DANCERS

ADELINE'S POV

All the new girls are quieter today. They look scared and numb. They look like all the life and hope has been drained out of them and all that is left is darkness and suffering. They've been broken right down to their cores. A few days spent here has made them understand what their new lives are going to be like.

It looks like they've accepted it. It makes me angry. It makes me frustrated. The new gurls will be like the old girls soon. They will do everything to survive and to do that, they will have to accept their new lives and live each day as it presents itself. This is hell. This is sinister.

This is the worst thing you can do to any woman. Completely reduce her to a toy and then demoralize her so bad that she doesn't even have any fight left in her.

As we all wait for Veronica in the training room, Silver mist, the red haired girl and apparently best dancer her walks towards me with a group of girls behind her, a disgusting scowl on her face like she always has.

"I wonder why Veronica thinks you're so special than the rest of us. You don't look like much to me." She says.

"What's your problem now?" I ask her, fighting the urge to roll my eyes but I stand my ground and give her a death stare.

"You weren't touched last night like the rest of us, were you?" She says in a high-pitched voice and soon, all the attention in the room is towards me. I know what she's doing. She's trying to claim her territory and turn the other girls around me. I can smell a bully from a mile away and this one doesn't scare me. I just feel sorry for her.

She's just a victim like the rest of us here.

"And how would yo know that?" I ask her with a raise of my brows.

"Look at her guys!" She says addressing the new girls. "She's new here just like the four of you yet she doesn't have that look of dread and misery in her eyes. Not one bruise in sight on her skin."

Silver mist starts circling me. I look to the other new girls and I start to see jealousy in their eyes. I start to see them slowly side with Silver mist.

"Look at the way she carries herself with confidence. No one who just got raped would act like that. Veronica thinks she's prettier than the rest of us." She grabs a lock of my hair and flips it towards my face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" I ask, baring my teeth at her as she stands in front of me. At this point, every gurl in the room is on Silver mist's side.

"Why do we have to suffer and you don't?" She asks me.

"I'm not your enemy. We're all in the same hole here. We're all just trying to survive." I tell her.

"Oh Yeah? Why do you have a special guard with you then and the rest of us don't?" She says referring to Colton. "Why do you get all the best outfits and we don't?"

My mouth hangs open. I almost laugh at her definition of what a pretty outfit is. What I am wearing is not even an outfit. I'm practically naked.

"Oh my God. You have go to be kidding me. Are you stupid?" I hear my voice start to rise. "Look at where we fucking are!" I wave my hands around aggressively gesturing to the entire building. "We are in a fucking sex trafficking house, and you think the best thing to do is to be enemies with another girl who was kidnapped and brought here against her will??? Just like you were!? We should be fucking working together to make this place more bearable! What the fuck is wrong with you!?"

She looks at me with a surprised look on her face. She seems dumbfounded and taken aback. As if no one here has ever said it directly to them that they are being trafficked. I mean it's common knowledge but I think Silver mist has spent so much time here that she might have forgotten what it even feels like to live a normal life.

"The other girls and I look after each other just fine. This is our home now and we do everything to survive. You just waltz in her like you own the place, you have everything given to you on a silver platter like you're some kind of queen. While the rest of us have to endure shit every now and then! You are not one of us!" She barks out and comes so close to my face that we're only inches apart from each other.

She's jealous. She's jealous and she's taking it out on me. I want t tell her that it's not my fault. I want to tell her that I'm just as confused as she is but she has already made up her mind that she and I are enemies and there's nothing I can do about it.

From the look on the other girl's faces, it's clear that she has probably managed to get them on her side. If they all side against me, then I'll be really left completely and utterly alone in this place. Maybe it's a good thing. Colton was right when he said the other girls here don't care about me. they only care about looking after themselves.

I will just have to adapt.

"What is going on in here?" Veronica barges into the room. Today, she doesn't look like she slept well. She has bags under her eyes that she has tried failingly to hide with makeup. But she still looks beautiful. I wonder if all that beauty is natural. I wonder how much surgery she has gotten to keep her body intact. 

All the girls line up as usual, bowing their heads as per the daily routine whenever Veronica is around. I sincerely hope you all have practiced your dance steps. You will be performing in front of people today. She says and then claps her hands twice and five men walk into the room with a hungry look in their eyes. They all look disgusting and spoiled. They all look like predators.

I want to object. I want to say she did not warn us about this prior but I know that will only get me slapped soi I bite my tongue and force the words back down my throat. All their eyes settle on me, and I'm not even joking. It doesn't help that my clothes are the most revealing ones in the room.

Veronica smirks as her eyes meet mine. From the corner of my eyes, I can feel Silver mist shooting daggers at me with her eyes and the situation now is only proof to the other girls of what Silver mist was saying, but it's not my fault.

"Who is this?" One of the men asks walking towards me. "I want her to dance for me." He says.

"She's new. A very special one. Angel come forward." Veronica orders and I hesitate for a few seconds before finally forcing my feet forwards. The man spanks me on the ass and I gasp. I ball my hands into fists and keep them planted to my sides, fighting the urge ti punch him straight in the nose.

"That is the softest skin I have ever touched." He says with drool literally pooling from his mouth. Oh God, I'm going to vomit.

"Now now, Sir. The gurls are not allowed to be touched yet." Veronica says in a sing song voice. The man licks his lips and looks me up and down just like the other men before finally taking a few steps backwards. Veronica offers them seats. She puts us on display and gives our stage names to the men.

She starts the music player. I move just how I was taught to. Some of the girls forgot some of the dance steps. At the end of the day, they were all punished.

At night, I cry myself to sleep.