Sam's mind suddenly replayed the evil man's words: show her what I expect tonight. Fear filled her body from the feet up. Melvin and Henry had been bad. This was going to make her want them back.
José shoved her into a large, lopsided tent. When he followed her in, closing the flap, Sam's eyes glazed over with terror.
3
The second she was able to move, Samantha forced herself to her feet and began searching for a weapon, ignoring the blood that dripped from her mouth, her nose, and down her bruised thighs. Longing for a shot of antifreeze to calm her nerves and take the edge off the deep, familiar ache low in her guts, Sam kept looking even though the tent held only piles of reeking garbage.
Her attacker had chained her ankle to the tent pole like a dog, the cold metal a horrid reminder of her weeks in captivity with Melvin and Henry, and her heart was blazing with determination to get away. Now. Tonight. They would be expecting it, but wouldn't think she'd kill to escape. They didn't know what she was capable of!
Stomach aching, Samantha edged to the flap and slowly lifted a tiny corner to peer out, eyes moving quickly over the men, who appeared unhealthy with cold sores, coughs, and noses that were wiped on filthy shirt sleeves. They were an ugly group of hardened killers, bruised faces and clothes still streaked with innocent blood that drew insects. Sam instantly hated the penny-sized snapping flies she could see swarming over the filthy camp, but thought it was fitting the mutations were here, in this place of abominations.
What she could see of the town around them offered no hope either. Rusting Army trucks rammed through the gates of a charred warehouse, block after block of damaged, destroyed, burnt homes, and bodies, rotting openly. This place had been gone before the Slavers, and Sam cursed herself for being caught off guard. She should have known there was trouble coming by the way the rescue party had been so well-armed and alert. It had taken her days to figure out how to charge up the CB System, and after finally succeeding, she'd fallen asleep in front of the radio, and hadn't heard the Slaver's engines over the wind or her own bad dreams.
Samantha shivered as the noise levels increased - cries, gunfire, barking, and shouts. All the men she could see from her tiny peephole were Mexican, most dark and fearsome in their blood-tacked leggings and long shirts. Help would not come from the town or any of these men. What about the females here? There were none in sight. As she started to raise the flap higher, instinct took over, and she ducked as a big boot slammed into the tent where her head had been.