Page 2 of Cruel (Brutal Academy)

I’d spent hours thinking over the hours before I woke up here. I still couldn’t remember the details. I had a cup of coffee in the Academy dining room. Everything after that… My mind was blank.

Muffled voices shouted from outside the truck. A gate clanged. The truck moved again, driving slowly over what sounded like gravel or dirt. The gate clanged closed.

The truck rumbled on for a minute or two, daylight flashing under the edges.

We passed over a bump. Several of the women groaned. More than one started to cry. I couldn't see any of them beyond vague shapes in the dim light. None sounded older than me. Of course not. Anyone that bought trafficked women wanted them young, pretty and undamaged.

I once overheard my father impress that on one of his employees.

"Customers don't want apples with bruises on them. Even one bruise reduces their value. If anyone leaves visible bruises, they can at best look forward to joining the girls on the auction block. At worst, a nice, slow death will serve as a sufficient deterrent to anyone else who thinks to touch my wares."

"Yes, sir." The man sounded both respectful and amused. "No…Visiblebruises." He chuckled as though he said something hilarious.

The truck drew to a stop again. The front doors opened and closed, sounding like the driver and a passenger or two climbed out.

Their footsteps crunched around to the back. Metal ground against metal as the bolt holding the door locked was drawn aside.

I scrambled up to a sitting position and drew my legs in as tight as I could. I covered my bare breasts with my arms. As far as I could tell, no one touched me when I was unconscious, apart from removing my clothes. Nothing was painful or sticky. That wasn’t a shitload of consolation. I was still naked in the back of a truck.

One, then the other door swung open on protesting hinges.

I raised my hand, blinked against the sudden glare of the late afternoon sun.

The light was a relief after the relentless darkness. A relief that lasted about five seconds before I glanced around.

I was packed in with about twenty other women. Most were around the same age as me. A couple were slightly younger and a couple slightly older. Three were blonde, one or two red. The rest had dark hair like me.

How long had my sister been planning this? Long enough, apparently.

A couple of men appeared in the doorway. One placed his fists on his hips.

"Good afternoon, ladies. You can call me Hades. Firstly, that's my name, and secondly, some of you will come to think of me as the worst kind of hell." His grin was a vicious slash across his face.

The man with him laughed. "He ain't wrong. Asshole is the worst motherfucker I know." He clapped Hades on the shoulder.

Hades laughed. "Listen to Brutus here. That's not his actual name. It's more of a description. Behave yourselves and you don't have to find out why."

Several of the women whimpered.

I bit my lip to keep myself from doing the same. More than anything else, I hated feeling vulnerable. I couldn't remember a time when I ever felt more so. Not even when I lay in the Academy hospital, with an oxygen mask over my face. Not even when my father put me in the basement room.

All of that was that was nothing to being naked in the back of a truck in front of people who intended to sell you to someone who wanted to use you as a fuck toy.

I had to get out of here before that happened. I couldn't assume Hunter and Parker would come for me. If they were, they would have stopped the truck hours ago. Or they'd be here right now, shooting Hades and Brutus, and making jokes.

And Slade— Where was he? Had he noticed I was missing yet?

No, right now I was on my own.

"If you treasure your pretty little skin, you will hop out of the truck and walk inside like we tell you to." Hades spoke as if the request was perfectly reasonable. As if somehow there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.

As if my father or someone like Reuben Brantley weren't paying them to do it. Did my father know where I was? Part of me would like to think he'd stop all of this if he did.

The realistic, cynical part of me remembered the last time I spoke to him. The way he blamed me for letting my guard down.

Maybe he thought I deserved this.

Maybe I did.

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