Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(6)

Izabel


“You look better,” the blonde-haired woman says with a smirk as I’m escorted through the front door. “Probably smell better, too. How has your stay been so far?”

“I’d give it four stars, at least,” I say. “But I wasn’t too impressed with the lighting in my room. Might want to have maintenance check that out.”

A slim smile appears at her red lips, and it glows in her deep brown eyes.

With the backward tilt of her head, she orders the man to leave; I hear his footsteps echo behind me and then the door shutting softly. I feel the woman’s eyes on me as I take in my surroundings: the high ceilings and Spanish paintings, the young women moving every which way, tending to chores, always silent and willing and broken. Like I once was. I’ve seen this same image too often in my life, been to too many damn ‘mansions’ filled with monsters, and after this I hope I never have to do it again. No, I take that back—I’ll do it for as long as I have to if I get kill more of the bastards that put these girls here.

“Now, why don’t you tell me your real name, Lydia?”

That certainly gets my attention; I break away from the scenery; she looks smug standing there in the center of the room, dressed in a black silk dress and a mysterious smile; her legs stretch for miles, even if she wasn’t wearing five-inch stilettos.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I lie.

She walks toward me slowly.

“Oh, come on,” she taunts, “a girl like you—fearless, bold, with that I-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude—either you’re not who you’re pretending to be, or I really did strike gold when they brought you here.”

I shrug, and raise both brows. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know why I’d be pretending to be someone else—what does it matter who you are in this place?” I laugh a little, shaking my head. “Strike gold? I can’t even begin to understand what that’s supposed to mean.”

“One thing at a time,” she says; she stops in front of me, looks me over with the sweep of her painted eyes. “It’s just I’ve never seen any girl brought here that hasn’t cried and groveled for her freedom—everybody cries. Not only did you not cry or beg, even when you were about to have your throat slit, but you stand here in front of me now almost as if you own the place.”

I raise my chin, pushing my scarred neck into view. “If you haven’t noticed,” I say, “been there, done that already. As far as my attitude, well, I think once you’ve had your throat slit and lived to tell about it, and you’ve killed someone who tried to kill you, and you’ve been kidnapped, shot at, and touched by disgusting men, you’d probably not give much of a fuck, either.” I open my hands and shrug once more. “Believe what you want, I don’t care. And my name is Lydia. And there’s not much more about me worth telling, really.”

She smiles. “Oh, I doubt that. People like you, there’s always something to tell.”

“What do you want from me?” I ask bluntly.

“I’m not sure yet”—she circles me again, sizing me up—“If you’re a fraud: nothing. If you’re what I hope you are: everything.”

I look over at her, and she stops on my left; I can smell her perfume, and feel the heat from her body.

“What were you doing in Mexico?” she asks. “My men told me where they found you, and who you were with; how’d you end up with a coyote? White girl, English language, obviously far away from home. I’d say you escaped one of the compounds if I didn’t know better. That scar on your neck, your age; you don’t fit the profile of a girl soon-to-be sold. So, my only guess is that you weren’t trying to get out of Mexico.” She looks at me with expectation.

“I told you,” I improvise, “I killed someone. In Arizona. Cops were after me, and I headed straight for the border—I’ll die before I go to prison. The man driving the van saw me walking, asked if I wanted a ride. I asked where he was going. He said Mexico so I got in”—I gesture my hands—“And here I am. Never expected to end up in this place, but it is what it is. What’s a coyote? I’m guessing you’re not talking about the animal.”

The woman circles me a final time, and then stops at my left. “Follow me,” she says with the gesture of her hand; she never answers my question.

I follow her into another room with couches and chairs and tables. I count eight slave girls, younger than me, all tending to separate duties: two are cleaning; three are sitting on a lavish rug against the floor with books and tablets and pencils; one stands near a hallway, her hands folded on her pelvis, her head down, waiting to be given an order; one is sewing; and one follows us wherever we go.

“I thought these were just rumors,” I say.

“What? The girls?”

I nod. “So, Mexico really is as dangerous and…uncivilized as they say it is.”

She smiles as if she’s about to burst my little bubble.

“Oh, honey,” she begins, “you’ve been living with a blindfold over your eyes, like most of the U.S. population. Mexico and the United States are the same. In fact, the slave trade—hell, the gun and drug trade, too—is just as big in the States as it is here—bigger even. The only difference is that we aren’t as good at hiding it, I admit.” She points a finger at me. “But I can assure you, everything you see here, everything you think you know about this place, it all goes on behind closed doors and in rich men’s houses in every single state in that big piece of land you stole and came from.”