Pact of Dragons

1

2123 AD
Somewhere over the Atlantic

Rahel sat in an airplane seat, her arms and legs bound just like all the other tributes, and stared ahead numbly. She still couldn't really comprehend it ... how the devil had she wound up here? The question rolled around and around in her head as she sat there, trying to catch her breath while shivering to her core.
Her head seemed to be full of nothing but stuffing, her thoughts were confused... it had been that way for months. She was just utterly perplexed, cold and empty—it was all the blows and the injustices. She had no warmth left, she felt no thrum of life, no ... there was nothing left.
It had all been happening so quickly. She hadn't had any time to recover from anything before the next catastrophe had her in its clutches.
That's just the way it went with this crooked system that destroyed everything in its path, that hunted down young women and girls, ensnared them and, just like that, corrupted them, to use the polite term.  It didn't actually matter if they'd broken the law or not—they were lassoed into something bigger than themselves.
Just a few hours ago, she'd appeared in court for the first time in her life, under a name that was not hers. All she could do was stand there, broken and baffled before this laundry list of charges levied at her—she was still in shock from days of torture inflicted on her by the ministries of so-called justice and from the abiding claustrophobia of that narrow prison cell.
This although they knew—she'd told them over and over, she'd screamed it until, finally, all that was left of her was a trembling ball of nerves and she could only beg for mercy. But they refused to open the door even a crack, had even told her with hateful smiles on their faces that it would only continue on like this, if she so much as made a peep during the hearing.    
...
Then they'd sentenced her, without a scrap of evidence, without even her proper name, there, on the basis of the falsified papers they waved in front of her face.
No one had listened to her for even a minute, not in jail, not even the lawyer who'd been appointed to her, who'd told her straight out how it was going to go, ignored her objections and her demands for a proper defense. She hadn't been allowed to call anyone, not even to use her personal fortune to hire herself a real lawyer, because she was still in the custody of the state. Still a minor ... What a mockery this was, that she was now sitting here like a common criminal, finally treated as an adult.
The ministries had simply needed another tribute for the islands, and fast. She'd had no chance. Now she found herself in an only slightly different prison cell, locked up tight, high over the clouds in an airplane on the way to an island on the outskirts of civilization, an island of dragons, on the continent of Darkengaard.
A convicted "multiple offender" who'd "volunteered" to be "rehomed," she was also purportedly of just the right age and position to be extradited—at least according to her fabricated file. The miserable pigs.    
Just as bad as the policeman who'd accompanied her to the airport. He'd only let her go to the bathroom because he'd wanted a go at her ... a little treat after a hard day's work ... with a chosen dragongirl, no less ... one who was allegedly a prostitute who played rough ...yeah right! As if! ​
He'd torn the tie from her hair and tried to force her to her knees when she started swinging at his face, catching his nose and one eye and then sending him head over heels onto the floor. Yelling for help, she'd held him down with a knee on his throat for several minutes, wrenching his arms back almost to the point of breaking, anything to keep him from trying her again—potentially with the encouragement of his colleague, another twisted sociopath who was at the door then all of a sudden, taking in the scene.
"Hold her! Hold her down!" was all the wannabe rapist could cough out, wheezing. It was then, thank god, that a policewoman came in, just as the second guy was going to jump her, and came in between them.
."What the hell is going on here? Have you two lost your minds? Go and find a place to buy it, if you need it so bad. The tribute plane is leaving in twenty minutes and unless everyone arrives on that island in one piece, you can kiss your own asses goodbye, you losers, or did you not get the memo?" the woman hissed as her colleagues departed, then nodded coolly at Rahel. "Go ahead. Make it quick," she said, then "And go on back to the others like a good girl."
Bitterly, Rahel kept silent and did as she was told. After all, there was nothing she could do; her fate was sealed. The airport was crawling with police, there were no windows or air vents in the tiny bathroom, at least none large enough to sneak through. The policewoman had ultimately brought her back to the waiting area, where there were loud voices, the sound of different gangs from different countries mixing uneasily, the sound of a fight about to start, strings of swears and howls to the high ceiling. They were probably all the louder while the girls were actually all at a safe distance from one another, shackled to their chairs, with the latest news from VOX-World blaring from the giant plasma screen. Those who were watching could see themselves; at the moment there was a live report about an "attack on police for a little fun before the flight." There were cameras everywhere; everyone wanted to know what kind of girls were being sent to their deaths. 
The fact that these windbags went on and on about the tributes' "willingness to sacrifice," about how they all bravely and gamely undertook the journey to the Dragon Islands was a total spin job, she wondered to herself, perplexed. But there was nothing for it now. She continued staring out the window, numb as ice.
If she'd only been able to ... If she could've, she would've chosen death by lethal injection, but somehow that hadn't even been an option—no, of course not. Why should it? It had long since ceased to cause her panic—or anyway, not nearly as much as the prospect of spending the rest of her miserable life locked up somewhere, even when it was not she who should be locked up. When the airplane doors closed and the walls began to close in on her, she felt herself spiraling into cold fear again and would have gone for a huge shot of sedation right about then. Ram the needle into her arm, tether her to the seat, simple as that. She'd gladly pass out for a good long time. Again.
No joke, she'd had about enough of people. The foster home to which she'd been shipped off, against her will—against any shred of reason, really—after the death of her family had been a sheer catastrophe, really just a stepping stone in a life of organized crime. Evidently, however, she'd been too old for them and their underground world, otherwise they would have taken in her best friend Lia, too, after the accident. But the system closed mercilessly on anyone suddenly orphaned and female, anyone without any other family members who might care or object. Then, the nice facade they built of rescue and remediation went right out the window.
What must her boss and colleagues in the hospital be thinking right now? She'd seen them on TV today. What about Lia and her parents—what did they make of it? Had they even seen it? Would anyone have pled her case?
She'd only landed here because one of her six roommates, Cynthia Beckers in the bunk across from her, had stuffed her stash under Rahel's pillow during a room check. Then, when she wound up in the director's office, she had to fight off his advances, his offer of an exchange of services for his forgiveness of her little slip-up—and, when Rahel refused, he ultimately got his by falsifying her records.
Just another bastard to add to the growing list of assholes she'd encountered in the last six months.