Trigger warnings: Death, blood, anxiety, sexual assault (brief), vomit (also brief)

Everyday, he counted down to the moment when they would show up at his house and take him away. Everyday, it got closer, and everyday, he tried to pretend it wasn't coming, tried to live a normal life, tried to smile and love his brothers, but he couldn't, not properly, because they would be fine. They had their fiancés and their half-planned weddings, their stable jobs, their freedom. His was going to be taken away, and he knew it would be soon. Everyday, it would be sooner. 

Today, it happened, and he didn't fight or scream or beg them to spare him, because he knew how that went. He'd read about it on the news. They were all over the news. Twenty-five-year-old man, unemployed, shot in the head after attempting to escape his wedding with twenty-nine-year-old millionaire.  

They were everywhere, and they had been all his life. As a boy, he had listened to his mother talking about it, yelling at the television as though her anger would change anything, promising her sons she wouldn't let it happen to them. But twenty years later, there they were, with their pocketed guns and grabbing hands, and she had gone. 

Not dead, just gone. After her first marriage had fallen to pieces, she'd gotten engaged to a man called William. She had married him soon after (lucky her, lucky him) and though she called every Friday night and came down for dinner with William every two Sundays, it was not enough. She had promised, and it was not enough.

Because there they were, and there he was, in their grip, walking obediently to a car with blacked out windows, and he would never be home again. 

The car was warm inside, the seats comfortable, and he sat where they told him, did up his seatbelt, and waited. For five and a half hours, he waited, his eyes gazing out the window without seeing anything, his heart hammering so wildly he could feel it in his fingers. He was silent, as he was expected to be, as he knew he had to be, and he thought of who the man would be. 

Most of the husbands were brutal. He had heard that from his mother, and later, from the few public voices who dared to speak negatively about it. Most of the husbands beat up and belittled their grooms, most of them fucked their grooms without the need for consent or aftercare or romance. Most of them deserved to be dead, and yet it was those with no choice who ended up being shot, those who were brave enough to fight back, to speak up. They were all shot in the head, and apparently, that was fine. 

There were two other men in the car, both of them wearing black and saying nothing. The one who was driving would look repeatedly at the rear-view mirror to check he was still behaving, and the one in the passenger seat had a gun in his lap and was polishing it with a napkin, as though it was a normal thing to be doing in broad daylight. 

Remington was so petrified by the time the car pulled into a parking space outside a hotel that he thought he might be sick, but he kept himself together, as he always promised himself he would. He'd hate it and he'd want to die, but he'd keep himself together. He owed himself that. 

The man with the gun opened his door and said nothing, just waited for him to get out, which he did, and his arm was grabbed and he was pulled into the hotel and up to a room. "Tonight, you sleep here," the man said. It was the first time he had spoken all day, and his voice wasn't what Remington was expecting it. He sounded nicer than he looked, nicer than his job suggested he would sound. "The clothes on the bed are what you will wear, and you will shower before dressing tomorrow morning. We leave here at ten AM, if you are not ready by then, there will be consequences. Understood?" 

Remington nodded quickly. He needed to sit down, or lie down, of kneel by the toilet, because he was sure he was about to vomit his guts up. 

"Please take off your shirt." 

For a moment, Remington didn't move, but the man still had the gun, so he did as told, took his shirt off, and stood, frozen in place, as something was pressed into the back of his neck, at the top of his spine. It was sharp and he bit down on his lip to keep quiet, felt the warm trickle of blood running down his back.

The man with the gun stuck a strip of gauze over the top with medical tape and said, "Do not try to remove it. There will be consequences. You will order room service for tonight and for breakfast tomorrow. Understood?" 

He nodded again. It was probably a tracking device, the thing in his neck. The thought made him cold with dread.

"Good. We will see you at ten am. Have a good night." 

Then the man with the gun left, and Remington took steps backwards until he was at the bed, where he lay and cried. It was happening. He would tomorrow be someone's husband, and he would tomorrow have everything taken from him, and he would tomorrow have to look at a man he didn't know and say 'I do', and he would tomorrow be not himself, not Remington Leith, but someone's husband. 

He would tomorrow belong to someone else.