step I take adds a two-pound rock to the contents of my stomach. Everything inside of me was screaming to beg and plead with him to stay.
“I’m going to carry you again. Keep your eyes closed,” he warns before he bends down and picks me up just like before. I close my eyes and lean into him, determined to enjoy every last second of this.
6
Ivan
I place her back on the filthy mattress in her cell, even though every fiber in my body doesn’t want to. The thought of leaving her down her literally makes my chest hurt. She doesn't say anything, but her eyes tell me enough. She is begging me to take her back upstairs without a single word.
All she wants is for me to stay with her and if it wasn’t for the way she was clinging onto me, I wouldn’t even believe her.
How can she possibly feel safe with me?
Shaking my head, I turn around and walk toward the door. A quiet sob fills the room, and I can feel my heart crack wide open. Pushing through the expanding pain in my chest, I step out and shut the door behind me. I start walking away, thinking that I just need to get away and the need for her will fade. Instead, it gets stronger, like an invisible force pulling me backward, and I have to force my legs to move up the stairs.
Back at my apartment, I grab my jacket and my phone before I head back out. I need to get away from this place for a few hours to clear my head. It takes me ten minutes to walk through the heavily guarded compound and get to my car. It takes me another five minutes to make it through all the gates surrounding the building.
The whole time I can only think about one thing—the petite woman I left curled up on the mattress in that cell. I could never get her out of here unnoticed.
This place has more security than a level-five prison. The only way she is going to make it out of here is with a collar and a price tag around her neck—or in a body bag, but I refuse to let that happen.
That thought has me gripping onto the leather-wrapped steering wheel so tightly my knuckles turn white. I drive around aimlessly for a long time before I end up in front of some bar. I have every intention of getting so drunk that I forget my own name but after I down my second glass of whiskey, I realize that I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t sit here and drink my sorrows away while she is scared and alone in that basement.
I throw some cash on the bar top and walk back out to my car, where I pass a couple on the way. They are holding hands, and she is leaning into him while giggling at something he said. And just like that, I find myself longing for something I have never wanted before… something I can never have, at least not with her.
Knowing that I can’t save her from getting sold is eating me alive. It feels like someone poured acid into my gut. I can’t change her fate but maybe I can at least keep her comfortable until the auction. I know it’s a horrible idea and that it won’t change anything in the end, but I just can’t go on like it’s not killing me to know she is down there. I could just go and sit with her… at least until she falls asleep.
On my way back to the compound, I pass a twenty-four hour pharmacy and decide to stop in. I suppose she could use some womanly stuff. I pull into the parking lot and park, exhaling deeply. What the hell am I doing? I don't even have a damn answer. Five minutes later, I stand in front of a shelf filled with tampons and pads.
What. The. Fuck.
Why are there so many different types of these things? How the fuck am I going to know what to get? Out of the corner of my eye, I see a middle-aged woman walk up to where I’m standing.
She grabs a pack of pads off the shelf and puts it in her shopping basket. Then she stops and looks up at me curiously. I look away before she sees me looking at her.
“There is no way in hell my husband would ever bring