Unknown- A Criminal Minds Fanfic

Chapter 46- The More Reserved Type

The next twenty-one hours were the longest and shortest twenty-one hours I had ever sat through.  Though there wasn't a lot of sitting going on, I kept getting up and pacing the small width of my cage, peering through the chain-links at the other girls and every time I heard a noise in the hallway.

No one was let out to use the bathroom or offered food, but three more times some of the men came and took more girls.  Two of the three were dragged away screaming, but only one of the three came back.  Pitiful whimpers interspersed with tears echoed through the hall for a few hours afterwards until she finally fell asleep.  

For some reason all the subtle noises of girls trapped in cages reminded me of a pound, full of largely abused and unwanted animals.  It was sick how the only escape was when some perverted man with a lot of money came to buy us like livestock.

Despite trying my best to ignore it, the throbbing in my head from getting hit with the butt end of a gun made me drowsier than the pain pills I hadn't taken in over a week. I suppose the still healing concussion from my encounter with Mr. Skinner didn't help matters any, so eventually I just succumbed and dropped onto the dingy mattress, stupidly letting myself drift off.

Only to be very rudely awakened by two men grabbing my arms and hauling me to my feet.

I let out a wordless shout and elbowed one of them in the stomach, punching the other in the face.  The one I'd elbowed doubled over so I followed with a knee to the groin, only to have the one I'd punched grab me from behind, squeezing me tightly and pinning my arms to my sides so all I could do was squirm.  I had momentarily forgotten that I wasn't supposed to know martial arts, but upon moving, a bass drum had started playing in my skull, each beat further blurring out my vision so I could no longer do much else to get away, anyways.

Without loosening his grip, the man dragged me out of my cage and down the hallway and by the time I had stopped physically moving, and my eyesight had ceased making everything look like a mirage, I realized I was sitting in a cold metal chair, both wrists handcuffed to the arms.

It was freezing in here, colder than the cages, but that may have been because they'd dragged me from sleep, or at least the semi-conscious terror-ridden nightmare both inside my head and out that passed for sleep.  

I tried to ignore the goosebumps raising across my skin as I glanced around the room, squinting against the bright fluorescent lights hanging overhead.  This room was considerably...cleaner than the cages, for obvious reasons.  Aside from the two men that had so kindly escorted me here, I also recognized the owner of the strip club and his right-hand man, Brady, standing off to the side with three other men in nice suits, observing me appraisingly.

I glowered as one of them walked towards me, tipping my chin up with a finger and turning my head from side to side, examining my face before glancing over the rest of me.  I stayed silent.  Like the owner of the strip club had said upon discussing my abduction, some of his clients liked the more "reserved" type.

The man stepped back, and one of the other two standing off to the side asked casually, "How does she handle pain?"

"Why don't we show you?" the owner of the strip club--presumably he ran this branch of the sex trafficking ring, too--remarked, glancing at Brady who nodded and then strode over, standing menacingly in front of me.

I had taken down men his size before with just my bare hands, but I currently couldn't see straight and was handcuffed to a chair so I'll admit I was a little intimidated.  But I was supposed to be, I was an innocent country girl and these men didn't expect me to be anything more, though I did notice them glancing curiously at the man I had punched in the face when he'd dragged me in here because his nose had started bleeding.

I didn't even see the palm flying at me before it hit, but the stinging slap was enough to jar me out of the stupor I'd been caught in for the past ten hours since I'd woken up here.  Regrettably the only thing I could process more clearly now was the pain from all of my still healing injuries, much of which was only made worse by the fresh ones Brady was currently inflicting on me. It was mostly hard slaps though he did sock me in the jaw and twisted my arm at a highly uncomfortable angle only made worse by the handcuffs, but the only thing I allowed myself, albeit somewhat involuntarily, to do was wince.  No screams, no tears, no whimpers even though the abuse sent eyes smarting.

One of the men off to the side nodded approvingly, and I resisted an urge to shudder.  This whole ordeal was absolutely repulsive.

Brady stopped, straightening up and then taking a few steps away from me before selecting a blade from a table right by where the men were standing.  One of them raised his eyebrows, and when Brady turned around and the glaring light glinted off it, I understood why.  It was slender, long, and sharp.  Almost like a needle, but considerably larger.

My stomach clenched and then I was back in a dark room, a single bulb dancing above my head.  My vision focused in on the blade being brought closer and closer to my skin, and my breathing felt funny. I kept gasping to draw breaths, but they weren't deep enough to fill my lungs and clear the cloudiness seeping over my brain.  It vaguely occurred to me that I was probably hyperventilating, maybe going into shock from the raw similarity of this event to the torture that had happened nowhere nearly long enough ago.

A case, a case.  I was just undercover for a case, I could handle this.  My breathing slowly returned to normal, but then hitched when a splitting pain shot through my arm, followed by another and another in slightly different locations.  I could handle this, it was just minor cuts, nothing like the stitched scars still stretched across my skin.

This was my first chance to see the buyers, the men who somehow had enough money to make this horrible business lucrative, and one of the buyers could be the other agent.  I glanced past Brady who was casually spinning the blade in his hand, circling around me like a vulture with a slender metal beak.

The pen, I needed to find the chunky black and silver pen I had carried with me consistently for a week, that was the pocket litter to help me identify the agent.  I scanned the breast pockets on the three buyers' suit coats, and I spotted it on the guy to the left, standing closest to the strip club owner by the table of torture instruments. He was the one who had raised his eyebrows at the knife Brady was--

I let out a yell, he had taken me by surprise and sliced the blade across my cheek and I could feel a bead of blood sliding down my skin like a drop of warm water.  At my yell, I noticed the look of hunger in the eyes of the other two buyers. 

I was just reserved enough to pique their interest.  Disgusting.