Page 22 of Born for Silk
Iris takes a step back, lifting her chin in defence. “What about the other…” she trails off before finishing with, “girls, erm, women? They might misinterpret?”
“There is a thought. Good for you, dear.” She looks between us. “Don’t you trust each other? You don’t trust your Collective with your thoughts? My dear sweet, Silk Girl, you are not perfect, and your imperfections will be blemishes your flock must hide for you. Hide from The Trade and your lords. You will succeed together not alone. The only confidant you truly have is your fellow Silk Girls. You wear the pregnancy and the birth together. It is not easy. Your pregnancy is hard on your body and the birth is harder still. And one Silk Girl will not supply The Trade. There is no I in Trade.”
I blink at her. “Pardon?”
“Such younglings. It’s an old saying, from the old-world. There is no I in Trade. Achievements come when we act together. Such is The Trade’s way; failure usually happens alone. History shows us this.”
On the journey home I feel a shift between Iris and me. She sits close and yet, quiet.
My bully gauge is silent, too.
The chaotic winds outside howl, but through the tinted windows, it’s merely an abyss of black swirls. It’s early—first-light perhaps, but no direct light will come until the sun is high enough to cut through the thick Redwind. And to think, there are people out there. In the waste. In the wind. Merely surviving.
And by choice.
I could have been a Fur Girl.
I’d be out in the Redwind, skin peeling from the gale, eyes red raw, running for my life, hunted, killed, raped, and eaten. If I were lucky, it would be in that order.
Fur Borns are free but not protected. That is the life I was saved from when they brought me home—to the Aquilla Silk Aviary.
I look at Iris who bats her eyelids softly, slumber’s heavy presence weighing on her. I am yawning, sleep clinging to my lashes also, when there is a loud bang.
The car flips, throws us forward, and then— I scream as we become weightless, gravity drawing me in all directions.
My vision blurs. I can hear the van bashing as it rolls and slams, rolls and slams, my body hitting the roof, the side, thumping, smashing, shattering glass, and the sound of screams rattle the space.
Fear and adrenaline course through me when the van ends the perpetual revolving and slides on its side, the crying of metal on rock twisting my spine into coils.
The vehicle stops completely, the air is thick with silence, and my own breath is a staccato beat in my ears.
I blink around and groan from pain, a warning my body is bruised and twisted. To the side, Wardeness lies unconscious. In front of me, Iris moans, a small snake of blood trickling down her forehead. “Iris? Iris?”
Suddenly, a big, bloodied hand reaches through the shattered window behind her head and fists her hair.
My blood runs cold.
Her screams echo through the car as she is dragged backward through the glass, her arms and legs flailing around.
I find the strength to sob. Pathetic attempt to react, really. Paralysed, I watch in horror as her feet disappear into the ominous dark.
The screaming stops, the wind howls, and my breath shakes from between my lips.
A minute or more. I don’t move. That is all it takes, though, before the life I know changes forever. The pretty glass house that protected me shatters.
“Hello, sweet bread.” A man drags me from the car by my hair. He is cast in shadows, but the stench of blood and oils seep through the air like long fingers violating my nostrils.
I am being shoved forward between multiple bodies, the wind slicing at my legs and face, lashing me with the sand it breathes.
As I am pushed through an opening, I lose my footing and fall to the floor. The wind is suffocated when a heavy door shuts.
It’s cold. Still.
“Well, well, what a catch.” A man laughs. “Those crazy motherfuckers were right. Got ourselves a couple of Silk Girls.”
I spin to my bum and squint through the dark. Five men in tatty clothes, soaking wet from something sticky, stand over me.
Fur Born men.