Written for the April two-day drabble challenge on the discoveredinalj livejournal community

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Smiles on faces, teeth flashing white in the shadows of the basement, and laughter. The men circled her, eyes mocking, taunting, promising pain and humiliation and blood. Oh, they would hurt her, and they would take joy in it, and she would end up broken. This she knew.

She snarled at them with her eyes, kept her mouth shut.

They would lock her up, cage her, let the salt tang of defeat work its way through her veins, let it bring the others around her, fresh meat. Wounded.

Alone.

They left the room together, and she thrashed. Promised. Hated.

Alone.

-- THE END --

April 2008