Meeting

It was the screaming that woke me. Opening my eyes, I saw a woman screaming her head off on the bed next to mine. I opened my mouth to tell her to stop and closed it when I saw the rest of her body. Her belly was huge. She was pregnant.

There were two other beds in the room, all occupied with girls who were staring silently at the expectant woman. The room had a musky smell and no windows. It was probably why the dim lights had been left on. 

I tried to get up to help the woman and that was when I realized I couldn't. My legs were chained to the lower frame of the bed.

“Hey,” I said. 

The woman stopped screaming and stared at me for a few seconds before resuming. Now I understood why the other girls were just looking on. I fell back on the pillow and stared at the stained ceiling and walls. What happens in this room, I wondered as I scanned the stains of all colors spread all over the place.

The door opened and an elderly woman walked in, followed by two young women in maid's uniform who were carrying a basin and other supplies. They passed by me and placed the things on the floor. They headed towards the other girls and untied them. No sooner had they set their feet on the floor than they ran to the adjoining room.

One of the girls came and undid the chains on my legs. I stepped down and followed the other woman. I found one of the women holding her stomach and moving around in the bathroom. “Hurry up.”

The toilet flushed and the other girl came out. The second girl practically ran into the toilet, and I waited for my turn. When I was lying down, I had not realized just how full my bladder. 

The girl grabbed a towel and entered the bathroom without saying anything to me. 

I was finally able to have some peace when I went into the toilet. I could feel the excruciating pain in my back no matter how much I tried to ignore. There was no way I was going to let water touch it.

I was still enjoying my privacy when the screams started again. I finalized and left the toilet to see what was happening. The scene I found made me freeze at the door. The woman was giving birth. After seeing the head, I ran back to the restroom, already traumatized by the bloody sight I had just witnessed. It was nothing compared to the murder of my parents but scary in its own way.

I raised an eyebrow when the two girls came out of the bathroom together.

“What?” the tall one with dirty blonde hair said.

I shrugged and watched as they walked into the other room.

I could hear the cry of a baby. Tears welled into my eyes. That poor baby had no idea it had been brought into a terrible world. Considering that its mother was a captive, its future was not going to be very bright. Sad.

I was enjoying being alone until one of the girls came in with a basin full of blood and other human excreta. I ran out, feeling disgusted by the sight.

The woman was crying on the bed while the two girls tried to comfort her. The midwife and baby were nowhere to be seen. My twin siblings being separated from me was a heartless thing, but nowhere as heartless as taking a baby away from its mother. As I sat on my bed, I couldn't help but wonder what my fellow prisoners had been up to, and how they ended up there. Since I didn't know what to say, I just watched.

“Are you mute?” The blonde girl asked at length.

I shook my head. “I just don't know what to say.”

“What's your story?” she asked.

“My parents were killed in front of me, my siblings taken away and here I am. I have no idea where I am or who you all are.”

“It seems you don't care,” she continued.

“I do. My name is Cilla Markle, I will be 18 in a week's time and was looking forward to escaping to the human world with my best friend Jada but my father's betrayal of the pack was discovered before that. He's the reason I ended up here.”

“Well, since we may be stuck together for a while, I may as well introduce everyone to you. My name is Maryanne,” she pointed to her friend. “She is Angela and over here is Patricia. We have been holed up in here for over a year.”

“Where are we?”

“I don't know but the place is owned by a slave trader. The plan was to sell us after producing a child who would also be sold. It backfired. Only Patricia was able to get pregnant and they only let us remain to take care of her. Now that they've got a healthy baby, they will soon sell us all. I don't know if they will try to impregnate or sell you immediately. I have no idea which would be better, here or a slave owner's place.”

“This place is better because they try to keep us in good shape which means more money from buyers,” the other girl, Angela said. “If they left us to get extremely thin and ugly, we'd fetch less money for them.”

“How did you end up here?” I asked them.

“I killed a man who tried to force himself on me,” Angela said.

“I beat the beta's daughter,” Maryanne said. “The whipping I received nearly killed me. By the way, I saw yours yesterday.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I was just kidding.”

“Okay. What about her?”

Patricia had cried herself to sleep and was now snoring softly. She looked peaceful.

“Her husband used to beat her and when she threatened to report him, he harmed himself and accused her of doing it. He is a man. They believed him without a second thought. He even lied that she was planning to betray the pack and she got sold off. Poor woman. She's so innocent. It's sad she has to suffer like this.”

Indeed, it was.