The plan was simple. I’d take what I could carry in the bundled up sheet.
“What are you doing?”
Hearing Merdon’s voice made me see red. Enraged, I swung around, ready to fight.
My thoughts came to an abrupt halt as I caught sight of Eden standing beside him. Good. I needed a witness to how this Neanderthal was throwing his weight around.
“I’m packing my things to move to Tenacity where I won’t be forced to do things I don’t want to do. Now get out of my room, asshole.”
He crossed his arms, his stance making it clear he wasn’t about to go anywhere.
“Um, do you mind if we sit down for a minute?” Eden asked, without looking at Merdon. “There’s something you should know before you pack up.”
Since she’d asked nicely, I indicated the chair to her and perched on the bed.
“Sorry about the towel. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.”
“Yeah, I gathered as much from all the swearing.”
She’d been here for the whole thing? Worse, she’d done nothing to try to intervene.
“What do you want?” I asked bluntly, losing my niceness.
“It’s not what I want but what I don’t want. I don’t want you to end up like me. Or worse, like Brenna.”
“I’m not following.”
She looked at me with a sad thoughtfulness for a moment.
“Our lives went to shit after the quakes,” she said. “I lost my parents in the first few weeks then got picked up by a group that promised safety. They weren’t offering safety, though. They wanted women to breed with. They said it was their duty to preserve the human race.”
So far, her story sounded crappily familiar.
“The fey are assholes like that,” I agreed.
Eden shook her head.
“Not the fey. They don’t take. These were humans. The same ones who starved Brenna and her brother until Brenna agreed to have sex with one of them. She was raped, Hannah. Those men took without asking. If I hadn’t escaped them when I did, my fate would have been the same. Those were the men who had you. Do you understand? They baited you with moonshine and got you so drunk you wouldn’t have woken up until after they’d carried you somewhere else. Then, they would have withheld food until you were willing to do whatever they wanted.”
A sick feeling settled into my stomach at the picture she was painting. Mostly because they wouldn’t have needed to starve me. It wasn’t food I wanted.
“You weren’t the only one they kidnapped yesterday. They managed to take Brenna again and a young girl. Brenna’s quick thinking saved all three of you from a fate worse than death.”
Would it have been, though? I would have had drinks. At least until they ran out.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, needing this conversation to be over.
“I want you to understand that Tenacity isn’t safe. It doesn’t matter that they haven’t seen an infected outside the walls in over a week. It doesn’t matter that there are more humans over there. There’s not enough food in Tenacity, and people do terrible things when they’re starved, desperate, and afraid.”
“Got it.”
She gave me a doubtful look then glanced at Merdon as she left the room.
“Are you going to get out so I can dress?” I asked.
“Is that the life you want, Hannah? A life on your back while a human man pumps his seed into you again and again, against your will?”
Bile rose in my throat.
“None of this is the life I want,” I said bitterly. “Do you really think one option is any better than the other to me?”
He grunted softly and studied the clothes already on my bed.
“Get comfortable here, Hannah. You won’t be leaving for a long time.”
Before the words fully sank in, he walked out, closing the door behind him.
I sat there for a stunned moment then rushed to let myself out. The knob wouldn’t turn. I beat on the door and yelled every obscenity I could think of at him, then at Emily.
I hated them all.
Chapter Eleven
Sweat coated my skin. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stumbled out of the bathroom without bothering to flush the toilet.
As I passed the bedroom door, I tried opening it again. The knob still didn’t move.
“Assholes,” I said under my breath.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been locked in. My mind tended to drift, something that had started happening with increasing frequency since waking up from my moonshine binge. Trapped as I was with nothing to