Judy dug her heels into the soft dusty ground on the eastern quadrant of the plantation. The wind was hot, and she twisted her expression churlishly when it cast itself against her. There was a knight coming; she could see a deliveryman carefully crossing the vest plain from the entrance gate to the sparse area where she and the family lived. The man was obviously weary; his back was hunched, and his blue uniform was little guard against the gusts.
Judy sighed irritably. The mother had mentioned, in a slurred, hungover voice, that today might be the day when she was taken. Even though the mother liked to tease her, or even mock and berate her, she had a feeling that this might be the day.
After the mother had said it, Judy had raced to her bedroom, and combed her fingers through her hair, trying to make a nice picture in the mirror. But the mirror was cracked and awful and only showed lusterless red hair coated in years of dust, a yellow face that didn’t hide pockmarks from battles with skin infection, and a stooped stance that she was sure would make any man take back his request.
Still, she had gone to the basin and splashed water on her skin, which helped clear it a little. And then she had wet her hair and twisted it so it would be wavy when it dried. She went out into the summer heat to speed the process.
So there she stood, a unconquerable force balancing her weight against the wind.
The plantation was always like this; she didn’t know exactly where, but she knew she was in the desert. There were certainly times she wished she had been relocated to a cabin section in the woods, or a resort in the mountains. On days when she dared to dream, she even imagined a sprawling bungalow compound on the beach.
But she knew she was lucky for reasons other than scenery. The plantation may have been hot, vast and lonely, but at least it didn’t require much protection. She had heard that in places like the Rocky mountains, or even the strip of beach in California, the men found them easily. There were dozens of guards and mountain lions and sea serpents ready to attack if the men came too near.
When she had first arrived, five years ago, the mother had murmured that the deserts were treacherous enough on their own. The players didn’t add many dangers. In fact, most of the time, the delivery man would simply approach the house on the plantation and tell them that there was a suitor, two miles north, resting from his long and difficult journey, but that he required that “Rose” -or- “Joanie” - or- “Tamara” or “Callie” join him the following morning.
And each time that girl would crinkle her eyes and weep with joy, then run as fast as their dusty feet could carry them back to their room, where they would throw their possessions into a suitcase and prepare to be married to whatever brave knight had been assigned her name at the beginning of his journey.
But so far, in her five years in captivity, there had been no delivery man requesting that Miss Judy Helvenshire pack her bags and join her knight in the morning. She had come when she was twelve, her name carefully typed on a creamy envelope, which had been pulled in a drawing hours before. The need for girls who were selected to be the proverbial damsels in distress was growing, as thousands of eager young men signed up to participate in the ultimate challenge for the mind and body; the mission to rescue their women, with only the vaguest clue to start them off.
The girls chosen must be in the ten to fourteen age group, as they estimated that it would take the men anywhere from eight to ten years to find them. The girls were sent in random groups to the farthest and most dire ends of the earth, to be raised by their guardians, or, as they were more commonly known, the Fathers and the Mothers.
When her name had been picked at a local drawing in Iowa, Judy had kissed her parents and grandparent confusedly goodbye, and then boarded a train, where she was sent to mission headquarters in France, before being shipped off to a compound they had just built on a microscopic mile in the Sahara desert.
In the five years since, she had grown up to be an obedient teenager with musty red hair and a short, spindly figure. She was quiet, and cynical, and every time a messenger showed up with the good news for some other girl, she grew more so.
But today it might actually happen.
She wondered what the man would actually look like. She supposed her would have to be windblown and a little bit sunburned, having spent a good amount of time in the desert, for the rules said you couldn’t approach the girl without being one hundred percent which was yours, and that meant careful observation.
She hoped he would be handsome and intelligent, and funny and all of that, but more than that she hoped that he was pleased with her. Having searched for five years, she did hope she would be worth the wait…
Although, she mused, heading back closer to the main house, if you thought about it, she really ought to be even more judgmental of him. She had spent her five years having to wait on him, with absolutely no choice in the matter, and really, if she didn’t find him satisfactory, why should she be stuck with him?
Who was he to decide that he was good enough for her, without having spent any time in her presence, just because he had braved sea-storms and sandstorms and mind games and monsters? Why did that ensure she had to love him?
She paced angrily around the wire fence around the house, rage rustling in the pit of her stomach and the back of her throat.
She didn’t want to be stuck with some egotistical, muscled cave man who just wanted to throw her over his shoulder when he found her and drag her back to a marriage ceremony that was really only for the sake of appearances, before trapping her with him for the rest of her days!
She gathered her anger inside, her, prepared to go to the mother and scream that she no longer wanted anything to do with the whole disgusting mission. But just as she turned, she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She turned. The delivery man had finally made his snail’s pace stretch all the way to the house. 
She sighed, angry that anything had gotten in the way of her revelation. “How may I help you?”
She wondered what girl had been found today. Maybe Christine. Or perhaps Savannah, who was twenty-four and had been waiting the longest of all of them. Yes, it was probably Savannah.
The delivery man’s voice was parched and creaky. “Yes, hello, on behalf of Sir Joseph Carroll, I am here to retrieve Miss Judy Helvenshire?” He squinted at her with sunburned eyes.
A scoff escaped her mouth, and without hesitation or thought, Judy hit the man as hard as she could, square in his face, and watched as he fell to the ground. She kicked him in the stomach once he was down, and then started running.