Damaged for Him Read online

  “Lucky you,” She titled her head to one side. “We had some toast and water. That’s all.”

  “Oh.” I felt guilty that I’d been given better food than the others. Back at the compound, everyone ate the same, and we all ate together. But I wasn’t at the compound now. I needed to remember that.

  I crept over to my side of the room and climbed onto the bed, huddled with my knees up to my chest. What was Torres’s plan with me? He’d said he wanted all of us women to get along, but I felt as though he was deliberately dividing me from them. I was frightened about what my future might hold, and I missed Angelo horribly. What was he doing right now? Was he thinking of me? I hoped so. It was the only thing that made me feel like life was worth living. I couldn’t imagine months and years of this stretching ahead. Sharing with the other women meant I didn’t even get a moment of privacy to wallow in my sadness.

  I thought of something.

  “Are we being watched in here?” I asked the others, glancing at the corners of the room, searching for any cameras.

  “Not that I’ve noticed,” Deanna said.

  I frowned. “Isn’t he worried that we’ll hurt ourselves?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he figures we’ll watch out for each other.”

  “Or maybe he just doesn’t care,” Grace said, her voice quiet.

  “He might not care about you,” Kimmie spat, “but he does care about the rest of us.” She shot me a look. “Those of us he’s gotten to know, anyway.”

  “He doesn’t care about us, Kimmie,” Deanna said with a sigh. “This isn’t how you treat people you care about. He doesn’t even see us as people. We’re things to him. Objects he owns to titillate him and his friends.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not there when it’s just the two of us, together. You don’t see the way he looks at me, and hear the things he says. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I watched the exchange with muted horror. Did Kimmie really think Torres cared about her? About her? Was that why she’d acted like she hated me? She thought she was his favorite and was worried about the competition.

  “I won’t ever care about him,” I said, speaking up. “I’m in love with someone else. It doesn’t matter what he does to me, or says. Nothing will change that.”

  Her gaze flashed toward me, sparking with fury. “But you knew you were going to be his.”

  “So?” I didn’t understand her point.

  “And you let yourself fall in love with another man?”

  “I didn’t let myself. I grew up with Angelo. I always loved him.” I hoped there weren’t any microphones in the room either. I had the feeling my words would get me in trouble if Torres overheard them. “It wasn’t something that only recently happened. And anyway, it’s not as though I chose to come here—none of us did. We were all taken, weren’t we, or sold?”

  I had assumed the other women all had similar backgrounds to mine.

  Deanna nodded. “I was. I think it’s been two years now, though it’s hard to tell. I was backpacking with a friend, and stupidly got drunk on a beach. I think I passed out, or my drink was spiked, ’cause the next thing I know, I’m tied up and in the back of a van.”

  I stared at her in horror. I couldn’t imagine the sort of terror she must have been feeling.

  “I was snatched, too,” Grace said. “I was fifteen. I’d lied to my parents about being at a friend’s house, and I went to meet this guy I’d met online. Only the guy ended up not being who he said he was, and I ended up here.”

  This was the most I’d heard her say. “I’m so sorry. Your families must all be so worried for you.”

  “I expect they’ll have given up by now. They probably think we’re dead.”

  “What about you?” I dared to ask Kimmie.

  “That’s none of your goddamned business. I’m not going to start sharing sob stories. But don’t worry, no one is missing me, or trying to find me. My mother was a fucking drug addict who sold me so she could get her next hit. She’s probably dead by now, or at least I hope she is. Sir is the only one who’s ever showed me that he cared. This might not be a traditional relationship, but he looks after us. He puts a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs.”

  “And he hands us around to his friends,” Deanna said in disgust.

  Kimmie’s head shot around toward her. “You shut your mouth! He’s sharing his love for us.”

  I didn’t know what to say. My background was messed up, but even I knew the difference between real love and what Torres wanted to do with us. Sex was sex, in many situations, and that was fine, but when it was between two people who loved each other, it meant everything. I couldn’t imagine what sort of life Kimmie must have come from to think that she meant something to Torres. Or maybe she’d been like me, and had grown up here, so she simply didn’t know anything else.

  I was still shaken from my experience with Torres. My mind felt battered by the information coming from the other women as well. I just wanted to lie down on the bed, pull the covers over my head, and pretend I was back with Angelo. Being lost in my thoughts of him was the one comfort I had now.

  Not wanting to delve any further into the traumatic pasts of the others, already feeling that I was separated from them, that even though I’d gone through so much myself, I had been protected in many ways, and by what Kimmie had said, I wondered if that protection would continue in the way Torres treated me. I never felt like I fitted in with anyone, except Angelo. There was always something that separated me from everyone else, even when we were in exactly the same situations.

  Still in my dress, I rolled onto my side, facing away from the other women, and pulled the sheets over my head. I blinked back tears, but one escaped and slid down my cheek, soaking into the pillow beneath my head. This was my life now—this room with these women, and the threat of the man who owned us all. There would be no glimmers of light, no counting down the days until I saw Angelo again.

  No one came to ask me if I was all right. Why should they? They were all in the same position as I was. There were no words of comfort that would make any of this better.

  Did I dare hope Angelo would try to find me? I felt utterly selfish wishing for such a thing. Not only would he risk getting himself killed by trying, was I also considering the idea of running from here and leaving Deanna and Grace, and even Kimmie here to continue to live like this? It had felt bad enough leaving the other women back at the compound, but even their lives were better than this. They at least were offered some semblance of freedom and were allowed to leave their rooms when they wanted.

  I must have cried myself to sleep. I woke to the door opening again, and a different man, younger this time, more like Angelo’s age, standing in the doorway.

  “Exercise time,” he barked. “Can’t have you all getting fat, now, can we?”

  We were prisoners, with our allocated yard time.

  I glanced over at Deanna, who gave a tight smile and a tiny nod to tell me to go along with it.

  “My dress?” I asked, looking down at what I was still wearing. “Should I change?”

  I wasn’t exactly dressed for running, and I didn’t have any footwear either, but then neither did any of the other women.

  The man looked me up and down and then shook his head, chuckling as he turned away from us.

  “That’s Bartow,” Deanna whispered to me. “Be careful of him. He’s mean as a snake.”

  I nodded to show I’d understood. I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of anyone.

  Dutifully, we followed Bartow, one after the other in a line, out of the room and down the corridor to the staircase. I noted the door at the top of the stairs was still locked. This was their failsafe, always having at least one door locked. But Bartow must have the key on him. We could attack him and try to take it. I assumed he was armed, however. Would we be able to subdue him before one of us got shot? Would it be worth the risk?

  Even if it was
, it wasn’t something I was going to just launch into without discussing it with the others first. I would put all of them in danger if I tried to escape.

  Bartow opened the second door, and natural light flooded in from the hallway outside. He kept going, leading us down the hallway, toward the back of the house. He hadn’t bothered to lock the door behind him, but why would he? Everyone who was normally locked up down there was up here.

  The scent of something that reminded me of bleach wrapped around my head. Where were we being taken?

  We stepped out into a huge, glass-domed room. The floor was tiled, and in the center was a large rectangular swimming pool of clear aqua water. Lush green foliage of thick leaved plants had been positioned in the corners of the room. Through the glass dome, a clear blue sky stretched into the distance and filled me with longing. Was this the only natural light we’d get to see now? I missed the wide expanse of the star-filled nights in the forest, wishing that, despite the fear and discomfort, I could have them back again. The temperature in here was several degrees higher than it had been in the basement, or the rest of the house, and beads of sweat popped on my upper lip.

  The women stripped off their clothes around me, even removing their underwear. They clearly knew the routine.

  I stood, frozen, unsure what to do.

  “Get on with it,” Bartow snapped.

  But the naked skin didn’t affect me. It was the water.

  One by one, the other women stepped into the pool, their bodies vanishing beneath the water. They struck out, swimming with frog-like movements across the surface.

  “What are you waiting for?” the man demanded. “Get undressed.”

  My hands trembled as I stripped off my dress, letting it fall to the floor. Then I worked on my underwear, unhooking my bra and pulling it off, and then rolling my panties down my thighs. Being naked wasn’t something that bothered me. My body had never truly belonged to me, and I wasn’t expecting that to change any time soon, but I was frightened of what would come next. The thing the other women had simply seemed to sink into was alien to me.

  “Get in.” His command was a bark.

  I turned to him, praying for some kind of empathy. “I... I can’t.”

  He scowled. “Yes, you can.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I can’t swim.”

  I’d never been in water any deeper than a bath before. I’d never even seen a swimming pool, or an ocean, or even a lake. The only body of water we had at the compound was the small pond that contained fish and the occasional frog or toad. It certainly wasn’t something I’d ever wanted to swim in, though I remembered having the occasional paddle when I’d been small. The expanse of water in front of me looked deep and vast, and even though I knew it was only a swimming pool, and that the other women seemed to be managing to effortlessly glide through it, the thought of going in terrified me.

  Bartow took a step closer, lowering his head like a bull. “I said get in.”

  I shook my head, my hands clutched around my body, more to comfort myself than to protect my naked form from this stranger’s eyes. “No, please. Don’t make me.”

  He let out a frustrated sigh and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He swiped the screen and placed it to his ear.

  “Sir. We have a problem with the new girl.” He listened for a moment. “She’s refusing to swim. Says she doesn’t know how.”

  The man’s face was hard, his scowl fixed on me, an utter lack of emotion in his eyes. I almost wished for Torres instead. At least it felt like he was human inside. Maybe I could reason with Torres, make him understand that this was something I was unable to do.

  The other women had realized something was wrong. They were subtly watching, chins lifted slightly out of the water, necks craning to see what was happening. Kimmie was swimming away, her red hair darkened in the water, splayed out behind her, but she twisted her neck to look back over her shoulder to where I was standing.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” the man said, still speaking into the phone. Then he pulled the phone from his ear and ended the call.

  “Is it okay?” I asked desperately. “Can I be excused?”

  He stepped forward, closing the space between us, and suddenly reached out and grabbed my hair. My scalp was already sensitive from Torres pulling my hair earlier, but I didn’t have time to think about it. He yanked me off my feet, dragging me along, my bare heels scraping against the tiled floor.

  “No, no, please!” I clutched at his wrists, more trying to lessen the pull on my hair than get myself free. I knew I’d never be strong enough to free myself. Panic held me in its grip. I wanted to fight, but there was no point. The daggers shooting through my skulls caused tears to form in my eyes.

  “He said to throw you in the deep end,” Bartow growled.

  “No, don’t!” I cried. “I’ll drown.”

  “If you drown, you drown.”

  Surely Torres wouldn’t want that. He wouldn’t go through all that effort to get me back, only to have me drown in the swimming pool. My feet skidded, and I tried to find purchase, wishing there was something nearby that I could grab hold of to save myself, but there was nothing.

  We reached the edge of the pool. I grappled for the man’s arms, desperately needing to cling to anything to save myself, even the person who was doing this to me. But he was too strong and easily shook me off. My toes gripped the edge of the pool, the tile gritty beneath my skin.

  He released my hair, and a tiny flicker of hope lit inside me that this was all just a threat, a way of keeping me on my toes, but then both of his large palms pressed flat to my shoulder blades, and he pushed.

  The tile vanished from beneath my feet, and my stomach lurched. I experienced a millisecond of weightlessness before my body hit the water and I plunged beneath the surface. I’d managed to suck in a lungful of air before I’d been pushed in, but already that air pressed painfully against the inside of my lungs. I kicked and flailed, desperation and panic gripping me. I pumped my feet and paddled my hands, as though climbing an invisible ladder, and somehow it worked. The top of my head burst from the water, and I gulped in another lungful of air. I managed to stay on the surface for a few seconds, but water blurred my vision, and the splashing of my own struggles masked any other sounds. I didn’t even open my mouth to call for help, not wanting to waste any precious air.

  My hands and arms struck out at the water, trying to find my way back to the side. I couldn’t be far away—I’d been standing right on the edge when I’d been pushed—but I couldn’t get my bearings, and my main priority was not drowning. My uncoordinated attempt at staying afloat failed, and I ducked beneath the surface again. This time I hadn’t managed to suck in a breath first, and my lungs burned as I kicked and struggled. My toes scraped the bottom of the pool, and I let myself sink farther, and then when my feet were flat on the tiles, I bent my knees and pushed upward.

  I broke the surface again and sucked in another desperate, strangled breath, knowing I wouldn’t be able to stay on the surface for long.

  A lean, strong arm wrapped around my waist, holding me up.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got you.”

  I blinked water from my eyes to see Deanna’s worried face inches from mine. I was still struggling, flailing in the water.

  “Stop struggling. Calm down.”

  I was terrified that if I stopped, I’d go under again, but she was stronger than I was, and she treaded water, keeping my head above the surface. Her arm moved up to hook up under my naked breasts, and she pulled me onto my back. I finally gave up fighting and forced myself to relax, though my heart was thundering, and I felt sick with fear. Was I going to die in this place? I didn’t think I’d ever get over my fear of deep water now. I’d been scared before, and that had been before I even knew what it actually felt like to half-drown. Would they torture me like this? Would I be made to come here each time with the other women and forced to swim? I made a mental note to just get in the water next time—if t
here was a next time. I’d get into the shallow end so he wouldn’t get the chance to throw me in. I wished I’d done that when he’d told me to, but I hadn’t known then that he would take such drastic steps to get me in the water.

  Deanna calmly swam with me to the shallow end. My feet touched the bottom, and I struggled again, wanting to get free.

  I caught sight of Kimmie watching with a snide smile on her face, and Grace was huddled into the far corner of the pool, as though trying to make herself so small she might disappear.

  Finally, I noted the man who’d pushed me in, Bartow, as he walked along the edge of the pool, laughing.

  Chapter Eight

  The day passed by, filled with frustration.

  I stayed busy, working in the yard until my muscles strained and my back ached. I wanted my father to think I was fully occupied and so wouldn’t be considering anything to do with Catalina and Torres. But the whole time I was watching, noting the pattern of people’s movements, hoping to see a crack I could use to my advantage.

  I needed to get into my father’s office and try to find something that would lead me to Torres and where he was keeping Catalina. He kept the room locked when he wasn’t there, but I knew where he kept the spare key hidden. It wasn’t something I’d used for many years, not since I’d been a child, and I didn’t even know if it was still in the same place. If I could get him out of the office, and I had the key, I’d be able to get access to his desk and files.

  Trouble was he had someone watching me at all times. If I was even able to get the key, someone would see me near the office and report back on me.

  Learning Catalina’s location was only one piece of the puzzle. I also needed to get free of the compound—something else that wasn’t going to be easy. The place was guarded to ensure people didn’t escape, and because we’d lost the girl a couple of weeks back, and then Catalina and I had also managed to give them the slip, they were on high alert. Plus, now my father was here, and people generally didn’t make mistakes when he was around.