TAKEN

      Cassandra stopped fighting when she realized that no matter how hard she wriggled her body, she was not going to be able to escape her captors. She had gone completely blank when that huge man hit her and when she had woken up, she had seen herself in the middle of two hideous-looking men with big bald heads and tattoos even on their heads. She was scared but being stubborn, she won't let them see her fears. Even though she couldn't escape even if she wanted to, they still tied her all up. There were four men in the car with her, two in the front seats, and the other two were in the backseat with her, she didn't think she had seen the man that hit her into oblivion.

She didn't even know where she was being taken to, but she knew she was going to escape these people very soon, although she didn't know how that was going to happen. Then she remembered the gunshots she had heard back at their farmhouse and tears strolled down her cheeks. They killed her father.

                                        Heartless Eros Castillo.

       Where was he? She wanted to see him face to face. She was that girl that was going to kill him. The car rounded the corner and they pulled into a road surrounded by pecan groves on both sides, she looked back and saw another car behind them and another was in front of them. They got to a huge black gate which opened immediately as the cars approached and only then did she realize that the pecan grove they had been driving through was a driveway to the big mansion. As the cars drove into the vast compound, a lone tear trekked down her left cheek and it dawn on her that she had lost her freedom, maybe forever.

      She saw a man with a machine gun hanging across his chest standing by the gate. Why were all the men looking so hefty and cannibalistic? Perhaps, were they man-eaters too? She cautioned herself at the line her thoughts were trailing. The car finally came to a stop in front of a great white house with chimneys that seemed to touch the bright clear skies. The hefty men sitting in the backseat with her got out immediately and when they were about to open the door, the first car door opened and a tall, husky man stepped out. He wore a white cashmere coat with a black fedora hat that hid his face.

     Cassandra could tell he was the almighty Eros Castillo because it was only a man of his reputation that could walk with so much confidence as if he invented the aura, his sexiness was tearing through the cashmere coat, although she had not seen his face, for a reason, her eyes stayed on him as he walked into the magnificent house. Her eyes ran down all over his body and she saw his shoes, it was him who had hit her. One of the hefty men grabbed her and dragged her out of the car. Pain seethed through her body as she was dragged roughly away from the big house. The man in white cashmere went into the main building with some others. Then the man holding her took out a knife and the blade shimmered in the light of the sun.

Fear gripped her and her eyes dilated at the sight of the sharp object, she whimpered in pain and fear as the man brought the knife closer. In her bid to get away, she fell to the ground, because she didn't have the room to shake her body since her arms and legs were tied.

     "Please...Please...don't kill me," she begged. She had come with a glimmer of hope, knowing that someday, somehow, she would be free from them but she didn't expect to be killed on her first day. She didn't know that she was not going to even get a chance to try and escape.

       The man ignored her and squatted in front of her, grabbed her tied-up hands, and raised the sharp knife. She closed her eyes, ready to feel the fatal pain and die, but she heard the sound of a blade cutting into something instead. She opened her eyes and saw that he had cut the rope binding her hands together. She stopped crying but still went through spasms of tears. The man cut the ropes on her legs too and roughly dragged her up, but her legs wobbled because blood has not yet circulated to her bonded parts, the man didn't give a damn, he dragged her and she tried to wiggle out of his grip but his fist clamped her arm like iron.

He dragged her to the back of the big building where a shapeless structure of a house stood, he unlocked the door with one hand and shoved her into the place, closed the door, and locked it again. She quickly crawled to the door and began to bang on it, crying.

        "Open this door! Let me out! Let me out! You monsters!"

        "Weren't we all like that at first?" a female voice asked behind her.

She stopped and slowly turned her head to look behind. A hundred pairs of eyes stared back at her and she turned fully to see other girls of her age and even below her age, staring back at her.

"Just accept your fate and stop disturbing us," a green-eyed blonde scoffed.

"What?" Cassandra asked confused and looking at the different faces standing in front of her.

"You are a perpetual slave now, accept it and move on," the green-eyed girl said with a scowl and turned to leave.

The other girls scoffed and scowled at her too, turned away from her, and walked away. Cassandra didn't quite understand but she felt they were all carrying out their agitations on her. She was not the reason they were all here, was she? They left one after the other, leaving her standing there in confusion and helplessness. They all left and only one girl stood there looking at her. A girl with dark soulful eyes and pale skin with viscous curly hair. Her whole body ached and the least these other girls could do was give her a cold welcome, she had a feeling that it wasn't going to be fun here.

"Hi," the girl said tentatively raising her hand.

"Hi," Cassandra greeted back.

The girl walked up to her. "I am Lucia Andino."

"I am Cassandra Lopez."

"This place is rough and everyone is angry, but you can consider me a friend. I will help you get to know a lot of things here to help you avoid mistakes."

"Why? Why is everyone hostile?"

"I guess when you are denied your freedom for a long while, you sort for who to put your anger and negative energy on. Come, stay in our room for a while until the Chief comes back and assigns you a room," The girl started moving inside the hall.

Cassandra followed her. She had a lot of questions to ask, she needed answers, and she couldn't stay here. She was a girl engaged to marry, she had a life ahead, a life she had planned out for herself. She had planned to get married, have a family, and live happily ever after. Never for once has, she thought about being a perpetual slave. She was never going to be a perpetual slave. But even as she assured herself that, a part of her felt like she was just deceiving herself. Her father was dead, no one was going to pay the debt off and free her from there. Maybe Apollo would, but did he even know that she was here? Did anyone see what happened?

At that moment, she prayed that this particular bad news flies around so her fiance can be able to find ways to get her out of there. She also wished Ethel her neighbor who always feeds the public with the happenings in her household could spread her little news once again. The girl led her into a room with two bunks. The room was dark and stuffy, two other girls were lying on the other beds, and they totally ignored them when they came in.

"Excuse me," Cassandra whispered to the girl that has brought her in.

She turned and smiled at her. "Yes?"

"What exactly are we supposed to be doing here? I mean why are we held here anyway?"

"A lot of reasons. Some of us get lucky while others don't. Some are killed while some survive. We do a lot of jobs here."

Cassandra wasn't understanding any of what the girl was saying. "What do you mean by some get lucky?"

"Most of us are sold off to better people while some are sold to people just like Eros. Some of us are picked to work for sex and make money."

"Jesus Christ, this is serious...I can't work for sex."

"Why are you here then?"  Lucia asked.

"Nothing..."

"I mean, why did you get dragged here?"

"Well, my father owes him some money..."

The other two girls that were lying on the bunk beds and who completely seemed to be uninterested in their conversation suddenly snorted. Cassandra's eyes shifted to them. The brunette with brown eyes looked at her.

"Your kind are the ones to go into prostitution because you have to make the money your father borrowed."

"What?" Cassandra asked aghast.

"But there is only one way out of it," Lucia said. Cassandra looked at her. "Seduce me, night."

"What's that?" Cassandra asked, looking from one girl to another, and didn't fail to notice the hint of smiles on the faces of the girls. "What's that about?"

"It is a night when a girl is chosen by Eros to spend the night with him," the brown-eyed girl said dreamily. "New girls have a high chance of being picked, pretty girls like me have higher chances. If you spend the night with him and he likes you, he might keep you here and you would never have to do any prostitution work. You will just work here."

"I can't wait to be picked! It's tomorrow night!" the other girl who was petite and who was talking for the first time cooed.

Cassandra dropped to the bed in frustration, None of those options were good for her.

"Girls! Fall out!" A female voice rang out through the whole dorm.

The girls quickly stood up from their beds, leaving the confused Cassandra.

"Chief is here, Chief is here," she heard the girls murmur, and then she heard footsteps rushing past their room.

       She stood up and followed the girls who were rushing towards the voice.