Culling

Part I • Chapter V

I jumped and looked up at her. She was no longer in the green dress and was wearing a casual dress suit instead. She looked less grumpy now. "I have a room ready now if you want to go rest a bit."

"Why does she get a private room?" Greg whined.

He was sat in the chair and was so quiet I assumed he fell asleep, but apparently he was just eavesdropping. "That's not fair."

"No one cares what you think, you scumbag. So you can just shove off." Khloe snapped at him, and he leaned back in the chair, shocked into silence.

"Wo-ah!" Mike drew the word out in awe as conversation around the room silenced. Our group became the center of attention again. "That was awesome."

"Right." She drew herself up a bit higher and looked around the car slowly. "Let me just make this clear to you all right now. Just because there is a woman here does not give you all free reign to act like pigs. We are a civilized people. If I hear of one more lewd comment, or if there are even rumors of so much as a single finger placed on this woman in any kind of non-consensual manner, even after we get off this train, I will make you wish you were in the arena even sooner. Trust me, I will track you down and find you. I can make your life even more of a living hell than anything you can ever imagine. Is that clear?"

A chorus of "Yes", "Yes ma'ams" and even one "I think I'm in love" echoed around the room as Khloe put her arm over my shoulders and led me into her private rooms.

☜♡☞

I laid on my back on a plastic covered table with a towel draped over my front.

We had arrived to the Capital with much aplomb a while ago. Then the group of us were whisked away to a high security area filled with buildings of all types and sizes. Afterwards, we were led into one of the buildings and separated. A woman, who seemed thrilled to see me, grabbed my hand and took me to a smallish room by myself.

She then told me that I was going to get a makeover and to strip. So here I was, just chilling.

I just decided to go with it.

The room was a painted a soothing tan color and had abstract art decoratively placed around it. I was pretty certain I could hear some relaxing flute music in the background.

If it wasn't for the fact that I was naked under this towel and there were two strangers wearing medical garb in the room with me, I probably would have fallen asleep.

They stood on each side of me and constantly touched parts of my arms, legs and hair before consulting with each other in low voices. I was pretty sure that they were talking quietly in hopes that I would find this entire thing soothing and would forget they were there, but that was not going to happen.

More than anything, I was mostly bored. I thought I heard the words mud bath and full-body waxing but I couldn't be sure. The latter of which didn't sound very appealing, and I had no idea why anyone would want to bathe in mud.

The woman, who had shoulder length bright purple hair and red eyes, suddenly popped her face into my view close to mine.

If I remembered correctly, she had told me that she was an esthetician, but I had no idea what that meant. She didn't address me though, and instead pinched my face and poked my cheek with her finger. She seemed hyper focused on something.

I followed her finger with my eyes as I tried not to move the rest of my body. "Can I help you?" This was totally not relaxing.

"Sorry sweetie." She smiled at me but continued to poke and prod my face. "I'm just doing an initial skin assessment before Adam gets here. He'll be here in a moment."