Something is different today. She's heard all sorts of noises from upstairs over the months, from footsteps, to chatter and laughing, moaning and fucking and sometimes screaming. The rushed stomping of boots, curt male voices barking at one another, and the occasional ominous thud are like nothing she's overheard in all her time here. By now, though, Croía is numb to anything that might happen, and she just huddles further into the corner where the thin mattress meets the wall and pulls her threadbare blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her head tilts slightly so that she can listen to the commotion upstairs, but her eyes lack curiosity or hope or any kind of light whatsoever, staring at where her bare, dirty feet are pressed together, knees drawn to her chest.
Month One
Croía screams, only to have the sound promptly cut short as a rag is stuffed between her teeth, roughly shoved into the back of her mouth until the noise has shifted to a gurgling, choking cough. The burning pain in the muscle of where her neck and shoulder meet doesn't subside–if anything, it increases. Her vision is blurred by the tears streaking down her cheeks, and the metallic scent of blood fills her nose, only succeeding in making Croía cry harder. There's a knee pressed into her spine and bound arms, heavy enough that she can't feel her hands anymore, and another digging into the small of her back, pinning her mercilessly to the textured, grooved floor of a blacked-out van; her cheekbone is digging into one of the raised lips of the flooring, leaving an angry red abrasion across her face. Beside the man restraining her, his partner kneels beside them, his face fixed in concentration on whatever the fuck he's doing. Surprisingly, he had the basic decency to wear gloves. She thinks the worst of it is over when he pulls the blade away from her skin, but then the pain turns absolutely blinding when he jams his finger deep into the wound, and she screams against her gag in earnest, thrashing in a desperate effort for freedom before a hand falls firmly on her head, gripping her hair tightly and shoving her head back down against the floor. Croía screams and sobs and splutters until her assailant finally pulls back, and there's the sound of a window rolling down briefly as the van roars down the highway, no doubt discarding the tracking device that had been embedded in her flesh alongside the road. How they had any idea she was tagged in such a way, let alone where to find it on her person, she has no idea. Any trace of hope she may have had leaves her on the wind, gone with the tracker.
She doesn't know how, in the span of ten short minutes, she had gone from dancing and socializing to getting thrown into a van and having some psychopath cut a freaking hole into her neck. Ruarc never leaves her alone–not entirely, and she'd been accompanied by one of her regular guards to the bathroom. An attendant had been blocking the doors, however, telling them that the bathroom closest to the event hall was currently closed, and directed them to one much further away. Croía hadn't thought anything of it then, but when she'd stepped back out into the hall to find her guard replaced by a stranger, she hadn't even had time to scream. He'd simply slapped a hand over her mouth and dragged her out a side door, where the van and his comrades had been waiting. The whole thing had been planned, calculated, and executed with flawless efficiency. She wonders if Ruarc has even realized she's gone yet. Croía doesn't love Ruarc by any means, but he's never treated her like this, and if her choice is between these men or him, she'd pick her husband any day.
The rest of the drive is nearly silent, save for the sound of her heavy breathing and quiet sobbing. Eventually, the van rolls to a halt, and Croía's captors make quick work of dragging her into a lone, dilapidated house. It's so dark outside that she can't see lights coming from anywhere else, suggesting they're miles from civilization. Inside, and down not one set of stairs, but two, Croía is finally dropped to her knees in a dark, musty room. Her hands are moved and re-bound in front of her, connected to a length of light chain that's clipped and locked onto an eye hook in the wall. She's still crying when she watches them depart up the steep stairs, the door set into the ceiling rather than the wall. The dirt floor is cold beneath her bare feet–her shoes had disappeared during the initial scuffle–and the only source of light is one flickering, buzzing light bulb in the middle of the ceiling. She realizes, with a sort of hysterical despair, that they've locked her in a fucking cellar.
- - - - - -
Somehow, she manages to get a few hours of sleep, and when she wakes up, everything hurts. At first, she can't quite recall what happened or where she is, but as she lifts her hand to reach for her aching shoulder, she's met with the chafing resistant of the ropes keeping her hands bound, and it all comes rushing back. Croía whimpers softly and pushes herself into a seated position from the ball she'd been curled into on the thin mattress, the rusty springs of the metal bed-frame creaking beneath her weight. She raises her hands again to gently prod at her shoulder, wincing at the flare of pain and pulling her fingers back to see them glistening red in the low light. The thud of boots above her makes her jump, her wide eyes snapping up towards the door a few moments before it opens, flooding the space with light and causing her to lift her hands in front of her face against how blinding it is.
She's dragged out of her 'room' as unceremoniously as she'd been dumped into it, and no amount of pleas or terrified tears streaming down her cheeks convince them to give her any sort of answers about why she's here or what they want with her. Croía ends up in a room full of men with leering eyes, and then wandering hands as a new man steps up behind her, unzipping her dress without fanfare. Another is in front of her, holding her wrists so she can't go anywhere even as she struggles and cries, her face red and splotchy. He grabs her hair roughly, yanking Croía's head back against his chest so he can hiss in her ear to stop "being an uncooperative bitch if you want to live." That takes the fight out of her pretty quickly, though her lower jaw doesn't stop trembling when he drags her dress down her body, making certain his rough hands grope her breasts and hips on the way down–making certain she can feel that he's hard against her lower back. She has no idea how she's going to get out of all this, but Croía does want to live. She wants to see her children again. She has to.
Naked, she's pulled by her wrists over to a couch, where the man with a vice grip on her leash plops down onto the end cushion and promptly begins to unbutton his pants. A little whimper bubbles up in her throat and Croía shakes her head frantically, her eyes wide and panicked at the sight of him freeing his dick, but the man just chuckles darkly and yanks her roughly forward so that she tips over the couch arm, her face in his lap and her ass in the air. She panics, scrambling backwards only to be met with a hot body behind her and fingers sinking into her hips in a bruising grip. "Behave," the one who'd stripped her growls, fisting a hand in her hair and shoving her face back down to his friend's waiting cock. Couch Guy takes over control of Croía's head, one hand roughly in her hair and the other pinching her cheeks harshly until her mouth opens, allowing him to jam his dick between her lips. Choking audibly on the man driving into her mouth, her scream is completely internal and caught in her throat when the one behind her shoves the entire length of himself into her with one brutal thrust.
That first night is far from the last. She's only returned to her cell after the entire room of men has been satisfied, broken and bleeding in more ways than she can count. Her one and only silver lining is the fact that they'd finally untied her wrists, giving her the freedom to curl up on the bare mattress and sob until she passes out.
Month Three
She has no sense of time. There's no window down here, and that infernal light never changes, never quiets its ceaseless fucking buzzing. She gets fed sporadically, like they only remember to toss down food for their pet when they want to play–which is often. Not three meals a day often, but enough that she probably won't starve to death. Sometimes she wishes she would. Anytime she's brought upstairs to...service one (or more) of them, they bring her to a small bathroom with an even smaller utility shower first, always hosing her down with cold-as-fuck water (she's pretty sure because they love how it makes her nibbles pebble). Sometimes, they're even nice enough to provide her with a bar of soap. Apparently, they don't like their sex toys to be dirty. Granted, she only gets these showers before such an encounter, which means she gets to spend most of her hours alone and filthy and sticky with cum and saliva. She has no idea what they do with them, but they often take photos of her. She tries not to think too hard about where those pictures end up. Croía is pretty certain they're keeping other girls here too, but she's never seen them. Whether they're all kept separate or just her, she has no idea.
At some point, she'd stopped crying. She'd stopped fighting. She'd stopped...feeling, for the most part. It's easier to go numb than to let herself ache, or hope that there's a freedom from this hell. If Ruarc had any plan to come for her, he surely would have done it by now. If he wasn't part of this scheme, then he's certainly let it give him an out–heirs for free, without the burden of his unwilling, timid wife. She can't even blame him. The twins are better off without her anyway; they'll be stronger this way.
Month Four
"Fuck! HELP!" His voice, loud as it is and echoing around the small room, is only a distant ringing in Croía's ears. Her eyelids flutter sluggishly, and her heart has slowed to a crawl. Vaguely, she's aware of her arms being moved, and then pressure against her wrists. "Noo," she protests weakly, but her complaints fall on deaf ears, as they always do. Her body is moving next, hoisted into sturdy arms before they're ascending the stairs. Twin pools of red glisten faintly where she'd been laying, soaking slowly into the dirt. Consciousness slips away from her.
She'd spent days carefully deconstructing parts of her bed frame so they wouldn't notice, finally wiggling one of the rusty metal springs free. The rough stone wall had served a perfect purpose in sharpening the end of it, and once she'd had her crude weapon, Croía had no desire to turn it on anyone else. That had never been her intention. She just wanted it to be over. She should've known that was too much to ask for.
Month Six: Present Day
They'd taken away the bed frame after that. Now her paper thin mattress sits on the dirt floor. Despite the fact that she'd miraculously survived her attempt on her life, Croía never really came back after that. She let her mind slip away, buried somewhere so deep that she might as well be dead for how human she appears. Why they bother anymore, she has no fucking clue.
Her arms are folded over her bent knees, thumbs idly rubbing at the raised scars that mar each of her wrists. Whatever is going on upstairs gets louder and more chaotic. Gunfire starts to resound through the house, and her vacant eyes flick towards the light bulb on the ceiling, watching it sway on its chain from the vibrations. Shivering, Croía rests her chin on her knees, lifting a hand to absently trace over the pockmark scar on her shoulder.
At first, she doesn't realize that it's gone quiet. It registers slowly, with an animalistic tilt of her head, that the gunshots, the bangs, the yelling has stopped. Now there's only footsteps, pounding through the house. Opening doors. Barking low orders.
The door above the stairs rattles. Thumps. Opens. She raises a hand against the light, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet, but Croía is otherwise still and silent where she crouches in the far corner. Heavy footsteps thump down the stairs, and a man she doesn't recognize appears, pausing at the base to slowly look around until he spots her. Croía curls a lip in warning, baring her teeth like some wild thing. He only lifts his hands placatingly, like he's trying to seem non-threatening as he turns his head to the side and calls up the stairs, "Boss."
Croía tenses, her eyes flicking rapidly between the man and the stairs behind him. Boss? Who the fuck is Boss?
She gave up hope so long ago that it doesn't even cross her mind that it isn't her damnation coming, but salvation.