Successors (13 page)

She jumped in and pushed her cart to the back. She pressed the “door close” button to ensure that they would have to take the other elevator and not join her. She mistakenly pushed the number 2 and corrected by pushing number 1.

The elevator gave a distressing squawk and began its precarious ascent. She hoped it wouldn’t suddenly detach from its pulley and crash into the basement. Although that might have been an easy way to alleviate her current problems, she wasn’t a big fan of dying.

The doors slid open on the animal floor and she started to back her cart out. She noticed two men waiting to get in. The prison usually contained two dozen guards at any one time—watching the grounds, inventorying prisoners, and doing maintenance—but she rarely saw them. Perhaps it was because most of them opted to use the stairs, or maybe it was because her duties rarely took her off the animal level. At any rate, it was nice to know that she wasn’t the only one stuck in the prison.

She started to excuse herself and her oversized plastic cart, but the guards stepped inside without waiting for her to exit. She perked her brow at the obvious elevator etiquette faux pas, but she only offered them an apologetic smile for being slow and cumbersome.

She gave her cart a tug to get it moving again, but the doors closed behind her. “Ah…” She glanced at the panel where one guard was pressing the “door close” button, the same one she had used moments before to escape Danato. “I needed that floor,” she murmured.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He smiled and glanced at his partner behind her. She glanced back at him and he gave her the same overly friendly smile. “To tell you the truth, I did it on purpose.” He grimaced. “You see, my friend and I have seen you around, and we just wanted to introduce ourselves.” He stepped forward and she stepped back, for as little good as it did since his friend was ready to block her already stunted escape route.

Cori felt white-hot fear sink into her body. Paralyzing fear that made her instantly sick to her stomach. It was a familiar dread that she had not long left behind.

She looked at the lascivious smiles aimed at her. They were meant to be suave, or provocative, or some other bullshit word to describe a man’s I-want-to-fuck-you face. It was a wonder to her that men even bothered with the formality of sweet-talking women before they raped them. Foreplay perhaps; just a little time to get hard so they had the proper motivation to rip a woman’s clothing, security, and faith into shreds while she screamed and begged them to stop.

“Is that so?” she whispered even though the part of her brain that was listening to them had shut down. That’s all she had to do: just shut down. That’s how she survived it before, and that’s how she would survive it again. Make believe that she wasn’t even there, because in the end, she really wasn’t.

“No need to cry, little flower.” The guard touched her cheek where tears had started to dribble down. She trembled uncontrollably from his touch. “We aren’t going to hurt you. We just want to get better acquainted with you.”

“You want to get better acquainted with my body, you condescending prick!” Cori snapped. She knew she shouldn’t say it. It would have been better if she hadn’t. They might have at least been gentle if she hadn’t pissed them off.

“Well, that’s not very nice, little flower.”

“I’m not the flower; I’m the thorns.” Cori threw the palm of her hand up to break his nose just as she had done during her auction, but he dodged it and punched her in the stomach. Aside from not being able to breathe, his fist had hit her rib. She doubled over coughing. From the angle she was in, she could clearly see him unbuckle his pants. His friend pulled her back against his chest in a full nelson.

She should have picked her legs up and racked him. She should have used her body weight to slip out of the full nelson, roll over the cart, and press the emergency stop button, all while shoving the cart into them and screaming for help. That’s what she should have done, but even as it all played out in her head, she knew she would still get raped. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but in a facility with nearly forty male employees—and her apparently being the youngest of only a dozen female employees—she was going to have to suffer the consequences of this place eventually. This was just the first of many
incidents
to come. No need to get bloody and bruised over something as trivial as losing her will to live.

The elevator doors opened sooner than anyone anticipated, without the usual proceeding
ponk.
Cori hadn’t even felt the carriage come to a lobbing stop. The men abruptly released her, zipped up, and pretended that life was dandy again and not just an excuse for them to lord over people weaker than them.

For a moment, Cori had a glimmer of hope that today might not be the day, but then she saw the familiar uniform, black on black. Her shoulders sunk and she looked at the floor. Now she had a third to be passed off to when the first two were done. She was pretty sure it wasn’t a record for her, but it would be the first time she was fully lucid for the event. Who knew she would one day be thankful for injected sedatives?

“Well, what do we have here?” the man asked with a familiar American twang; Texan, if she wasn’t mistaken. He stepped aboard and tapped the button for his floor. He looked her over, but she refused to look at him. She just lowered her head and watched her tears fall directly to the floor of the elevator.

“Nothing, you need to be concerned about, Tex,” the guard said as the doors shut again. “Just a friendly conversation with the lady.”

“Friendly, huh? When I speak to the ladies, I don’t make them cry.”

“She’s had a tough day; she was just sharing her woes. Isn’t that right?” The guard tried to tip her chin, demanding a nod, but Cori just ripped her face away. She wasn’t going to obey, no matter what the underlying threat was. She might have given up her body, but
never
her mind.

The Texan chuckled and turned around to face the door. “You boys are new here, aren’t you? Fresh out of a five to ten, I bet.” They didn’t answer. “You probably think this place is going to be a nice vacation from your previous confinement. I’d venture to guess by the looks of this scene, you haven’t even met the warden yet, have you?” They still didn’t answer, but Cori could tell by the way the guard in front of her was clenching his fists he wasn’t happy. “You boys should really meet him. I hope for your sake, that this is the first time you’ve tried to have a
conversation
with this little gal.”

The elevator
ponked
again. The doors opened onto Belus and Danato in the main foyer, seemingly still waiting for an available lift. “It’s about damn time,” Danato griped before his eyes widened on the situation inside the elevator. Belus peeked in at the sight as well.

Cori froze, looking at Danato as he tried to discern her condition physically and emotionally. She wasn’t sure if she should run out and hide behind him, or just wait and report this gross sexual harassment on paper so it could be stamped, cataloged, and forgotten about.

“Warden, sir, just the man I was looking for,” the Texan chimed and stepped out to speak with him. With one arm lagging back, he blocked the doors from closing on her again. “You haven’t met our new recruits. With all your attentions being split, they haven’t had a chance to meet you.” The men shifted their stance to look out at Danato. “They did, however, get a chance to meet your young lady in training.”

“Did they?” Danato’s shock ebbed away, slowly being replaced by dark intent. “Sweetheart, would you roll that cart out here, along with yourself?”

Cori felt her body shake even harder with the anticipation of being away from her aggressors. She shoved the cart out of the elevator, and parked it haphazardly before looking at Danato for further instruction. Had he told her to do a handstand, she probably would have done it, so long as he kept her away from those men.

He reached out his hand and gestured with one finger. “Come here,” he whispered so quietly she wasn’t even sure he actually spoke it. She moved to him, but kept some distance between them. She didn’t want to be near anyone at the moment. He seemed to understand her reservations and didn’t actually touch her when he leaned into her ear to speak.

“Did they hurt you?” he asked.

“No, not yet,” she whispered back.

“They are new. They don’t know who I am yet. An oversight I am about to correct. I meant what I said to you before. No one, including my men, will hurt you like that again. If you trust nothing else I say, trust that.”

Cori looked up at him. His eyes were sincere as he often seemed to be, but he also looked devastated, as if he had failed her by not preventing this encounter.

He moved his hand ever so slowly to her face and stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. She allowed it, since he seemed to need to offer the affection as further reassurance.

“I’ll take care of them. You can take the rest of the day off.”

He lowered his hand and marched into the elevator. Cori turned just as the Texan guard lowered his arm and the doors shut on all four of them. Before the elevator was out of range on the floors above, Cori could hear screams of agony.

She grimaced and looked down at Belus who seemed completely unfazed by the event. For several seconds she didn't move, frozen by indecision. “Will he kill them?” she asked the dwarf.

He shook his head. “No. I imagine he will break nearly every bone in their hands, making them virtually useless for anything other than delivering meals.”

“Are you serious?” Cori asked. She hadn’t truly believed that Danato would be capable of protecting her from his men, but judging by the sounds that had come from the elevator; he was more than capable of keeping them under control.

Belus finally looked up at her. Since he rarely acknowledged her existence, it felt strange to have his full attention. It was as if he was looking at her for the first time. “Don’t worry. They won’t touch you again, and as soon as word of this gets around to the others, you’ll be able to walk through the halls in a bikini without so much as a catcall.”

“He would cripple his own men, just to protect me? Why?”

Belus furrowed his brow. “I think the reasoning stands for itself. Danato’s not the type of guy to let men hurt women, but I think he feels particular predisposed to defend you.”

“Because of my previous captivity,” Cori added gingerly.

Belus frowned. “Something like that,” he murmured and stared back at the elevator for a moment. He turned and motioned to the cart behind her. “You want me to put that away for you?”

Cori was surprised that he was offering, but she had a feeling he was just doing it so he could dismiss himself or her from the awkward silence.

“Um, no, that’s okay.” She turned to grab the cart. “I should…” she started to say more to him as she wheeled the cart around, but he was already disappearing through the door to the stairwell. She sighed and pushed her cart back to the supply closet.

Yup, definitely alone.

23

Cori started the next day in just as sour mood as she ended the day before. She was grateful to be saved by Danato and she was relieved that he meant to make good on his promise to protect her, but it didn’t really change anything. She was still an indentured servant, with no salary, no benefits, and no vacations—ever.

The only thing that had changed was that she didn’t view Danato’s sincerity as pretense. However, he was still an overbearing thug who was punishing her for inadvertently—and indirectly—killing the merman and mermaid from the other day. Evidently, almost being raped did not amend the ruling on killing an inmate.

Her duty roster unsympathetically dictated that the two now empty tanks on level 2 be cleaned. It was to be her duty as well as her penance to clean them, since it would take her all day to clean both of them.

After garbing up in her pale yellow jumpsuit and gathering her supplies from the main level, she pushed her cart onto the west elevator. With the roster in mind she pushed the button labeled 2 in the elevator. The number 2 sat just above the number 1 and the letter M on the panel.

She left the main floor with the great determination that comes with forced labor. When the elevator doors opened with the abridged
ponk
, she backed the cart out on its squeaky wheels. She stopped a few feet in.

She became aware of the silence. There was no cacophony of chittering and yipping. No smell of manure. The air wasn’t humid.

She had pushed the wrong button again.

Elevator second floor.

She was on the third floor.

She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked side to side and saw unfamiliar cages. Very large unfamiliar cages, and they were empty.

“Hello,” a man spoke behind her.

She whipped around to see him. He was standing behind her several feet away. He looked thirty or so, at least six feet. His narrowed jaw was offset by his longish, wavy chestnut hair. He wasn’t particularly broad in his build, but his V-neck white t-shirt highlighted the strength in his chest. His chest and arms were covered in a fine layer of hair that looked more like fur. His jeans were baggy and covered in something bright red.