to tell why: the vast majority of visitors were large, relatively healthy-looking men, sporting what she could only assume were various gang paraphernalia. Most of them had an identical feather tattoo, crudely drawn into their skin, while others wore a skull crest on their jackets. Still others wore a strange, inverted crucifix around their necks.
They were the only ones who looked like a light breeze wouldn’t knock them over, and as the crowd parted to allow them to pass, many of the men stopped to leer at them. Asha trained her eyes on the ground, refusing to look any of them in the eye.
You won’t break me. You won’t.
She may have had nothing left—not even Claire—but she wouldn’t let them see how scared she was. They’d only ever see her teeth. Her rage. Her hatred of every last one of them.
They approached a raised platform at the back of the square. It was already filled with a dozen young women in similar burlap sacks. Asha scanned their faces. Some were as nakedly terrified as Becks and Brigid; others were resigned. A select few were smiling, confident, and had pushed their way to the front, where everyone could see them. She wondered how on Earth those girls had ended up here, where fear generally clung to everything like an unpleasant stench.
The Skulls men hoisted Asha, Brigid, and Becks up onto the platform.
A moment later, Pike ordered, “Line up, ladies! Best ones at the front, slow sellers in the back!”
Asha swallowed another surge of terror as they organized the women into three lines, one in front of the other, facing the market square. She tried to tuck herself in the back, between two women with horrible burn scars, but Pike scowled at her.
