Free Planet Urth: The Savage Lands (Book 2) by Jennifer Martucci, Christopher Martucci

hairs on my body stand at attention.  I freeze for a moment and hope against hope that my ears deceived me, that I did not just hear the strangled sound of a woman’s scream pierce the night.  The tortured shriek rings out again, and I know I did not imagine it.  I jump to my feet, adrenaline flooding every cell in my body, and dash out of the hut. 
    The moon is full and the light it shines is bright.  I am careful to stay in the shadows as I slip among the huts, though.  I do not know what I expect to see but know that I don’t want to be seen.  I do not come across a single person as I skulk farther away from the hut June, Will and the others occupy, none except for the two men patrolling the wall.  I glimpse them in the distance.  They do not appear to be alarmed in the least. 
    I start to turn and head back when I see a man make his way to one of the huts.  I assume he is returning there to sleep.  Still, I stay and watch.  He knocks at the door and another man answers.  When the man answers, the front of his body is on full display.  His shirt is unbuttoned and his pants are unfastened.  He speaks to the man who knocked in hushed tones, then begins zipping and buttoning his clothes.  He steps out and the man who knocked steps in.  He closes the door behind him.  I watch as the man who answered the door marches away between the huts until he is out of sight. 
    Beyond the door, I hear a man raise his voice.  I am pulled, as if by invisible strings, toward the hut.  I press my ear to the smooth wood and listen.  The rumble of the male voice is accompanied by panicked pleas and then a loud slapping sound.  I jump back away from the door in time to hear a female scream then sobs of misery.  My hand darts out, as if of its own choice, and is on the doorknob.  My heart is thudding in my chest, filling my eardrums with its fitful pounding, as I consider turning it.  But the empty scabbard at my back reminds me that I am unarmed, and therefore of no use to whomever is being hurt inside the hut. 
    I retract my hand and ball it into a fist.  I am unarmed for now, but do not intend to be for long.  I search the map my mind has made of the compound, drawing on old memories as well as new ones, and begin moving toward the cabinet in which my weapons are locked.  I take several steps but freeze in my tracks when the door to the hut opens suddenly.  
    I duck out of sight and crouch low beside a neighboring hut, out of the moonlight and swathed in sooty shadows.  I hold my breath and watch as the man who entered the cabin not long ago leaves.  He is buttoning his pants as he goes.  He twists his upper body and barks orders over his shoulder.
    “Now you keep your filthy mouths shut in there!” he warns before he shuts the door behind him. 
    I wait until he is gone then bolt toward the hut he just left.  I open the door and nearly lose the dinner I ate hours earlier at the sight I am confronted with.  Candle light flickers and casts a soft glow on the interior where four girls are nude.  Shackles bind their ankles and wrists and are hooked to lengths of chain that are fastened to thick posts in the ground.  One girl is crying.  Blood drips from her lip and angry welts mark her body.  Two appear to be no older than I am, and one looks as pregnant as my mother was when she was killed. 
    The room spins in lopsided circles for several turns, but it isn’t until a noise behind me sounds that the spinning grinds to a dizzying halt.  Large hands firmly grip my upper arms from behind.  I am spun and instantly met with a vaguely familiar face, one I saw at dinner hours earlier.  He is a large man with a long scraggly beard and hair to match.  He was one of the five seated at the table when we arrived in the dining hall.  He is crowding the doorway with his sizable frame.  I would not be able to make it past him even if he weren’t holding me. 
    “Hey there, little lady,” he greets me with a