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I know what the obvious answer is. Nevertheless, I also know what controlling men truly get off on.

Power.

“Wait for him to give me permission.”

Surprise flickers across her irises, and I hate the reaction that look pulls out of me. The last thing I want to do is make a sex trafficker proud, but in all honesty, it’s precisely what I need to do. I just don’t want to feel it.

During our training lessons, Zade had taught me a lot about human trafficking and how I could escape it, should the Society ever come for me.

Get them to trust you. Make them see you as a human being, not an object to be sold.

Would it even matter if they did see me as a person? People like this—they don’t have any compassion for humanity. Not when they’re hardly human themselves.

She sniffs. “Good.”

And then she moves on to the next girl, the one with hazel eyes and who had kept warning me to keep my mouth shut.

“Jillian, how do you address them?”

“Yes, sir,” she replies instantly, her eyes unfocused as Francesca stares her down. Our captor nods once and moves on to the girl with fiery orange hair.

“Phoebe? When they address you, do you look them in the eye?”

“No,” she responds confidently.

“Why?” Francesca tests.

“Because it’s disrespectful.”

Fuckers. They want us meek and cowering. Sad, little girls who should have no other thoughts, apart from how to please their master.

Fucking disgusting, is what it is.

Bethany is next, but she’s not as composed as the other two girls—Jillian and Phoebe. She was obviously mutilated after I was dragged out of the room, but who’s to say more wasn’t done to her?

Maybe in the midst of his tantrum, Rocco raped her, too.

I clench my fists but keep my feet glued to the floor and my spine locked and unbending.

“When the men don’t like something on your body, like say, a hairy mole, what do you do, Bethany?”

Her lip trembles and I can see the battle in her body language not to break down. It takes her a moment to compose herself before she answers, “Make sure there’s no hair.”

Francesca nods slowly. “Good.” She glances at the wound where her mole used to be. “I hope to God you don’t have any more of those in places I can’t see. Because if you do, and I find out they’re unkempt, those will be cut out as well.”

Then she turns her eyes to the last girl in line. She’s meeker than the others, mousier. Short brown, curly hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and pretty doe eyes.

She keeps her eyes down, even as Francesca addresses her.

“And when you go into the Culling, Gloria, what is the one and only rule?”

She licks her lips, glancing up at Francesca before quickly dropping them again.

“D-don’t get hit,” she whispers, her voice high-pitched and small.

My brow furrows.

“And what happens if you do?”