Amy

AMY

I opened my eyes, groaning as my body spasmed with a hundred pins and needles digging into every nerve center. At least, that's how it felt. I hated being stunned. Hated it with a passion.

I wondered if the little critter that had shown up and somehow attached itself to me was hurt. While it was true that he had only come into my life minutes before the stun gun had hit me, I hoped he was okay.

But right now, I had bigger issues to deal with.

I tried to sit up, finding myself on a cold, metal floor, but a heavy foot slammed into my shoulder.

"Sssstay down, bitch," hissed an armed Ewani guard. He leaned his full weight on me for a moment, causing me to cry out as agony flared up along my shoulder joint. "Hurtsss?"

The other three Ewani present laughed, including the biggest of the bunch. Ocah. In addition to being larger than the others, his features were decidedly more grotesque. His black, curling claws were larger, his eyes narrower, and his teeth proportionally longer than the rest.

I had learned to fear him. He was the overseer, the one who controlled the tiny one cell prison and its guards, as well as the inmates like myself.

"Look at you," he said with a sneer. His speech seemed clearer than that of the others. "You know how much you've screwed up, right? You know that you both are going to suffer."

"It was all my idea," I said, desperate to focus their attention on me. Mera had friends, knew how to operate the comms better than I did. If someone was going to make it out of here, it needed to be her.

"I talked that poor girl into helping me. I think one of your boys hit her too hard on the head, and now she has brain damage. Might as well get mad at the sun for being inyour eyes, am I right?"

I grinned, but the Ewani stepping on me shoved me flat to the floor.

"So much ssspirit." Ocah tsked. "It's a very delicate balance one has to strike. Running a ssslaving operation, I mean. One must keep in mind many different factors."

"It sounds fascinating," I said even as the Ewani ground me down to the floor. "Tell me more."

Ocah laughed, and made a motion at his man. The guard let up on my shoulder. I reached up and rubbed my sore skin, but I didn't try to rise again. Nearby, Mera stirred, her eyes barely open as she recovered from the stun weapon.

If I could manage it, I would get him to focus all of his rage on me and leave Mera alone.

She knew enough to take down this trafficking ring, if she ever got out of here.

I could take it. I was tough, or so I told myself.

"It's not that simple, is it?" I prompted him when he lapsed into silence.

"Oh, no, it's not so sssimple…" He growled as if angry at himself. "It's not so sssimple as that at all. One must balance many different factors. For example, your escape attempt would seem to warrant a penalty, but at the same time, said penalty can't be too sssevere. We don't want you too physically damaged before you are sssold, and we don't want your psyche scarred irrevocably so you lose that feisty spirit."

A sickening grin spread over his rat-like face.

"Our clients much prefer to be the ones to break a ssslave's ssspirit. Some of them think that's the best part, you know. The initial breaking."

"So, it sounds like you're not going to punish us then? Thank goodness. Between you and me, I was getting kind of worried."

Ocah laughed, and turned his beady eyed gaze on his fellows.

"But now one of my men is dead. Xeke, the only cousin I have…had…who might have amounted to sssomething. He studied science, you know."

"Is that what you call torturing a poor little bug?"

Ocah clenched his jaw tight, and hissed through his sharp teeth when he spoke.

"It was not just a bug, you ssstupid piece of defective merchandise. It was something more valuable than the lot of you bitches put together."

He seemed to force himself to relax, and then smiled again.

"But never mind that. It's my problem, not yours. I even feel partly responsible, you know, for not taking care to post a live sentry on your cage every night." He sighed and scratched behind his pointed ear. "The thing is, though, one of you murdered my cousin. I have to make an example out of you, even if it lowers your price on the auction block."

He looked between us.

"Now, which one of you did it?"

Mera had recovered somewhat by that point, and she opened her mouth, clearly about to confess.

"I did it," I said quickly.

"What?" Mera blurted. "Amy, are you insane? We both know that I was the one who?—"

"I did it," I said, more firmly, locking gazes with Ocah. "I came up through the floor grate. I saw your cousin working there, working oh so hard…"

Ocah's eyes boiled with rage. The ruse was working. I just hoped it didn't work too well and get me killed.

"Oh, I could have run out the door and tried to escape. Nobody was guarding it that I could see. But I just couldn't let that stupid…"

Ocah took a step forward, seething with rage.

"...dirty, filthy, disgusting rodent get away with torturing a helpless little bug. So I grabbed the nearest weapon I could find, which turned out to be a chair, and I bashed his damn skull in."

Ocah sputtered with inarticulate rage.

"He went down hard," I continued. "And you know, you probably think that he didn't suffer. That he died quickly. I'm here to tell you, I looked into his eyes when he died, and he suffered. Believe me, he suff?—"

Ocah's foot connected solidly with my jaw. I saw stars as I flew back against the wall of the lab.

"Take her," Ocah snapped as I struggled to hang on to a shred of consciousness. "Take them both. Put the redhead back in the cage with the others, but I want this one strung up by her wrists."

"You think she killed your coussssin?" asked one of the lower ranking guards.

"I don't give a shit if she did or not," Ocah snapped. "This wench infuriates me to no end. I will dole out her punishment myself."

An Ewani grabbed one of my arms on each side, dragging me through a short corridor. I tried to do my best to remember the way back to the cells. Right, left, left, then right. It would be reversed on the way back, but it wouldn't matter.

Right, left, left, right, I thought to myself, over and over again, trying to sear the pattern into memory.

They returned Mera to the cell and the other women looked up fearfully as the lights went on. Most of them were asleep.

"This is what happens when you try to escape," Ocah growled as the cage door opened. Four Ewani stood by with stun guns, waiting for any of the women to try and rush the open gate. They shoved Mera inside, giving her a long blast from the stun baton just to make her suffer.

Mera's scream tore at my soul, but she knew there was nothing I could do about it. She had already put herself firmly in harm's way as it was.

Two Ewani grabbed me and dragged me to the next cell, then threw sturdy chains up over a pipe thicker than my waist.

I cried out as they brutally fastened manacles onto my wrists, and screwed them on with small wrench-like devices.

"Make sure her toes are just barely touching," Ocah said. "We don't want her to dislocate her shoulders. Takes too long to heal before the auction."

The guards used a knife to split my shirt open down the back. I felt a gust of air on my exposed skin and shivered. Ocah took the gesture as one of fear and leered at me, brandishing a many bladed, thick hide whip.

"You are afraid? You should be."

I spat in his face.

"I'll never be afraid of you, rodent. You might as well kill me, because I'm never going to break."

He wiped the saliva off of his cheek, glaring at me. Then a smile spread over his furry face.

"Oh, I know you won't break, my dear." He laughed with a sinister edge. "But that's good. It means I can beat you until I get my fill, or my arm gets tired. Whichever comes first."

He walked around behind me. I gripped the chains and tried kicking out backward at him. He laughed, thinking it quite amusing.

The first crack across my back felt like razor blades dipped in acid had been drawn across my skin. In spite of myself, I cried out in pain.

"Now she doesn't sound so tough, does she?"

I looked at the faces of my fellow captives. I had to be strong for them. They had to know there was still hope.

I feared the pain, but I could manage it. I had an idea I'd heard from a Mondian freighter captain one night at the club.

I need to send my mind to a happy place. A joyous memory so golden the present can't touch me there…

The only problem was, I didn't have too many golden memories. Most of my life had been full of toil. There had been one day, though.

Years ago, so long ago, I had barely been old enough to sign my own contract, me and my friend, Lucia, had splurged and spent our food rations on chocolate ice cream. We had eaten so much of it we could barely move afterward, then had made the foolhardy decision to go out drinking.

The two of us danced all night, and then fell asleep watching the parade of people that passed through the Under.

Another sharp crack landed on my back, but this time, I kept my mouth clenched shut. A tiny groan of pain still escaped, but it was nowhere near as dramatic as before. Ocah hit me again and again, but I only made the tiniest of sounds.

I would stay safe in my memories, locked away from all of this.

"Scream, you misbegotten spawn of sewage," he sputtered. "Scream!"

But I would not scream, not even when I felt hot, wet blood running sticky down my back. Eventually, one of the guards stepped up.

"Bossss man," he said with some concern. "If you don't sssstop, you will scar her permanently. Then her priccce will go down."

Ocah snorted, and handed the whip off to one of his fellows.

"I'm bored anyway. Leave her there all night. We'll use a dermal regeneration unit on her in the morning. Let her be an example to the others about what happens when you harm your betters."