Free Repossession (The Keepers Trilogy) by Rachael Wade Page B

breathed deep, aware I’d have to make my message clearer.
    My fingers dropped to the knot in my shirt and I slowly began to unravel it, pulling it up and over my head the second it fell loose. Reaching out, I offered them the shirt. The dry air caressed my bare skin and I quivered under their zealous gazes.
    “Skylla!” Jet flew to my side in a cloud of fury, snatching the shirt from my fist before they could accept the offer. He shoved me behind him and brought himself nose–to-nose with the men’s ringleader. “We’ll handle this another way.”
    “Go on, boys.” The man smiled widely at Jet. “Cuff him.”
    “What? No!” The men moved in and Jet started throwing punches, each crack of his fist escalating the scuffle until he was kicked to his knees, forced to kneel at their mercy. “Skylla, jump! Fucking jump, right now. Don’t do this!”
    “Hands on your head,” one of the men shouted, sending a sharp blow to Jet’s temple when he refused to comply.
    “It’ll be okay,” I whispered, cringing when one of the men delivered another kick to his gut. I shot forward. “Stop it! Fucking stop, or the deal’s off.”
    The men cuffed him, then backed off, letting their friend take the lead again. “So you’re in need of antibiotics?” he asked, his excited eyes snapping to my bare chest. I crossed my arms to cover my breasts, my skin crawling at the sight of his appraisal.
    “Yes.”
    “I think that can be arranged. Right this way, honey.” He bowed with a filthy grin, motioning me to follow him. I obeyed, stepping forward to follow his lead, my eyes squeezing shut with unshed tears as Jet’s voice roared behind us. The men picked him up and dragged him away while the ringleader led me into the next car. The metal door slammed shut, separating me from Jet’s pleas and shouts. In seconds, his cries were fully drowned out by the brutal pounding in my head, a deafening drum, coercing me to shut my brain down. To give in to the numbness. It’d be the only thing to get me through this alive. And I had to make it out of this alive. Jet needed those antibiotics.
    It was life for a life, and I’d been keeping score. It was my turn to pay up.

FIVE
    A tired moan pushed through my lips when I felt something nudge my leg.
    “Get up,” a man’s voice said. It was rusty and unfamiliar, a hollow echo somewhere in the back of my brain. “Come on, move it.”
    My eyelids stirred and I shifted to sit up, the pounding in my head a ferocious tattoo. It thumped against my skull as I opened my mouth to speak. “What’s going on?” My voice was shaky.
    “You’re done here,” the man’s voice said, nudging me again with his boot. He dropped a plastic bag on my lap and disappeared. My eyes finally adjusted to the light, and I was surprised to find the train car so lit up. The lighting was low, but everything was visible. Single mattresses were lined up against the walls of the car, much like the ones Jet and I had shared in the Black Hole.
    My heart jumped against my ribcage when I spotted them.
    Women. Women, lying on the other mattresses, covered in blankets, just like me.
    The warm, already suffocating air reached in closer and began to claw at my throat. The rickety motion of the train wheels moving beneath me sent my blood pressure soaring. I couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, could only stare at the scene around me. Some of the women were alone. Some were joined by men, who hovered over them. Others were paired with more than one man.
    My stomach rolled and I stumbled to my feet. I was going to be sick.
    Keeping the blanket wrapped tight around me, I spotted my jeans, shirt, and boots on the floor behind me and bent to scoop them up, my fingers shaking uncontrollably. A soft moan and muffled scream reverberated throughout the car. Quiet sounds, but they pierced my ears with a sharp slicing. My vision blurred with hot tears. I reached down to retrieve the plastic bag and clumsily rushed through the train