Given

by

Ashlynn
Monroe

Given

Copyright © 2013,
Ashlynn
Monroe

ISBN: 9781937325497

Publisher:
Beachwalk
Press, Inc.

Electronic Publication: January,
2013

Editor: Leigh Lamb

Cover: Fantasia Frog Designs

eBooks
are
not transferable. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in articles and
reviews.

This book is a work of fiction and
any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is
purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination
and used fictitiously.

In a world without choices, one woman will find herself caught
in the middle of six men and the emotions they develop for her.

Krista
Damiani
is one of the last
women on Earth, and her patriotic duty is to make babies. On her twenty-first
birthday, the government holds a lottery drawing to determine the men who will
control her destiny. Her “six”, the men who win the right to call her their own,
know they have to impregnate her quickly or risk losing her to a new “six”.

As society fills with additional violence and unrest, her
men keep her sheltered in a fortress of maximum security. When a mysterious man
arrives and offers her the chance for freedom, will she be willing to leave the
life she knows behind or will she remain “given”?

Content Warning: contains voyeurism, multiple partners, and
anal sex

I’d like to dedicate this book to the amazing staff at
Beachwalk
Press. My incredible editor Leigh Lamb is
absolutely my hero. I’d also like to thank my
Facebook
peeps who’ve shown me love and support throughout the writing process. You guys
rock! **HUGS**

“I’m going to run away,”
Cina
said.

Kristannie
Damiani
looked up from her book to stare at her best friend and roommate silently.

“I know I’ve said it before, but I mean it. You’ll be gone
next week. I can’t stand it here anymore. Without you, my incarceration will be
unbearable!”

“I’m trying not to think about leaving. You’ll survive, we
all have to.” Krista didn’t mean to sound unkind, but she was the one who
should be freaking out, not
Cina
.

“Sorry. I get how much it sucks to be you right now, but at
least you’ll be getting out of this place and away from Frau
Bitchenstein
.”

Kristannie
chuckled. She hated
Miss
Ramstein
as much as the rest of the girls.
They’d dubbed the evil woman Frau
Bitchenstein
because of her German accent and bad attitude. But no matter how hard she made
their lives, it was hard not to pity her. She was just as much a prisoner as
the girls were. “You’ll be okay without me,
Cina
.
You’ll see.”

“Like hell I will. You’ve been the closest thing to family
I’ve had since I was ten. I had my brothers and dad, they really loved me, but
then I was ripped away from my home. It was hard for me. You’re lucky all you
had was your mom. You never had to hurt like I have.”

Gaping at her friend with open-mouthed shock, it took Krista
a moment to respond. “Lucky? How is orphaned at three years old lucky?”

“You don’t remember what it’s like not to have a family.”

“I remember my mom. I also remember being alone for days in
our apartment with her corpse. None of us are lucky.”

“Sorry.”
Cina
had the courtesy to
look contrite. “It was hard when my mom and my older sister died. I was so
little, I don’t even remember them. I just remember my dad crying and keeping
me inside the house. He made my older brothers take turns staying home from
school with me, he was so afraid I’d get sick too,”
Cina
said, shrugging sadly. “Then they still kept me home because they were afraid
I’d be taken.”
Cina
walked over to her dresser and
picked up her only photo of her father and brothers. She rubbed the glass
lovingly.

“When my mom’s boss finally called the police, because she
hadn’t gone into the office for days, they came to the apartment and broke down
the door. I remember holding her body and screaming as they took me away from
her. I don’t even know what they did with her body. She’s probably in one of
the mass graves. I can’t even remember the name of the town I’m actually from.
They brought me here, and I’ve never left. I can’t remember much about my dad.
Maybe he was just a man in Mom’s life. I know he didn’t live with my mom. I’ve
been here since this was a tent city. I don’t know why I was immune, but my mom
wasn’t.”

Cina
had a faraway look on her
face. “I heard that if your dad had immune female relatives, you’re immune. I
don’t think it’s true, because my sister died. She was fourteen, so maybe she
didn’t make it because she’d hit puberty already, but I wish they had a real
answer for us. If it comes back, I want to know I’m safe.”

Krista nodded to her friend in agreement.

Cina
let her hand fall away from
the photo. “Who knows, maybe it’s all randomness. So, are you scared?” she
asked, turning back to look at Krista.

“I told you I’m trying not to think about it,” Krista
whispered. She opened her book again, hoping
Cina
would give her some peace.

“I’d be happy.”

Sighing, Krista closed the book again. She knew
Cina
well enough to know she wouldn’t drop the subject
until she was satisfied. They’d have to have this talk at some point before
tomorrow, so she gave up on ignoring her pending doom. “Why would you be happy?
Do you really think there’s anything out there for any of us anymore?”

“Yes.
Freedom.
I don’t care who my
six are. I just want out of here. They aren’t stupid enough to hurt us. If they
did that, we’d be back in the lottery. Women’s Social Services will be checking
up on us regularly.”

“Oh goodie, more people like Frau
Bitchenstein
coming ’round to tell us how to live. You talk about freedom as if it still
exists for those of us with the double X chromosomes.
Cina
,
we are all prisoners for life. Even if you get the kindest, wealthiest six, do
you think they’ll just let you hop on a plane and travel? Do you think the day
after they
Give
you, you’ll be able to learn to drive
a car or just skip down the street unaccompanied? Hell no! You’ll be even more
of a prisoner, and you’ll be raped every night on top of it. Only they won’t
call it rape—they’ll call it repopulation.”

Kristannie
shook with the anger
inside of her that had been building for the last eighteen years. She’d watched
the tent city grow into a massive secure complex and seen more and more girls
arrive against their will. Unlike herself, these girls had fathers and brothers
who loved them. It wasn’t fair that women were the most valuable commodity on
the planet. She just wanted to be human and live life.
Cina
had gone too far this time. Krista couldn’t put the cork back in the bottle.

“Fuck you,
Cina
! You get to stay
here another year. At least you have control over your body while you’re here.
Me—six men will rape me—very soon. I’m going to have a goddamn monitor
implanted in my arm so they can track me if I decide to run. Freedom, my ass!
Oh, they’ll say it’s to protect me from those who kidnap women of childbearing
age and sell them to wealthy men who can’t participate in the lottery, but
it’ll only be for my six to know where the hell I am all the time. There are
apps for it. Apps! They’ll just pull out their
cellphones
and see where I am all day long. They’ll also have private security to ‘guard’
me. This place is heaven compared to what I’m going to be dealing with.”

Krista was trying not to cry. Saying what awaited her aloud
escalated her growing panic. A deeply imbedded terror she’d been trying to
control for the last six months clawed to the surface of her consciousness.

“They don’t tell you any of this crap until the last few
months. You know why—so you don’t freak out. If the girls here knew what was
going to happen to them on their twenty-first birthday, they’d have a riot on
their hands. I look at the little ones and want to cry. Think about it,
Cina
, our moms died when we were two and three. They died
with almost every other woman on the planet, and the few female survivors
hadn’t had girls after the epidemic. The teens who survived were
Given
, and the children being sent here now are their
daughters. That’s what will happen if we have daughters, they’ll be taken away
on their tenth birthday and we’ll never see them again!” She paused. Her rant
left her emotionally drained. Krista put her hands over her eyes, as if she
could block out the terrible truths. “They’ll tell us it’s to protect our daughters
from those who would take them from us to sell. They’ll tell us they have to
preserve the human race and our sacrifice is an obligation to our country, but
do you think those words will make it hurt less?”
Kristannie
took her hands off her face to look at her friend.
Cina
said nothing, which was unusual for the emotional and bubbly twenty-year-old.

“I didn’t know. God, I’m sorry, Krista. We have to get out
of here.”

“And go where?”

“Who cares as long as we don’t get a six pack?”

Krista shook her head. She loved
Cina
like a sister, a sister she’d never see again after tomorrow night, but the
woman didn’t have a practical bone in her body.

“I’d rather have my six than be taken by human traffickers.
At least I know my six are healthy, economically solvent, and have to treat me
right. If they step out of line, even a little, I have the right to request a
new six, and it doesn’t take more than one request to be up on the lottery
board for the evening drawing. Last week, three out of seven nights there weren’t
any birthdays in our region. Men aren’t foolish enough to risk losing their
woman. It’s not as it was. A woman can’t just walk down the street, have a job,
and make her own choices. Even with the constant guard, restrictions, and red
tape, I’ll be safe. I might not like this, but I’m not running. The women who
do run end up sold or selling themselves, no thanks.”

“How do you know that, about them selling themselves?”

“Think about it. You’d be a fugitive. It’s not as if you
could go rent an apartment and get a job. You’d have to live underground the
rest of your life.”

“I heard there are hidden communities in Canada where it’s
like it was before the pandemic.”

“Nowhere is
really safe anymore.”

“You have a point. See how much I need you around to be my
common sense? I’m scared.”
Cina’s
lip trembled.

Krista put her arm around her friend. “So am I, but at least
when you’re
Given
, you might be allowed to have a
visit or phone calls or Skype with your dad and brothers. Look forward to that,
seeing them again is something. I’d rather just stay here, but that’s not
possible.”

They sat silently for a moment. A bell rang. “I guess free
period is over. What activities are you scheduled for now?”
Cina
asked.

Krista could hear the weight of the new knowledge in her friend’s
voice. She hated that she’d been the one to tell
Cina
the hard truth. The guardians in the protection center tried to make being
Given
out to be the holy grail of good days, but the oldest
girls knew the truth and were sworn to silence. Some of the girls were
genuinely happy and excited for The Giving, but most weren’t.

“Self-defense, my favorite.
Just
don’t say anything about what I told you or I’ll get demerits and lose
privileges. I only earned the right to stay in the room instead of going to the
half-year dorm because of my behavior credits. The truth is why they take the
twenty-and-a-half-year-olds out of the general population. You have another
five months before you have to go there, don’t speed that up. The crazy things
they make us watch and read make me feel icky about the idea of sex. The place
is as depressing as a funeral home. I heard two girls are currently under guard
in their rooms for trying to escape, others have had to go on depression meds,
and one even tried to commit suicide. Finding out our guardians lied about
everything we’re looking forward to is devastating. Anyway, I’m going to SD so
I can blow off a little steam. The instructor only lets me practice on dummies
now, because I’m getting so good she’s afraid I might hurt one of the other
girls.” Krista smiled, relishing the moment of pride. “Where are you going
again? I can’t remember the schedule.”