WOOT WOOT! ALL OF CHAPTER 8 IS HERE!
This chapter still goes out to Codekiki12 and Ayushi92. They both sent me a PM telling me I should get my shit together already and update soon, and then I wrote and published the first half of this chapter. Then, while I was away on a hiking/climbing holiday in the Alps, they both sent me a PM again. Basically, when I got back, I read them and that caused me to write and edit and improve the fic all night long. And so, thanks to them: here's the entire chapter 8! Thanks girls :) Love ya~
Enjoy!
"Ana, Oli, Sascha, Tanya," the guard called out. The girls, rising as their names were called, glanced at each other quickly. Sascha noticed Oli making a face at her friend, a strikingly beautiful redhead. The redhead gave Sascha, Tanya and Ana a quick once-over, then whispered something in Oli's hair. Oli frowned, then nodded however reluctantly. Sascha didn't blame the tall, slightly chubby girl at all for being reluctant. If she had been the one who had to work with three people who clearly were each other's friends, but not yours, she herself would have been just as reluctant to. Then again, Sascha reflected grimly, although Oli may not have realized it, she was in fact quite lucky. If Sascha, Ana and Tanya had not been the ones to be scheduled with her but three more ill-tempered, cruel girls instead, she would have been in far more trouble than she was right now.
The four girls slowly, carefully, walked their way along the metal tables, occasionally bumping into others. Once or twice, they would have fallen if not for their hands sliding along the backs of the chairs for support. The ship seemed to be lurching more than it usually did today, Sascha noted, and she wondered why that could be. Once the four of them were gathered at the end of the room, where the rusty sink was, they got to hear what exactly it was they had to do. Meanwhile, the other girls filed out of the room and into the dormitory. In the distance, Sascha heard some surprised gasps and a few yells. Worried about what the hell might be going on, she focused on the guard, who was explaining what the girls were supposed to do.
"One of you has to go pick up the dishes from Vlad's quarters. Another one of you will wash the dirty plates of both the girls and the boss. Make sure the boss's plates and glasses are squeaky clean and whatever you do, don't break anything or you will suffer the consequences. The other two have to dry the plates."
"Dry the plates with what!?" Tanya asked loudly, a rebellious glint in her eyes. "I don't see any towels around, and I'm not planning on drying it with my hair or whatever, no thank you sir!" She obviously didn't like being bossed around. Both Ana and Sascha shot her a sharp look, while Oli simply froze. The three of them unconsciously pulled their heads down and their shoulders up, their faces slightly scrunched up as if waiting for a punishing blow; the guards did not take kindly to girls being rude. Instead of hitting Tanya, threatening either her alone or all four girls with a gun or shouting, as they had expected, the guard just wrote something on a notepad. Sascha hadn't given it much thought until then, but it she had seen little black notepads like that one on all the guards. It seemed all of them had suddenly been equipped with one, though she was sure the notebooks hadn't been there before.
When the guard turned away to show where the towels were, the little black notepad still open in his hand, she decided to take a quick peek at it over his shoulder. What she saw made her brows furrow in surprise. It was a table, she realized, the columns labelled after crimes. During the few seconds she had, Sascha managed to make out 'Fighting', 'Speaking Russian' and 'Being Rude'. The rows were labelled with names. Sascha recognized only a few, but that was enough. In the checkbox where the row labelled 'Tanya' crossed the column labelled 'Rude', there was an X.
They're recording all our crimes!, she realized. Following that line of thought, she figured that all guards probably had the same table, and at the end of the day would compare them. But why start now? It didn't make any sense. It was a smart system, it made sure every little error would be seen, noted, and punished accordingly. Perhaps Vlad hadn't thought of it until that very morning or perhaps the days before? No, that couldn't be it. Vladimir Ivanov was way too clever to have missed something like that. It didn't make sense. Why was everything changing now? Being called out of the Dark Room with the promise of a 'surprise', the changes in policy, the heavier lurching and rolling of the ship... Sascha could only make one thing of it.
They had regularly stopped to pick up Vlad's newest 'assets', but Sascha was guessing they wouldn't be anymore. Tanya and Ana had been the last of the girls to be picked up. They were out at sea and Vlad was taking his preparations up a notch. That was the 'surprise'. Had to be.
Sascha felt ridiculously happy having figured something out. It might not have been much of an important discovery, figuring out that they were at sea and that a big change was coming, however it did give her and her friends some sort of security. At least now they had a snippet of information none of the others had, and after all the saying 'knowledge is power' still held true. Even on an old, large ship filled with abandoned girls.
"You," Oli said, "Go get Vlad's dishes. I'll stay here with the twins and get started on our plates."
Ana glanced at Sascha fearfully.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to eat you," Oli told her impatiently. "Grab a towel or something and get this done so we can get back to the others." Sascha, in a good mood from figuring something out, added 'she truly won't eat you guys, she looks like a vegetarian to me' to that statement, winked at the twins to lift their spirits, and dashed into the corridor leading to Vlad's quarters. Aliya had pointed it out to her earlier.
Sascha neared a door, positioned at the end of the hallway. There were two armed guards present, one with pockmarks all over his face and one with an ugly scar on his left check. They looked at her with anything but smiles on their faces. Sascha didn't have a clue why they were there; who would possibly both want to hurt Vlad out on the sea and more importantly, have the means to do so? It was probably merely a display of his power, she decided. Either that or he was afraid of his girls, which somehow didn't seem very likely to her.
"What are you doing here?" Pock Mark asked. Scar Face had apparently decided to let his buddy do the talking, as he just stood watching with a grim expression.
"I'm here to pick up the dishes," she answered as politely as she could, not daring to provoke them. If she was right about this new system, she didn't want her name to appear in those books more than absolutely necessary.
"Go in," Park Mark said, and Sascha slipped past him, leaving the door open so she wouldn't need to reopen it when she returned with an armful of plates.
Looking around Vlad's quarters, the first thing she noticed was that there were some girls around, all skinny and scantily clad. She second and third things she noticed were that Vlad wasn't there and that Gabbe was, unfortunately positioned right between Sascha and the dinner table. The tall junkie, noticing Sascha like a vulture noticing its prey, walked right up to her before Sascha could even think about avoiding her.
What are you doing here, punk?" Gabbe hissed. "These are Vlad's quarters, which means, which means that you are not allowed to be here. You bet I'm gonna report this! Sneaking around like a little thief, are ya? One might think you were up to something..."
Sascha froze. If Gabbe was going to accuse her, she knew she would be in big trouble. Even if what Gabbe was saying wasn't true. She shuddered. Sascha started to explain, telling the truth and hoping against all hope that Gabbe wouldn't press it any further.
No such luck.
"And I'm supposed to believe that?" Gabbe nearly shouted. Mostly so the other whores could overhear, Sascha supposed. "That's the worst excuse ever!" In a much lower voice, she added "and don't think for even a moment that I care whether it's true or not. Vlad doesn't know about the chore schedules and a good blowjob or two will make the guards do anything I tell them to. You're screwed anyway. Unless..."
Sascha kept her expression carefully blank. Once she was sure her hatred wouldn't seep into her voice, she asked the question she already knew the answer to. "Unless what, Gabbe?"
"Unless I decide not to tell Vlad. But you'll owe me. You won't be loyal to Vlad anymore, even though you'll have to pretend to be in order to survive. You, Sascha, you will be my," Gabbe dug her fingers into Sascha's bicep as hard as possible, leaving little red half moons where her nails had cut the skin, "personal," Gabbe brought her face to within an inch of Sascha's, "slave."
Sascha, her teeth clamped together against the pain radiating from her arm, angrily muttered the one word she knew would mean her death. No way was she gonna let this... this bitch own her! Alexandra Anastasia Udinov was no one's slave!
"Never."
"Don't be so sure," Gabbe hissed angrily as she let go of Sascha's arm. "Vlad will hear of this. And with the new system..." The junkie seemed to look almost frightened. "He pulled the same thing on the girls when I came to America. Let's just say I'll have you right where I want you to be soon. On the ground, the lowest of the low, crawling, begging for mercy at his feet."
"Why?" Sascha challenged. "What makes you think I will? Is that what he made you do, Gabbe? Did you once crawl at his feet begging for mercy? Is that what has turned you into the obedient, manipulative, cruel bitch you are today?" Without giving any attention to Gabbe's face, which was filled with rage, Sascha shouldered her way past her and further into the luxurious room. The metal everywhere had been hidden, mostly, by carpets, paintings, a relatively large round window. Sascha gravitated to that window almost against her will. Daylight! Fresh air! She had missed it so much. That's what she used to love most about the forest. The cool shadows, and the fresh air, which carried the sweet scent of decaying leaves and pine needles. The way little animals could be heard scurrying out of sight, but never seen. The way sunlight, green from being filtered through the leaves, hit the ground, the light spots moving as the trees swayed with the wind. That sense of freedom she only got when running through a pile of dried leaves, scattering them everywhere, then letting herself fall down. With her arms spread and a smile on her face, she would take in the scent of the forest and look up at the leaves of the trees, far above.
That might well have been her happiest memory.
With a jolt, the voices of the girls around her brought her attention back to the room. They were staring at her. Some of them looked slightly proud of her, others just seemed freaked out or scared. All of them, though, looked extremely shocked. Apparently, someone talking back to Gabbe was a rare event. Don't draw attention to yourself. We have to escape. Sascha turned away from the window regretfully, lifted the heavy stack of plates from the luxurious wooden table and turned around, planning to walk straight out the door without paying attention to any of the whores gaping at her.
However, Gabbe, who had apparently recovered from the shock of Sascha hissing no then walking away, decided to start ruining Sascha's life at that moment. She was obviously aggravated by Sascha's refusal to turn into her slave. With her back turned to Gabbe, Sascha's hands clenched around the stack of plates as she heard the all-too-familiar voice.
"Never, you say? We'll see about that. I will ruin your life, little Sascha, and I will keep doing so until you have either grown a brain and changed your answer, or died."
The older woman stuck out her foot as Sascha turned around and caused her to fall, shattering what sounded like every plate she had been carrying. Shards of porcelain buried themselves in Sascha's forearms and her palms started to bleed immediately as she used them to stop herself from falling face first into the shards scattered all over the floor. Some pieces of glass, from the wine glass Vlad had probably been drinking from, embedded themselves in her knees. On her hands and knees in front of Gabbe, she glared at her nemesis, tears stinging her eyes from the pain. She got up as quickly as she could, trying to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks.
"Oops," Gabbe drawled, smirking. "That was not a very smart thing to do, was it, Sascha? Didn't the guards say the plates had to be squeaky clean? And that you'd better not break them or you'd suffer the consequences? You're so clumsy, Sascha. Why'd you try and carry so much fragile stuff at once anyway?"
Rage settled over Sascha. Gabbe didn't have the right to ruin her life like this! "You," she seethed. "you did that on purpose!"
"Yes I did, honey. Now try and prove that," Gabbe hissed in a venomous tone of voice. "My word against yours? Good luck with that. I told you I'd ruin your life if you refused. Guess what? I'm starting now. Vlad will hear about this. You will be begging at my feet to protect you from him before the week is out. Mark my words."
Panic mixed with rage, fear replaced anger as Gabbe's words got through to Sascha. She knew the junkie meant it, and would follow up on the threat too. She walked past Gabbe, avoiding to look her in the eyes.
She walked out the door of Vlad's quarters, glad she had left it open when she entered. If she had needed to push it open with her torn-open hands, Sascha didn't know whether she would have had the strength to walk the short hallway without bursting into tears.
Ignoring the comments Scar Face and Pock Mark were making about her bloody appearance, the lack of plates in her hands and the yelling they had heard from the inside of Vlad's quarters, Sascha walked through the short hallway. She looked at the floor and at her feet as she walked, empty-handed, into the large room where the girls had had dinner.
"Sascha!"
She looked up. The twins were running in her direction, the half-dried stacks of plates forgotten. Even Oli looked concerned, although that might be because Sascha did not come back carrying the load of plates she was supposed to be getting.
As the twins reached her, Sascha recognized the pure terror in their eyes. She looked down – and noticed she looked even worse than she felt. Blood was dripping down her hands from the half dozen little wounds the shards of porcelain had cut on her arms and palms. The remainder of her jeans had been torn around her knees and stained with blood.
"What –" Ana seemed lost for words. Tanya was faring a little better. "Who did –"
Sascha gave them a bitter look. "Who do you think?" She turned to look at Oli, whose face had paled so much she looked like she might pass out. "Gabbe tripped me when I was walking with the plates. I'm sorry, Oli. If anyone asks, just tell them to find me. I never meant to get you in –"
"Shut up," Oli said in a strained sort of voice. "We have to get you to someone who knows First-Aid. You're bleeding out."
"It's not that bad," Sascha reassured the three of them. "I don't need First-Aid. Let's just go to the dormitory. The guards said they have a surprise for us, remember? A 'change in policy'."
Aaaand... it's done! I'd love to hear your thoughts! What do you guys think the 'change in policy' will entail? If you get it right, you get a shoutout! And of course I always welcome a review telling me whether you loved it, or hated it, and any (constructive) criticism... Everything is highly appreciated!
Oh, and I'll probably update soon, but everything is a bit uncertain right now. My twin sister is in the hospital after a heavy surgery on her spine. It's been four days since the surgery, and she can't sit up on the edge of her bed for more than three minutes without passing out. So, I ask your patience. Taking care of my sister is what matters most to me right now.
Xx Ilse
