Free Web NovelChapter 106: Chapter 106 - Waiting
Iyisha came back to herself with a violent jolt, breath tearing into her lungs as if she had been dropped from a height, her body jerking hard enough that the wire bit into her shoulder, pain flaring sharp and immediate, grounding her in a way nothing else could.
She did not know if she had slept or if her mind had simply shut off to survive.
There was no sense of how much time had passed.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
The first thing she registered was sound.
Sobs.
Broken. Gasping. Ragged enough that at first she thought it was her own breathing echoing back at her, some delayed aftershock of panic still trapped in her chest, but then another sound cut through it, lower, strained, followed by a sharp intake of breath that ended in a choked whimper.
Her stomach dropped.
Her hands moved before she realized she was doing it, fingers skimming down her arm, flinching when she touched a tender patch along her forearm. Purple bloomed there beneath her skin, ugly and deep, the shape of fingers unmistakable. Her pulse thudded loud in her ears as she looked down at herself properly for the first time.
She was dressed.
A silk dress clung to her skin, smooth and soft and completely wrong, pale fabric catching the firelight with a sheen that belonged in a world that no longer existed. It covered her shoulders, fell loose over her knees, elegant in a way that made her chest tighten with revulsion. Someone had put this on her. Someone had decided this for her.
Her breath sped up again.
She lifted her head slowly, dread creeping up her spine as the sobs grew louder, closer, impossible to ignore now. The room around her came into focus in fragments.
A woman.
She was bent over a table, hands braced against the polished surface, her body shaking violently as three men crowded around her, their silhouettes blocking the light, their movements deliberate and controlled.
The woman continued to cry in anguish while the men were laughing.
Raping her.
One of them had a hand twisted in her hair. Another leaned close enough that his shadow swallowed her completely.
Iyisha froze.
Her heart slammed so hard it hurt, each beat a sickening thud that seemed too loud, too exposed. Her breath caught halfway in, chest locking as if her body understood before her mind could catch up that making a sound might make this worse.
The woman cried out again, a sound ripped straight from the chest, raw and animal, and something inside Iyisha cracked wide open.
She wanted to shout. Tell them to stop.
But instead she forced the sound back down before it could escape.
Drawing attention meant becoming next. Her body understood that with brutal clarity.
She stayed still.
A coward but she rather be called a coward than meet the same fate.
Yet she know that she could be the next anytime. Her body shuddered in fear.
Her eyes moved instead, slow and careful, taking in the room without lifting her head too much, afraid even that motion might be noticed. She was not in the bathroom anymore. She was back in the living room.
Crates lined the space.
Metal wire. Reinforced. Placed deliberately, not crowded but arranged, like displays. Three others sat nearby, each holding a woman curled inside her own cage, dresses clinging, knees drawn tight, bodies angled inward as if trying to fold themselves small enough to disappear.
One of them was sobbing silently, shoulders shaking, hands pressed to her face.
Lauren. She was facing away from her clutching her stomach.
Another stared ahead with glassy eyes, lips parted, breath shallow, not blinking at all.
The third had her head bowed, hair hanging forward, fingers knotted together so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
The woman closest to her shifted.
It was small. Almost nothing. Just enough to draw Iyisha’s eye.
"Pretend to sleep," the woman murmured, voice barely there, shaped like breath instead of sound.
Iyisha turned her head a fraction, careful, slow.
The woman smiled.
Not kind. Not comforting. A crooked, knowing curve that sat wrong on her face, eyes too bright in the firelight, like something inside her had snapped and kept going anyway. Gray threaded her hair at the temples, streaks that caught the light when she tilted her head, age pressed into the lines around her mouth, around her eyes, but there was sharpness there too, a survivor’s edge worn down to something feral.
"They like their women fighting," the woman whispered, lips barely moving now. "Gives them something to enjoy."
Iyisha’s stomach clenched hard, nausea rising fast and hot, but before she could react, before she could even look away, footsteps sounded from deeper in the house.
Heavy. Unhurried.
The older woman’s eyes flicked past Iyisha and she closed them instantly, face slackening, body going loose as if sleep had claimed her in a single breath. Iyisha followed a heartbeat later, lashes lowering, muscles forcing themselves to still even as panic surged under her skin.
A voice cut through the room.
"Daniel."
It came from somewhere inside the house, calm and carrying, the kind of voice people obeyed without question.
The men near the table stopped laughing.
Iyisha could still hear it though. That sickening rhythm. The steady wet thump of movement. The woman’s whimper breaking and breaking again, never quite stopping.
"Cyborg is coming tomorrow," the voice continued, closer now, measured. "To take the rest."
No one answered.
The footsteps turned away, retreating back into the house, fading piece by piece until only the fire remained, crackling softly like it did not know what it was warming.
The older woman’s eyes opened again.
She turned her head just enough to look at Iyisha, that same crooked smile returning, wider now, edged with something that felt like pity twisted into mockery.
"They’re coming for us tomorrow," the woman murmured.
She tilted her head slightly, that crooked smile returning, eyes flicking once over Iyisha’s body before looking away again.
"That’s plenty of time," she added softly.
The words landed heavy and deliberate, settling deep, sinking in slow and poisonous.
Iyisha did not answer.
She stared ahead, eyes burning, heart pounding so hard she was afraid they would hear it, the truth settling into her bones with devastating clarity.
No.
Not like this.
Not here.
Her fingers curled slowly around the wire, nails pressing into metal until the cold bit back, until the pain anchored her to something solid. Her breathing shook, shallow and controlled by force alone, but inside her chest something braced instead of collapsing.
Malcolm.
The name did not feel fragile. It did not feel like a wish whispered into nothing. It landed heavy and sure in her mind, a weight she could lean against when everything else threatened to give way.
He would come.
She held onto that thought like a blade hidden against her skin, sharp and secret, something that belonged only to her. Even as the room filled with soft sobs and the fire cracked low and steady, even as the night stretched cruelly onward, she pressed that certainty deep into her chest and locked it there.
No one else could hear it.
No one else could take it.
Malcolm would get her out.
He would come.
And save her.
