I shivered the whole night long. Bringing my arms and knees together into a fetal position only marginally preserved body heat. It was not cold enough for me to freeze to death that night, but cold enough for me to be uncomfortable. Even if I had been allowed a blanket, or to be closer to the fire, I doubt I would have slept. Not when terrible men, with no good on their minds, drank heavily a mere 20 feet away. Not when every sound in the woods around me seemed to echo in my ears. Every rustle of leaves on the wind, every snap of a tree branch, every sound of some distant nocturnal animal startled me awake just as I’d fallen asleep.

Sometime after most of the men, save for one or two keeping watch, had passed out I decided to give up on trying to sleep, myself. Without the murmurs of the drunken mercenaries the night seemed even more ominous. I swore I could see eyes flickering in the darkness, but as soon as I looked at them they vanished. Shivers ran up and down my already cold spine, and frightened tears trickled from the corners of my eyes.

All day I had denied myself, and that horrible Captain most of all, my tears. I refused to let any of them see me cry. But here in the darkness, with most of them asleep, I rested my face on my arms and knees and wept silently. Even then I hated myself for crying.

You fucking wimp… I cursed myself. But I couldn’t help the tears. They gushed from the corners of my eyes now, falling in rivulets down my cheeks, and mixing with all the other stains on my ruined pajama pants. Every insult, every stumble, every tug of the chain, every indignity I’d suffered today seeped out in those tears.

What did I do to deserve this? I asked myself. Am I really so terrible? Wallowing in pathetic self-pity I came up with a number of reasons why I earned the bed I currently laid in. Times in which I didn’t call my parents for being “too busy;” lies I’d told friends when I just didn’t feel like hanging out with them; or any ridiculous thing that my rational mind knew had no correlation to my recent predicaments.

Of course my mind wandered to an event I’d been to over a year ago. Bill was at a work seminar for the weekend, and I’d been invited to be my friend Ashley’s plus one –Joel didn’t care for parties. My relationship with Bill had already declined considerably, but I remained indecisive as what I planned to do about it. Normally I wasn’t a party person either, but I thought getting out for the night might clear my head.

Thirty minutes in, however, and I was already regretting my decision. It was a beautiful home, of course, but full of people I didn’t know and music I didn’t like. Ashley was gushing to her friend, the one who just bought the house, and about two glasses of rose’ along; I was grateful we’d decided to take an Uber. I sipped a Corona and lurked near Ashley, or wherever the household cat was at, trying to avoid a weird guy who kept eyeing me hungrily all night. The guy with the eyes just like the Captain’s.

While his back was turned at the bar I took this moment to slip downstairs, out of his sight. In the fully finished basement four men, and two women circled around a pool table. They all looked up and greeted me when I entered, and even though I didn’t know any of them I immediately felt more comfortable than I had upstairs. That is, until one man in the room locked eyes with me. He instantly reminded me of Mickey Rourke –tousled dark hair fell over his eyes, and he wiped away the dangling strands with tanned, oil-stained hands. Rugged lines traced his cheek bones and tapered down into a salt and pepper goatee. He was thick; broad shoulders and heavy arms stretched his black t-shirt that was probably just one size too small. Faded blue jeans hugged his sturdy hips just below his muscled, but not completely flat, abdomen. I felt uncomfortable again, but pleasantly so.

“You like to play pool?” He asked, around the Lucky Strike cigarette in his mouth. He was leaning on a pool stick with faded and chipping paint. A flickering neon Miller High Life sign behind him backlit a face that was clearly a little older than the other faces here.

“Huh?” I asked, then realized I’d been staring and quickly tried to compose myself. “More, like, tired of the music upstairs.”

The Mickey Rourke look-a-like laughed.

“Why not join us, then?” He asked and started fiddling with a nearby radio until it clicked on. A classic rock tune from the 70’s pumped from its busted speakers. “You like the Eagles?”

I smiled, nodded and accepted the fresh beer he offered me from a nearby cooler. Although never a master at small talk myself, I found this guy very easy to talk to. He seemed interested in everything I had to say as I proceeded to play… badly. But no matter how poorly I hit, or didn’t hit, the balls in front of me the ruggedly handsome man didn’t ridicule or laugh at me. He just continued to kick my ass until I was left staring at an empty pool table, about ready to either hide underneath it or call an Uber while I still maintained some tiny shred of dignity.

“You’re holding it wrong,” he said.

“Hmph, maybe you could have told me that before you kicked my ass!” I grumbled.

He only smiled, laid his stick aside and moved behind me.

“Here, let me show you…”

Like something out of a movie, he leaned over me with his hands on mine where they grasped the pool stick, showing me how and where to point. I was grateful he was behind me now, as I could feel my cheeks burning hot. I blamed the beer the next morning, and for days afterwards, for why I curled into his arms instead of pushing him away like I should have. As though compelled by a will other than my own I had even arched my back so that my behind jutted out before him, suggestively. Much to my surprise he leaned down further and I could feel his breath on my neck, as well as the gentle closing of the gap between his hips and my rear…

The memory only made me groan and sob more into my arms. I didn’t want to think of that night anymore –I refused to think about it. I’d ridden the guilt train into deep tunnels of self-deprecation many times before this, and it did little more than make me ill. Frankly I didn’t need to feel any more miserable than I already did.

My stomach was aching with hunger, and my throat was dry even before I started crying. Every part of my body hurt. I wondered if there was any piece of flesh on my legs and arms that wasn’t bruised or covered in scratches. How could I possibly take another day of this treatment? Or however many days it took for us to reach this dreadful market the Captain spoke of?

Still sniffling I lifted my head as I felt another pair of eyes on me. I half expected it to be just my imagination again, seeing monsters in the dark when there were none, when I found the source of the gaze. There was a monster watching me in the night, but it wasn’t the terrible ones of my imagination, or the ones in a drunken stupor nearby. His two hauntingly red eyes, glittering in the dim firelight rested on me from across the camp. The orc.

I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of one dirty hand and returned his gaze. I could just barely make out his rigid features in the dark. The fire cast strange shadows on his green skin, and made his form even more menacing than in the daylight. For a moment we just stared at each other, his face completely emotionless, until it morphed into an expression of sympathy –of compassion.

The orc was just as much of a prisoner as I was, although I had a feeling that I deserved to be here somewhat less than he did. The orc said nothing, but looked once over at the passed out men around the campfire, and the two gently nodding off when they were meant to keep watch, then turned back to me with a look of reassurance.

I’ll keep watch over you… His eyes said. Not that there was much he could do from behind his cage bars, but he could at least alert me to any dangers that might try to sneak up on me in the night, I concluded. But more so than that his reassurance, like the warning from the blue-capped boy, told me that I wasn’t completely alone.

There were bad, wicked men in the world, of that I always knew. But there were also good, kind men too. Men that wanted women to feel safe. Men that wanted to protect women as best they could. Some were still “boys,” in the eyes of other men, and I didn’t know if an orc counted as a “man” in the traditional sense, but the sentiment was comforting all the same.

Eventually I must have drifted into a restless sleep, because I remember looking into the orc’s deep, red eyes one second, and being kicked awake by a mercenary the next.