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Match Found (Mudden Men Book 2) Preview
Chapter One
Bright light burned her eyes, and she squeezed them shut. Ow. Laying flat on her back, Kay moved her hand to her pounding head. What had she drunk last night?
“Mwa…”
Kay froze. Someone was in the room with her.
“Who’s there?” she asked, her voice a hoarse croak.
No answer.
Her heart beat faster. Had she spent the night with someone? Was he in the bed with her? She pushed herself up to sit, feeling cold hard floor under her palm. That wasn’t her bed. Her heart pounding so hard it threatened to jump out of her ribcage, she placed one hand over her brow, shielding her from the light, and slowly opened her burning eyes.
She sat on a floor made of some gray rubbery surface. Not her apartment. Where was she? Kay was not a big drinker. She’d only woken up with missing memories once in university after a night of too much partying. She hadn’t liked the experience and had never repeated it. She tried to remember last night but came up blank. She wouldn’t have gone drinking when she was supposed to be starting a new job in the morning.
She heard someone moving around again. A shiver ran down her back.
A voice, young and female, spoke, “Where am I?”
Kay’s stomach relaxed—a little. She hadn’t gone home with some strange man after all; that, at least, was a relief.
She opened her eyes further, fighting through the pain. Gray walls surrounded her. A woman lay a foot away from her. She was the one moaning. Another stood against the wall looking back at her with panic in her wide eyes. The girl didn’t look a day over twenty. The terror in her eyes sent Kay into protector mode.
“It’s alright,” Kay said. “Everything is going to be fine.” The girl nodded but the fear didn’t leave her face.
Kay pushed herself up to stand, slowly to give her legs time to adjust, and put her hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up as a wave of nausea hit her. Something unfamiliar moved on her arm when she lifted her hand. She brought her wrist close to her face for inspection. A hard metal bracelet circled it. It was too tight to remove over her hand, and the closure was impossible to undo. On the flat part, it read Glaerus 1. She had no idea what that could mean.
She looked around the room. It was smaller than the bathroom in her apartment. It had no furniture in it, no windows, and no doors. Her stomach reeled again but this time from her rising panic as thoughts of kidnapping, rape, and forced prostitution entered her head. There weren’t a hundred different reasons to lock women up in a room against their will.
Kay tried to control her imagination. Unfortunately, after years of studying women’s rights law, her brain didn’t lack inspiration as horror stories flooded her mind. She’d finally graduated, and her first experience as a newly minted attorney was becoming a victim herself.
She quickly wiped away the tear that escaped her eye as she heard the girl crying. Someone had to be strong. But she had no comforting words, so she continued her inspection of the room instead.
One of the walls of their cell had to contain a door. As she made her way around the room feeling the walls for any signs of an escape route, she tried once more to remember the night before.
She remembered getting ready for a doctor’s appointment in the morning, but the rest was a complete blank. Her finger felt a bump in the wall. Leaning back she saw the outline of an opening, but no handle or any visible controls to open it.
“Where are we?” The woman who’d been moaning on the floor had gotten up and was inspecting the door by rubbing her hand on the side of it.
“I don’t know,” Kay answered.
“We’re on a spaceship,” the third girl said, her voice quivering between light sobs.
Kay bounced lightly on her toes and then had to bend over to fight off another wave of nausea. She was right. Most of her discomfort was probably caused by whatever drug they’d given her, but a part was also from the change in her weight from the artificial gravity. Plus, it explained the gray walls and lack of windows, as well as the industrial light that still stung her eyes.
“Why?” said the one who was now inspecting the wall as if looking for something.
“Probably to transport us somewhere far from our world,” Kay said, once again remembering the worst cases she’d read on human trafficking.
“It doesn’t look like there ever was a wall control on this side. We would need to cut through the wall to get to any electrical wiring.”
“You know about electrical stuff?” asked Kay.
“I’m an electrical engineer. I work for Fartech.”
Kay took a closer look at her. Dressed in a casual jumpsuit and hair cut short in the latest style, she didn’t look dirty, or underfed, or poor like the majority of human trafficking victims. But then again, neither did Kay.
“I’m Kay,” she said, extending out her hand. “I’m a women’s rights attorney.”
“I’m Jane,” She answered, firmly shaking Kay’s hand. “I guess I’ll know who to call when I want to sue whoever is holding us here.” Jane laughed nervously at her own joke.
“It’s strange though,” Kay said. “Human traffickers usually target poor, vulnerable women. Orphans or runaways.”
“I’m an orphan,” Jane said.
“I ran away.” The girl had come to join them near the door. “I never knew my dad and left my mom five years ago.”
An orphan and a runaway definitely fit the kidnap victim profile better, but Kay had a loving family. She had parents that loved her. And she had a younger sister, Thalia, who was also her best friend, despite all of their differences.
But since she and Jane were both working professionals, maybe this had nothing to do with prostitution, maybe these kidnappers needed specialists for something.
“What’s your job?” she asked, turning toward the younger girl.
“I’m looking for work right now, but I worked in the kitchens on a cruise ship after I ran away,” she said.
Well, that blew her second theory out of the water. If she worked in the kitchen, she had no special skills that would make her worth kidnapping. Though honestly, nor could she think of any reason why anyone would kidnap an attorney fresh out of law school either.
“I’m Sarah,” the girl said.
Kay and Jane introduced themselves again.
“I guess there is nothing to do but wait,” Jane said. “They’ve got to feed us some time.”
Kay didn’t like waiting, nor doing nothing. Instead, she began brainstorming ways to get them out of there.
*****
They decided to jump on the first person to walk into their room. They could be up against someone with a weapon, but at least they would have the element of surprise on their side. Kay had liked Jane’s idea of electronically jigging the door, but unfortunately, the room was devoid of anything that could be used as tools or weapons. So, instead, they sat on each side of the door waiting to pounce the instant someone came through. If they aimed for the legs, they could trip the person and overpower even someone bigger and stronger than them.
Kay had no idea how long they waited. The kidnappers had stripped them of everything but their clothes. They’d even removed the comms from behind their ears. Kay could feel the outside of the implant that had been surgically inserted into the back of her head as a child, but the attachment that allowed her to access the Interplanetary Net had been removed. Not only were they cut off from the outside world, they had no method of telling time. Whoever had taken them had also placed bracelets on the other two girls’ wrists. They read Glaerus 2 and Glaerus 3.
Kay had assumed it was morning because she had woken up feeling hungover. But if she’d been drugged instead, it could have been evening or a week later for all she knew. The others had no better recollection of what had happened to them. Jane remembered being at work, and Sarah only remembered going to bed the night before. Also, it turned out they weren’t even from the same planet. Jane had lived her whole life on Harcan, which explained the jumpsuit she wore. That planet had very harsh winds that made any other types of clothing impractical. Sarah was originally from New Terra. She’d run away from home and had been residing on one of the vacation moons of Minas—Kay’s home planet—when she was taken.
Kay leaned her head against the wall, trying not to fall asleep, when she heard a sound on the other side of the door. She jumped to alertness and made eye contact with the others, mouthing “ready?” They nodded.
“MOVE AWAY FROM THE DOOR AND SIT BY THE BACK WALL.”
The female voice wasn’t coming through the walls but from an intercom somewhere on the ceiling. Kay looked up at the light fixtures. They were huge and could easily be hiding an intercom, as well as a microphone and camera.
“They’re watching us!”
Reluctantly, they got up and went to sit by the far wall.
The door opened and a man stepped through. Kay immediately realized their plan wouldn’t have worked anyway. There was no way they could have overpowered him. Not only was he a head taller than them, but he also had arms larger than Kay’s legs. He looked to be in his fifties with a nasty scar over one eye, and not an inch of fat on his body. He fixed the three girls with a look that sent chills down Kay’s back.
“Stay where you are and don’t move,” he said, his voice as icy as his stare.
It took all her willpower not to let her brain go into full panic mode. Behind him, a woman entered the room carrying a large bag.
“Dr. Wells,” Kay said, with sudden relief.
Unthinking, she stood up and took a step forward. The man’s eyes narrowed and fixed on her, he didn’t move any other muscles but Kay immediately sat back down, disgusted with herself for being so easily manipulated.
Dr. Wells placed a hand on the man’s arm as if to reassure him. Kay’s excitement at seeing her died instantly as she realized that she was probably the one who’d sedated her when she’d gone for her appointment. Was it yesterday?
“What are we doing here?” Kay asked, surprised by the coldness in her voice.
“How are you feeling, Kay?” Dr. Wells asked, completely ignoring her question.
“I’ve been better,” Kay said. “I’ve got a splitting headache from whatever drug you gave me.”
Dr. Wells nodded sympathetically but didn’t deny Kay’s accusations. “The headache will go away in a few hours.” She took out a medical device and approached Sarah. Sarah shied away from her, squeezing herself further into Kay’s side.
Kay moved in front of Sarah, blocking Dr. Wells’ access. “What are we doing here?” she repeated.
“I need to check your vital signs,” Dr. Wells said as if it was a valid answer to Kay’s question. “I need to make sure you are not suffering any side effects from the drug.”
Kay recoiled at the idea of letting Dr. Wells near her with that device, she glanced at the goon still standing by the door, watching like a hawk ready to attack if they made a wrong move. She didn’t have much choice.
“Check me first,” she said, offering her arm.
The doctor placed the device on Kay’s finger. She felt the small familiar pinch as the machine drew a small drop of blood. Kay had gone through this process every time she’d gone to the doctor’s office. The device filled up with a bunch of numbers that meant nothing to Kay. Dr. Wells nodded her head with satisfaction and approached Jane who had her hand outstretched and ready. Sarah was still reluctant, but Kay patted her on the back and told her everything would be alright.
When the doctor was satisfied with their results, she packed her machine back in its case.
“Where are you taking us?” Kay asked.
Dr. Wells stood up. “You didn’t like your old life, Kay. None of you did. You always complained that you didn’t feel like you belonged.”
“So you’re kidnapping us for our own good?” Kay looked at her in shock. She might have mentioned to her once that she didn’t get along well with her classmates in law school, who tended to care more about money and prestige than helping people, but she certainly hadn’t meant it as a complaint about her life in general.
“All will be explained to you,” Dr. Wells said. “Just be patient.”
Kay could almost convince herself that she heard sympathy in her voice, but she put it off as residual feelings from when Dr. Wells had been her doctor. She’d been a nice and compassionate doctor, which was not something Kay was accustomed to. Her past doctors had usually been too busy to even learn her name. But Dr. Wells had been curious and taken an interest in her. Evidently, it’d been some sort of ploy. But, for what purpose?
The doctor left the room without so much as a goodbye. Her goon left behind her, grabbed something from the other side of the door, and came back in. He carried three bottles of water and three nutrition bars in his hands. The bars had no wrappers and no containers.
He handed one bottle and one bar to each girl.
“No utensils?” Kay asked. “Afraid we’d stab you with them?”
For a brief instant, she thought she actually saw amusement in his eyes. He didn’t answer her and left the room.
*****
The nutrition bars were adequate. The water was heaven. Kay had been absolutely parched. She drank her water in one go.
“More please!” She said, looking up at the light fixtures and waving her empty bottle.
“I guess it’s going to be hard coming up with an escape plan,” Jane said, looking up uneasily at the ceiling. “If they’re constantly listening.”
“Who was that woman?” Sarah asked Kay. “You know her?”
“She’s…was my doctor,” Kay answered. “You two didn’t know her?”
Both women shook their heads. Kay asked them about their doctors, but there was no connection there. At least none that they could figure out.
Suddenly, the overhead lights turned to red and a loud mechanical voice came from the comm system.
“PREPARE FOR DOCKING,” the voice said. “I REPEAT, PREPARE FOR DOCKING.”
“We’ve arrived,” Sarah whispered, her voice laden with fear.
Kay stood up. They heard movement out in the hallway, but waited a long time before their door opened. Kay expected Dr. Wells and her goon to come in, but no one did. She went to the door and peeked out. A guard, dressed in the same manner as Dr. Wells’ goon—though not as big and not as scary—stood in the hallway. He barely looked at her and pointed down the hall.
“I guess we’re supposed to go that way,” Kay said.
She stepped out in the direction the guard indicated. All down the hall, doors opened and women poured out looking around like they were lost. One guard stood in front of each door, but none of them moved. Five women came out of the door directly in front of Kay. One of them raised her eyebrow at Kay. She shrugged back. Wordlessly, they all made their way down the hallway.
A few times she tried to ask a guard questions, but they completely ignored her, and she kept walking down the hall with the other women, Jane and Sarah staying close to her.
Finally, they arrived at an open airlock. It had already been depressurized and attached to what appeared to be a shuttle on the other side.
No space station?
All the major planets had space stations built in orbit where spaceships, which never touched the ground, could dock. Passengers could then travel down to the planet in smaller shuttles. Dr. Wells apparently hoped to avoid arousing suspicion by bypassing the intermediary of a space station altogether.
The women crowded in front of the airlock causing a bottleneck. Someone pushed Kay from the back, and she wondered what they were in such a hurry for. Finally stepping into the shuttle, she found a row of seats where the three of them could sit together.
“Strap yourselves in and prepare for landing,” a male voice said behind them. Kay turned around and saw Dr. Wells’ goon standing in the back with his arms crossed, while another guard closed the door to the airlock.
“Better do as he says,” Sarah said. “Landings can be rough.”
She grabbed the straps attached to her seat and pulled them over her arms, clicking the ends together, and Jane followed her example.
Kay looked around and counted twenty-five women in the shuttle. Some of the women talked in hushed voices, and she could hear someone crying quietly.
One woman in the back refused to sit down. “Where are you taking us?” She yelled at the goon. That was going to be Kay’s line. The goon ignored her, staring straight ahead. “You can’t do this! I won’t sit down.”
“Yeah, Meghan!” One of the girls who’d already sat down cheered. The goon only raised an eyebrow and she shut up, though Meghan stayed standing with her arms crossed. He turned around and left through a door in the back of the shuttle. Meghan ran after him, but by the time she pulled on the handle, the door was locked. None of the guards were left behind with them.
Kay sat back down and strapped herself to her seat. Apparently, refusing to follow their instructions wasn’t going to stop them, and she’d have a better chance of running away if she wasn’t injured during the flight.
“Come on,” Meghan insisted. She went to the front of the shuttle where everyone could see her. “There are more of us than there are of them. Get up and we’ll fight them.”
Kay wanted to fight and escape too, but she couldn’t see any positive outcome from her plan. They were in a shuttle that couldn’t travel through space, and the door to the navigation room was locked.
“How can you just sit there and do nothing?” Meghan looked from one person to another. Kay saw the fear on all their faces.
“Once we move away from the ship, we’ll lose gravity,” Sarah said. Having worked on a cruise ship, she knew more about space travel than Kay and Jane, and she appeared to feel better when explaining what was happening.
The shuttle vibrated. Meghan ran to a seat and tied herself in just as they heard a clank. Kay’s body suddenly lifted off her chair. Only the straps around her torso kept her in place.
The nutrition bar tried to make its way back up her throat. She closed her eyes to stave off the nausea, but it only made it worse. She felt Sarah’s hand grab hers and squeezed it tight, grateful for the human contact.
After a few long minutes a male voice spoke over the loudspeaker. “PREPARE FOR REENTRY.”
Suddenly the entire shuttle shook.
“We’re entering the atmosphere,” Sarah said, crushing Kay’s hand in her surprisingly strong grip. At some point Kay stopped floating and her butt dropped firmly down on her chair.
With a lot of shaking, more than Kay remembered from the two times she’d been to space before, they finally landed.
“WELCOME TO MUDDEN,” the voice said.
“Mudden?” Sarah asked.
Kay’s heart beat faster, and she let go of Sarah’s hand so she wouldn’t notice her own hands shaking.
“The planet?” Jane asked. “Aren’t they isolationists?”
Kay shrugged her shoulders, not wanting to tell them the truth. They were isolationists alright. So much so that no woman from Mudden had ever been seen. It was a popular topic of speculation in women’s rights classes. Many suspected conditions for women on Mudden to be horrific, since they were not even granted the basic right to travel. Mudden refused to join IPAC, the interplanetary alliance that allowed free trade and travel between the civilized planets of the system. In addition, the Mudden government never allowed anyone to visit the planet, meaning no one really knew what was going on there at all. In a sick way, going to Mudden was the opportunity of a lifetime for a women’s rights attorney. Her stomach turned to lead. Too bad she wasn’t likely to live long enough to talk about it.
Chapter Two
The shuttle landed near what appeared to be a mini spaceport in the middle of a grass field. There were no other shuttles around and only one spaceship in the distance, which looked to be on the smaller side in Kay’s very limited experience with ships. Next to the shuttle waited three large metal vehicles on wheels. Dr. Wells called out the names on the women’s bracelets to divide them into the three vehicles, while the goon and the rest of the guards formed a circle around the women to prevent them from escaping.
Dr. Wells called Glaerus for the last vehicle and Kay, Jane, and Sarah were herded into it along with several other women. Meghan, who’s bracelet read Mudden 1, also came with them, as did Dr. Wells and her goon.
Kay, Sarah, and Jane sat in the back as far away from the doctor as possible. Meghan took the seat directly in front of them.
“What’s your theory for what’s going on here?” Jane asked Meghan.
Meghan looked behind her to see if any of their captors were listening, then turned back.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “We’re all young women!”
Kay looked around. She suspected she was the oldest of all the women, most of them looked to be in their early to mid-twenties.
Kay looked out the vehicle’s large windows for the rest of the ride. She was always amazed at how similar all the planets looked to each other. All the trees came from seeds brought back from Earth and planted by Fartech when humans colonized the system. The original settlers had slowly and methodically terraformed every planet and moon with potential for sustaining human life in the system. But the air on Mudden felt thicker than on Minas, and the world just looked a little darker despite the sun being high in the sky.
They entered more and more populated territory. The houses were all single story and made of wood. The few times they saw people standing on the side of the road, they smiled and waved at them like they thought they were a tourist group coming for a visit. Nothing about what was happening to them made any sense. On the one hand, they were well guarded at all times to make it impossible for them to escape, but on the other, they were also out in the open where anyone could see them. Weren’t they scared someone would discover they’d been kidnapped?
They finally entered what looked like an actual town, perhaps even a city. It looked nothing like the large cities of Minas which covered almost the entire surface of the planet, except for the necessary forested areas, and extended vertically into the sky. This city was low and dusty. It’s people, the ones they saw walking around, looked poor and dirty.
The vehicle finally stopped, and the women were taken out in small groups right in the middle of what appeared to be a town square. People circled around to look at them curiously. Dread settled in Kay’s stomach as she realized that no one looked surprised or shocked to see strange women being imprisoned in cages up on what appeared to be a stage.
Kay, Jane, and Sarah were locked up together once more. Their cell had three solid walls and wooden bars in the front, exposing them to the crowd gathering in front of the stage, but making it impossible to see the other abducted women in the cells adjacent to theirs. The cell contained no furniture whatsoever.
Sarah sat on the floor to rest, but Kay couldn’t relax. Instead, she stood holding on to the bars, feeling the wood with her palms and studying her surroundings. The wooden bars weren’t that sturdy. With a bit of time, she knew they could be bent or broken. That, combined with the complete lack of furniture, probably meant they weren’t going to be in there for very long.
The crowd consisted mostly of men, though a few women were sprinkled in there too, talking and looking at them like they were the latest attraction. How could these people just stand there? Why were they not outraged at seeing them being held against their will? Especially the women. Kay tried to catch their eyes but none looked at her directly.
“What are we doing here?” Sarah whispered from her spot on the floor.
“I have no idea,” Kay said.
Dr. Wells addressed the people gathered in front of the stage. Kay could not make out everything she said over the roar of the growing crowd, but she heard the word “begin.” One man near the front, who was as large as the doctor’s goon, walked up to Dr. Wells and handed her what looked like papers. Dr. Wells turned to say something to her goon. He walked up on the stage, taking out his key chain. Kay could hardly hear anything over the sound of blood pumping in her ears. The big guy waiting in front of Dr. Wells wore a sleazy smile on his face and looked at the women like they were meat. Even Dr. Wells seemed uncomfortable when the man made some joke, probably at the women’s expense, that had only him laughing. The doctor looked eagerly at the goon’s back like she wanted him to hurry.
The goon approached their cage. Kay shook her head, and gave him as meaningful a look as she could. She wouldn’t beg in front of everyone. She couldn’t break down in front of Jane and Sarah, they needed her to hold it together, but she could plead with her eyes.
He did not react in any visible way, but he did walk past their cage and opened the one next to them instead. Kay let out a breath of relief, but the fear remained as she saw the goon pulling two women by their arms. One woman had tears in her eyes while the other just looked frozen in fear. The goon handed them off to the big guy who roughly pulled them away with a grin.
Then another man went up to Dr. Wells with more papers.
“She’s selling us,” Kay said. “Handing us off to the highest bidder.”
Kay looked out at the crowd. There had to be a normal person somewhere out there. Out of all these people, someone had to be disgusted by what was happening, someone who could help them. She searched the crowd for women. While none of them looked particularly happy, none looked in any way surprised by what was happening. The few whose gaze she did managed to capture gave her apologetic smiles. She kept searching, and finally saw someone. Not a woman, but a man who was looking directly at her. Everything about him, from the look on his face to the way his hands formed tight fists by his sides told her that he hated what he saw. When their eyes met, he smiled just like the women, but she didn’t want smiles. She needed someone to do something.
“Help!” She mouthed the word. His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Help us!” She tried to be strong but she could feel the tears prickling at her eyes. He looked at her with alarm, then nodded his head toward Dr. Wells and pushed his way through the crowd to stand in line behind three other men.
Kay did not dare to hope. Would he have enough money to buy them? She had no idea how much women cost and if it was affordable for regular people. She also had to hope that none of the men in front of him would buy them first. She didn’t know if she could trust him, but if he hated the selling of women as much as he appeared to, then it should be easier to get him to let them go.
Each time the goon went on stage to get a girl, Kay shook her head and silently begged not to be chosen. She saw Meghan get taken out of her cell and handed off to a guy with a stern look on his face. From the way Dr. Wells lowered her head to him, he must have been someone important.
She followed Meghan with her eyes until it was her rescuer’s turn. He handed Dr. Wells papers, and she nodded saying something to the goon. Kay’s heart beat faster. He’d had enough money after all. Now, would he pick them and let them go?
The goon approached their cell and opened the door. Kay walked out, followed by Jane and Sarah, and went to stand next to Dr. Wells, hoping she had made the right choice in choosing this guy.
“There you go, Griff,” Dr. Wells said to the man. “All three of them.” She still held the money Griff had given her to purchase them.
Kay saw a picture of herself on top. Her stomach dropped. These papers weren’t money at all. They looked more like identification papers. He’d handed Dr. Wells a paper with her picture on it, meaning he’d had it with him all along. She hadn’t picked him at all. He’d come here to pick them up.
The goon patted Griff on the back.
“Congratulations,” he said to him. Then he gave Kay a sour look. “You’re going to have your hands full.”
Griff mumbled a thanks and smiled at him.
“Kay,” Dr. Wells said.
Kay turned to face her, fighting the tears that were threatening to fall down her face at any moment.
“Keep an open mind and you might get everything you’ve ever wanted.”
Dr. Wells smiled at Kay like she’d just done her a favor. Kay saw red. She swung her hand back and slapped Dr. Wells across the face. Her palm stung, but it was worth it. She’d never been a violent person. She’d never hit anyone before, but she’d never hated anyone as much as she hated Dr. Wells in that instant.
The goon rushed toward her, and Kay closed her eyes waiting for the hit, but strong hands grabbed her waist and she was lifted up instead. When she opened her eyes again, she was blocked by Griff’s back.
“It’s alright,” Griff said facing the goon, though his voice sounded shaky like he wasn’t entirely sure. Griff was not a tall man, about the same height as Kay, though his shoulders were three times as wide, and the goon towered over him with rage on his face, his scar jutting out. His eyes turned to look at Kay and she swallowed, suddenly glad for Griff’s body acting as a buffer.
“Get her out of here!”
Dr. Wells removed her hand from her cheek and placed it on the goon’s arm. “I’m fine,” she told him. The goon turned toward the doctor and uncharacteristically gently caressed her cheek, inspecting where Kay had hit her.
Griff turned toward Kay. “Let’s go.”
She nodded, desperate to get away from those two.
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