Loya gritted her teeth and breath through her nose to lessen the pressure built up by fear in her chest.
Finally, the buggy clattered to a stop. Loya held her breath as the soldiers jumped down and began barking orders.
She recognized the commander’s voice as she assembled the women.
Every seven years, fifty female commoners were marched through the village to the very outskirts. They had always wondered where the women were taken. She was about to find out.
Faith leaned forward and lifted the end of the tarp where they’d hidden. When she turned back to face Loya, an unusual expression crossed her face.
“What?” Loya asked in a hushed whisper.
“We are in the next village.”
Loya frowned. “I thought it was forbidden to leave our village and the god’s protection?”
A look of discomfiture crossed Faith’s pointy features and she shrugged. “I’m going down to take a look.”
Loya shook her head violently. “The hell you are. If the commander sees you…if you’re caught. You will be killed.”
Faith gave her a cold smile. Loya braced herself, knowing something really unpleasant was about to fly off her friend’s mouth. Sometimes, she didn’t know they became friends. Underneath, the cloak of friendship was an undeniable tension. It like a divide, one they both knew existed. If either of them crossed that line, they’d become enemies.
Loya had no intention of being Faith’s enemy.
Not because the other girl scared her, or because she was stronger, which she was. But because Faith needed her but didn’t know it.
“Do you want to stop me?” Faith asked softly, with menace.
Loya swallowed and shook her head. “But we should talk about this. If you’re--”
“Then I die!” Faith’s outburst shocked both girls into silence. “But I’m a commoner, of no worth. No one would miss me.”
Loya clenched her fists. “I would.”
Faith licked her lips and turned away. “I didn’t ask you to. Neither did I ask you to come. These are my people out there--”
Loya lost it. She forgot they were in hiding. She forgot about getting caught. She only wanted to shake some sense into her friend. “DO. NOT. GIVE. ME. THAT. You’re a commoner and so what. I do not care what labels we’ve been given but we’re both human beings.”
Faith laughed softly and rocked back on her heels. She cocked her head to the side. “Really?”
Loya sighed. She was wasting her time talking sense into Faith. “Yes.”
Faith leaned forward. “You people have food, shelter…connection, and hope. While we have nothing. Every seven years we are sacrificed to make sure you continue living the good life. So do not give me that shit.” She raised an eyebrow and a familiar glint entered her eyes. “I didn’t ask you to come. You will remain here while I find out why fifty of MY people are being taken out of the village to the next town every seven years.”
Without waiting for a reply, Faith slipped out. Loya watched as she wiggled her way out of the tarp and landed smoothly on all fours on the ground. She would follow of course. No way, was she going to sit here and wait for Faith’s return. She didn’t care if she was caught. Faith might need her.
Loya followed, landing ungainly on sprawled legs and nearly breaking her big toe. She caught her legs with both hands, pressed her forehead to the ground and bit back a moan, waiting for the pain to pass. Sometimes, she wished she wasn’t who she was. The commoners were stronger, smarter and more everything than the Royals.
And it wasn’t their fault.
When a man has been given everything he needs, so he wants for naught, then he has nothing to fight for. There would be no point being strong or smart of wily because your life didn’t need those skills.
Call her stupid, but Loya didn’t want easy. She wanted the choice to choose between easy and difficult. That was one thing the royals and the commoners had in common.
No choice.
They were both living the life they’d been dealt.
Loya glanced around. She hobbled to a tree, and peered around it, just in time to see the soldiers leading the fifty women in a single file into the neighboring town.
Loya searched for Faith but didn’t see her.
“She better not do anything stupid,” Loya muttered under her breath. Careful not to put pressure on her foot, she followed the unsuspecting soldiers from a safe distance.
No one looked back, if they had, she would have been caught. Her pants of exertion alone would have given her away.
Into the town they went. The women were ushered into a building and Loya’s breath seized. Will they be killed? But why bring them all the way here when the killing could easily have been done in their village?
The commander barked out an order and the soldiers quickly fanned out. One of the soldiers ran towards her. Loya retreated just in time. She pressed a fist to her pounding heart to still its wayward racing, sure the soldiers could hear the sound from their position a few feet away.
She waited with bated breath. When nothing happened, Loya let out a painful breath, took in another lungful and let it out again.
Fear held her immobile. She was so scared of moving forward that her legs remained rooted to the spot. Loya closed her eyes. Perhaps, mother was right and her friendship with Faith would only lead to her ruin.
See the position this escapade had put her in? And Faith was nowhere to be found.
She should just return to their hiding place. Later she could beg Faith to tell her everything.
“You people have food, shelter…connection, and hope. While we have nothing. Every seven years we are sacrificed to make sure you continue living the good life. So do not give me that shit.”
Loya’s eyes flared open at Faith’s words.
She inched towards the building. Heart pounding an erratic beat and a sickening ball of fear tight in her throat, Loya took a vantage position close to the windows and stopped to catch her breath.
She peered in and froze.
The women lay on their backs, legs forced wide open and tied to stirrups while a file of men took turns fucking them.
Apart from the time she’d stumbled on two horses coupling, Loya had never seen the sexual act in such glorious, living color.
She tore her eyes from the sight of the male member tearing its way between one of the women’s legs. When she raised her head, her eyes met the woman’s. Loya froze again.
It was Hannah, the water seller. Oh, god.
Tears made their way in rivulets down the sides of her face into her hair even as the man between her legs thrust away.
Loya couldn’t take her eyes away from her pain-etched features.
“What are you doing here?” Faith’s hushed voice nearly gave tore her heart right out of her chest.
“Quickly, let’s go!”
Loya’s eyes widened. “But we can’t leave them here.”
Faith gave her a look of disbelief. “What do you want to do? Fight the soldiers? Kill the commander? And if by some miracle you manage that, what do you think will happen to you, to us?”
Loya grabbed Faith’s by the collar of her shirt and shook her with all her strength. “Hannah is there, damn you.”
Faith smiled even as her gray eyes darkened with emotion. “And Sarah, Morgan, Martha, Fila, Sheila, Brigie, Laza--”
Loya’s fingers went limp, her shoulders dropped and she stared at the ground in shame. The only woman she knew there was Hannah. And the only reason she knew Hannah was because Faith introduced them three days before.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Faith leaned forward. “Should I fucking go on?”
Loya shook her head mutely.
“The commander has been paid--”
Loya blinked in confusion. “P-p-paid?”
“We need to go now!”
Minutes later huddled in their hiding place beneath one of the tarps, they listened as the women were lined up in a single file beside the buggy.
Soon, they moved off.
Loya fixed unseeing eyes at the tarp. “I can’t, Faith. I can’t forget, I can’t unsee what I just saw. Don’t make me.”
Faith laughed mirthlessly. “I don’t have to do anything. Immediately, you return to your good life, I guarantee you will forget.”
Loya eyes slid closed in exasperation. “Remind me why we are friends again?”
Faith gave a forced shrug. “I have no idea.”
Loya’s heart squeezed at the pain Faith struggled and failed to hide.
It’s because you need me, and you don’t know it.
Thanks for reading.
All images are from Pixabay
