Lily turned to face me. It was never wise to confront her. Anyone who did ended up becoming the example she set to warn everybody else.
She walked down the steps and stood before me, nose to nose. We were of a similar height, but even so, I felt her glaring down at me.
But I didn’t back down. I was too angry to do that.
“Okay, Harper,” Lily said. “Let’s hear it. What you suggest we do?”
I clenched my teeth and my hands formed fists at my sides. It was all I could do not to slap her across the face.
“Refuse to give the prisoners what they want,” I said. “We won’t play along with this stupid game of theirs. We won’t let ourselves be their prizes any longer.”
I tore my eyes from Lily and focused my attention on the other girls. If I was going to win this argument, I would need them on my side.
“None of us asked to be here,” I said. “None of us submitted to this unending torture. We were abducted from our homes and forced into service. Now, I say, enough is enough. We put our foot down and together we tell the fighters and the new supervisor we will not play along with their twisted games any longer.”
The girls nodded one by one, dabbing at their eyes at what had become of their friends.
“We’ll insist they return us home,” I said. “Take us back to our homeworlds where we belong. We’ve been in this hell long enough.”
“And when they refuse to take you home?” Lily said, folding her arms.
“Then we insist on being paid. A fair wage for a fair day’s work. And we insist on leaving the moment we earn enough for our tickets home.”
The Prizes were timid by nature, either naturally, or forced into submission by the endless torrent of fighter lovers. But they nodded in agreement.
None of them wanted to stay here.
Least of all me.
“If we stick together, if we do this as one, they’ll have no choice but to listen to us,” I said.
I stood before the other girls and turned back to face Lily. She stood by herself and looked more alone than ever.
She had a sinister curl to her lips, straightened her back, and raised her chin.
“Go ahead,” she said. “Speak to the new supervisor and make your demands. But there’s one thing you’ve forgotten, one little thing you’ve failed to take into account.”
“What?” I said with a sneer.
“They don’t need to give you anything at all. They could promise you everything you ask for and then turn around and bundle you into a shuttlecraft and sell you to the cheapest bidder. Or maybe they’ll save themselves the expense and shove you outside. How long do you think you’ll survive in the desert? Or else they’ll gun you down. They have an army of guards at their command. They can do whatever they want with you and toss you aside just as easily. There’s no escaping this prison. I’ve been here longer than all of you. It’s a lesson I know better than any of you.”
Some of the girls’ heads drooped, defeated already.
I wasn’t surprised. They’d been downtrodden and forced to pleasure imprisoned monsters. It was the lowest low there was in the galaxy.
“To ensure you understand that, the new supervisor has passed down a new rule,” Lily said.
She licked her lips and couldn’t even bring herself to look us in the face.
What was it? There was nothing they could do to us they hadn’t already done.
I raised my chin to meet the assault head-on.
“The new supervisor has ordered birth control to no longer be dispensed,” Lily said.
A vacuum of silence sucked the shock from me.
After the initial disbelief, a couple of the girls howled with fear. Others screamed.
“No!” they cried.
Most stood dumbfounded, the same way I was.
“But… we’ll get pregnant,” I said, the words dribbling from my lips.
“Eventually, all of you will,” Lily said. “Those of you who don’t… I guess you’ll be put to… other uses.”
Lily’s mouth twisted as if she’d swallowed a lemon. Even she didn’t agree with this new order.
No one in their right mind could.
Being a whore forced into servitude to thousands of marauding alien criminals was one thing but to be forced into being a broodmare was another.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach as if I could already feel the spark of life growing inside me.
“Why?” I said. “Why would they do this?”
“Because they can,” Lily said offhandedly. “And if we refuse—if you refuse—you will be taken away and never seen again, replaced by newly abducted creatures who won’t be quite so difficult to handle.”
“But why would they want us to get pregnant?”
Lily’s skin was drained. She might have aged ten years in the past few minutes.
No birth control.
No control over our lives whatsoever.
WAAAAaaaaaaaaaa!
The alarm sounded, signaling the arrival of another victor.
The first since the riots had ended and the guards regained control of the prison.
Half of us were numb to the noise. The other half immediately burst into tears.
“You must make your decision,” Lily said. “And you must make it now. Do you resist and be destroyed or do you submit?”
One by one, the girls peeled off, washed their faces, put on their makeup, and dressed from the gaudy collection in the wardrobes.
I didn’t move a muscle and just stared at Lily.
I expected to see a look of triumph on her face.
But there was no triumph in this situation.
Not even for her.
Only defeat.
The same defeat we suffered every day of our lives in this place.
I turned and trudged off to get ready for the victor.
The other girls worked to ensure their makeup was perfect, their dresses as revealing as possible, all an effort to please our new masters.
I spent most of my time ensuring my makeup wasn’t perfect. I didn’t want to be claimed by the victor.
I needed time to think.
So, I put on my make-up
