After Rae Campbell is murdered by her abductor, she wakes in a world that exists parallel to ours- one which diverged in 1761, when a band of Scottish Highlanders joined with the Skin-Walking Kituwah tribe to oust the British from Appalachia.
Rae b...
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They give you all sorts of advice to avoid being abducted. Never walk while looking down at your phone. Never go jogging with earbuds in. Make sure that you keep your key clenched in your fist on your way to the car so you you have a weapon at the ready. Be conservative in your style of dress. Avoid deserted locations, especially at night. Never go anywhere alone.
I followed each of those instructions religiously.
It didn't stop Master.
I was wearing a pair of beat up running shoes, an oversized NCSU track tee shirt that covered me from collarbone to rump, and a pair of leggings that stretched to my ankles. I was jogging down a busy street, beside a friend. I was careful. I was safe.
But hands darted out from a windowless white van, and the girl I used to be vanished.
My name is Slave, now.
My home is a windowless room- exactly eight feet wide by eight feet long. I can touch the ceiling when I stretch my arms above my head. The concrete block walls are painted Pepto Bismol pink, and the ratty old mattress on the floor is bare. In the beginning, it had white silk sheets and a floral print comforter, but those disappeared the morning after I tried to hang myself from the tacky rosebud chandelier. The chandelier was replaced with a lone, too-bright-a-wattage, bulb.
In the beginning, there wasn't a chain. That was mounted to the wall and locked around my ankle after my first escape attempt. That attempt also resulted in the loss of the divider between the mattress and toilet, so now I have the luxury of staring at my bed while I take a shit.
I groan and roll to the side.
My head pounds. My tongue feels three sizes too thick for my mouth.
Water, I think, my dry throat sticking as I struggle to swallow. I wince at the thought of drinking water from the toilet like a dog, but it won't be the first time I've resorted to doing so.
I crack my eyes open, and whimper at a sharp stab of pain.
I ache. Everywhere, I ache.
Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and I shut them again.
Usually, I try not to remember the things that Master does. Pain is no stranger to me, now. I wear its marks on my skin and feel its touch in my bones. But this much pain is rare. This much pain is reserved for when I have been a very, very bad girl.
I sniffle, and then freeze.
The air is fresh.
I smell earth and vegetation- not the stale perfumed air of the room. I slide my hand to the side- the movement sending a sharp current of pain up my spine- and feel the crunch of leaves and the slickness of mud beneath my hand, rather than the pilled fabric of the stained, old mattress.
