I’d bet money right now that Maria snaps before she turns fifteen. She either kills her owner—and that’s more common than Gerald or anyone else out at this island would ever admit to—or hatches plot after plot to escape, or kills herself if all else fails.
Yeah. Maria is no survivor. She’s a quitter if ever there was one.
We go through the motions after that. Gerald tries to interest me in each of the remaining twenty-four girls. But none of them are what I’m looking for. And I’m sick of this little tour. I’m fuckin’ hot, I’m fuckin’ disgusted—with myself for being here, and with everyone else because they’re probably enjoying it—and I’m fuckin’ tired. All I want is to go back to my yacht, take off all my clothes, and dive into the tepid waters of the Caribbean for a midnight swim.
Hours later, when Gerald finally gives up on me, he says, “OK, let’s head back, Philip.”
“Wait. I thought you said there were two virgins? You only showed me one. Unless you forgot to mention it?”
“No. I didn’t forget. But the last one, Adam. She’s… not very high quality. Not what you’re looking for.”
“Maybe you don’t really understand what I’m looking for? Because none of those other girls you showed me even came close.”
He pauses. Sighs. “Very well.” He leans forward in his seat. “Philip, take us into the garden enclosure.”
“Garden,” I mumble under my breath. “Sounds… promising.”
Gerald huffs out a laugh. “The Garden of Evil is the enclosure’s full name. Snakes.”
“Nice touch.” I lean back in my seat and look through the bars at the thick vegetation all around us. “What kind of snakes? Not rattlers, right? Tell me you don’t actually let them get bit?”
“Rattlers?” Gerald chuckles. “No. Anacondas.”
I lean forward in my seat once again. “All right then. That’s kind of badass.”
Gerald shoots me a look.
“Do not judge me, old man. You have twenty-seven girls out here in the jungle screaming for their lives as wild animals try to eat them.”
“We take every precaution. It’s not a sport, Adam. It’s a well-researched matching exercise.”
“Whatever. Just show me the snake girl and then we can go back for the auction.”
It takes almost fifteen minutes to make our way to the other side of the island where the garden is. And the name fits. The moment we drive through the lock I feel like we enter another world. The air is even more humid and heavy than the rest of the island. The whole place smells like a bog. The trees alongside the road cover it in a canopy of dark, menacing branches and leaves.
I like it.
It reminds me of the marshy woods back home. It makes me think of all those days I spent as a kid out there in a small boat, fishing on the river and catching little gators, and generally being a wild heathen.
But I am not prepared for what I see when we pull up to the cage and Philip turns the Land Cruiser’s engine off.
Maybe there’s more than one snake in this swamp but it doesn’t even matter. The one I see is the only one necessary.
It has to be more than thirty feet long. Has to be. The thickest part of its long, almost greenish, body looks wide enough to eat me whole if it was hungry enough. And when Gerald shines the spotlight on it, a deceptively small head arcs towards us and stares with unblinking eyes that are as dark as pits. The forked tongue slips out, then back in, then out again. Like two baby snakes. And even though I’m not a hundred percent sure the hissing sound I hear isn’t just insects, I’m fairly sure it’s the snake.
A chill runs up my spine.
Not because of the snake, but because of the girl.
The cage she’s in is a skinny rectangle standing on end. Or, more accurately, hanging from a large support beam. I would not fit inside it. Only a child like her would. And just barely, at that. She’s standing upright, arms at her side, head forward. The bars of the cage press against her shoulders. Trapped in this position until someone buys her.
Or… that snake crushes the cage and her with it.
Because that’s what it’s in the middle of doing.
The entire body is wrapped around the bars of the upright cage, squeezing it with every bit of power it possesses. I lose a few seconds watching the serpentine muscles contract underneath the skin and then blink out of it when I hear the cage creak.
“What the fuck?”
“She won’t last long.” Gerald says that loud enough that I know the girl heard him. Though, he doesn’t have to speak loudly. Even with the hissing that may or may not be insects, this enclosure is very quiet.
She doesn’t move. No screams from this girl. No begging. Not even a squeak of panic when the snake contracts again, desperately trying to break the bars of the cage and reach the meal inside.
The air here is thick and musty. Like dirt on the ground after a hard rain. And I swear to God, I think there’s a bit of drizzle in here. Like this garden is separate from the rest of the world. A little walled-off piece of paradise.
If you’re a snake, that is.
Its skin is shiny and smooth, a little bit of green mixed in with the black and brown. It looks slick and slippery and a little bit soft, if you were to touch it. Just a glint of light here and there along the edge of the scales on the bend of its body ruins the imagery.
And the girl. She is a haunting figure. Shadows from the Land Cruiser’s headlights climb up her body at weird angles. Her blonde hair is straight and some of it is caught between the snake’s body and the bars of the cage, because it’s being pulled taut and tugging on her scalp.
Her dress is longer than the ones I’ve seen the other girls wearing tonight. But the space is so tight, it’s riding up her legs. Like she was squirming at some point and that was what she got for her trouble.
But her face is… angelic. Calm. Pale. No frown. No smile. Her lips are a flat line and nothing more. Like she finds herself inside cages trying to be eaten by snakes every now and then and this is no particular big deal.
She stares at me and a chill runs up my spine.
The whole thing is repulsive and evil, but creepingly beautiful at the same time.
“We’ve been withholding food for over six months.”
For a moment I think he’s talking about the child, but then I realize he’s referring to the snake.
“She has probably eaten some rodents and even a few of the smaller males, but there are no other large animals in the enclosure so she is very hungry tonight.”
Again, Gerald says this loud enough for the girl to hear.
She does not even blink.
“Can she fight?”
“Doubtful. She’s not smart, or talented, or even pleasant, if I’m being honest.”
“I can fight.” The small girl spits her words out, venom in her voice. “I’d kill you both with my bare hands if I wasn’t in this cage.”
“Not a great way to attract a buyer, Indie Anna.”
I let the little girl mesmerize me for a moment. I get lost in her future and potential. Then repeat her name back at Gerald. “Indiana? That’s what you call her? Sounds pretty trailer trash if you ask me.”
“Fuck you.”
“That’s quite enough, Indie. Remember your manners. Rich men don’t buy little girls with dirty mouths.”