Kristin was still curled up on the cot hours later when the door opened again. A thin man with a goatee and ponytail, wearing the same black military pants and black t-shirt as the other guard, opened it.
"Let's go, princess."
He waited at the door for her to get up instead of grabbing her like the other guard had, and Kristin hesitated for a moment, considering defiance and trying to find the words for exactly how she'd tell him off. Of course, it was stupid. Her hands were bound, she was naked, and it wasn't like he couldn't just drag her out if she struggled. Or go get the woman guard. Kristin got on her feet and looked at him uncertainly.
The guard blindfolded her, clipped her hands behind her back (Kristin saw now they were just using a carabiner to connect the D-rings of the cuffs), leashed her, and led her through the gray-carpeted and fluorescent-lit hallways. If it hadn't been for the fact she was naked and on a leash, Kristin would have felt like she was in a suburban office park. Their route then led her down several flights of a fire staircase and into a green-painted basement level.
"Okay, now stop here. Hang on a minute. You're going to feel something on your skin. Don't flinch, it won't hurt."
Despite his instructions, Kristin flinched when something cold and wet touched her. Something like a marker? It felt like it wrote something just above her left breast and below her right hip.
"Okay, princess. Now just wait here for a bit. You know to be quiet for me."
Kristin heard the man walk away, but was sure she hadn't been left alone. She heard voices directly in front of her, muffled as if coming from the next room. After a few minutes, she heard the door open and the voices become more distinct. Someone from the door shouted "Five two eight!" Kristin wasn't sure what to do, but wound up not having to do anything, as she heard someone else go in and the door shut. Another fifteen minutes, and it opened again. "Seven one six!" A hand tugged Kristin's leash and she was led through.
Inside the room, Kristin was poked and tugged into position, then halted. Her blindfold was removed and her hands uncuffed. She was looking at a long folding table inside a bare basement room. Sitting behind the table were five people looking at folders, with stacks of more folders on either side of them.
A skinny and worn-looking middle-aged blond woman, a tall man around thirty with dirty blond hair, a stocky black man with a white beard, a hugely muscular bald man, and a man in his forties with wire-rimmed glasses who looked like an accountant sat in judgment of Kristin.
"So what have we got here?" asked the bearded man.
The woman was ready. "Seven one six. Eighteen, American, apparently a virgin. Grabbed with that blond number that came through earlier, zero two six."
"Oh, her. Nice piece of property. Ms. O'Connor got her, right?"
The blond woman confirmed.
"You want the other one?"
"I don't think so. I've never had much luck with girls who knew each other, and they're obviously not sisters or anything."
The bearded man chuckled. "Now that's a racist assumption. But they're not a matched pair either way. Mr. Warren?"
The man in glasses looked her up and down. "Not a bad body. How's her behavior been?"
The guard behind her spoke up. "Didn't give me any trouble. Just meekly followed like a good girl. That might have been because it was Alice who put her away, though."
The bearded man laughed again. He had laugh wrinkles around the corners of his eyes, never stopped smiling, and appeared to find everything hugely funny. For some reason seeing a man who looked like her jolly uncle sitting in judgment of her, whatever this panel was, made her feel safer.
"I bet that educated her. Didn't it, seven one six?"
Kristin was confused. The man had apparently addressed her, but she didn't know what to say.
"Sir?" was all she managed.
The accountant smiled thinly. "She's young, a sweetheart, and a virgin. I know that's money, but I prefer breaking whores to pretending it's junior prom. Pass."
