Dane's POV:
Time doesn't stop so much as it stretches, pulling thin until it loses its shape, until I can no longer tell how long I've been standing there or how many breaths I've taken since the men started sorting the room.
The factory hums around us, a low mechanical sound that vibrates through the concrete floor and into my bones, the lights buzzing overhead with the kind of insistence that makes it impossible to think .
And the girls beside me seem to sense it too, their bodies locking in place, shoulders pulled inward, trembling inside those obscene little frocks.
"I mean… not breedin," I say, forcing a laugh that scrapes out of my throat wrong, too tight, too sharp, and I hear it myself even as it leaves me.
I try again, louder, rougher, leaning into the filth.
"But what else these bitches for."
The men don't answer right away, and the pause stretches just long enough for my pulse to start pounding in my ears.
