Defaced: A Dark Romance Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

relieve herself, but didn’t want to call attention to herself in case it earned her another kick, or even worse. She could hold it for now. She hadn’t reached the same desperation that had made her wet herself the previous night, though if she had to, she’d do the same thing again. Hadn’t she read somewhere that wetting yourself was a way of deterring a rapist? She was amazed anyone would go anywhere near her at the moment, considering the way she stank.
    They hit some turbulence, and she gave a small cry of fear as the plane dropped suddenly, leaving her stomach far behind. But after what she estimated to be three or four hours, her ears began to pop, her stomach left somewhere above her as they started their descent.
    The plane touched down, but no one spoke to her or tried to move her. She heard noises from outside, and figured they must just be refueling. Within twenty minutes, the plane’s engines started back and they took off once more.
    The drone of the engine made her doze, though she fought against it. She tried to figure out where they might have traveled for her to have been in the plane for this amount of time. Were they still in the United States, or had they flown somewhere out of the country? She had no idea what direction they were headed, or if the next stop would even be her final destination—they might only land to refuel again or pick someone else up, for all she knew. She hated the uncertainty of it, the fear of the unknown. At least if she knew what she had to face, she could build herself up to be stronger.
    You do know what you have to face, she told herself. You’re being sold into a sex slavery ring. These men traffic girls, and you’ve become one of them.
    She knew this. She’d seen the girls and the men who were moving them, yet something still didn’t sit quite right with her. Perhaps she was simply in denial. Years of not being touched intimately meant she struggled to even imagine how it would feel to be taken against her own will ... not that she wanted to imagine.
    I’ll die, she thought. My mind will shut down to protect itself, and my body will give up eventually. I’m not strong enough to handle this.
    Yet she knew the body and mind could be surprising at times. Sometimes it was stronger than she could even fathom, though she didn’t want it to be. She didn’t want to live for years and years at the hands of an abuser.
    You won’t have to. He’ll get bored with you and kill you, and then move on to some other poor woman he’s paid to own.
    Eventually, they started their descent again.
    The plane landed with a couple of bouncing bumps, and then she experienced a drag of g-force as the landing brakes were applied. She slid backward again, banging against something behind her. She winced as pain spread through her back, her teeth clamped together. She was struggling to remember a time when some part of her body hadn’t hurt.
    The plane continued to motor along, before finally coming to a standstill.
    Lily waited, every muscle tensed. She curled up into as tight a ball as she could manage, as though doing so would make the men forget about her. But within a minute, heavy footsteps approached, and then fingers wrapped around her arms and she was yanked upright again.
    “Please,” she whimpered, though she wasn’t even sure what she was begging for anymore. “Please ...”
    The fingers dug harder into her flesh and gave her a shake. “Shut it.”
    Lily fell quiet and allowed herself to be half-carried, half-dragged from the body of the aircraft.
    The moment she was hauled from the plane, the heat hit her. Even the air had a different scent, something changed, unknown. A dry heat against her tongue, inside her nostrils. She’d never left the country before, but she was certain she had now.
    “You are late,” a new male voice said. She detected a foreign accent, but couldn’t place it.
    The man who had delivered her said, “Only by an hour. We had strong headwinds