Phoenix: Ride With Me Series

Prologue

Looking round,tears fell down my cheeks, blurring my vision.

What of it there was. The room was semi-dark, dull—a prison cell that we’d been thrust into.

Silence filled the space around me.

I knew the others were probably crying, screaming even though we were gagged, but without my processor, I heard only silence.

I couldn’t see them; the walls around me only allowed the sparse light through the cracks between the boards. The smells though; I wasn’t quite sure what it was. Grass? Hay? Dirt? I just couldn’t tell.

I used my bound hands to pat my chest, feeling for the tiger’s eye stone in my bra. Don’t judge me, I didn’t have any pockets when I got dressed this morning.

The stone was something special. I got this from a rock shop a few months ago. I didn’t normally venture into places like that. I’d never considered myself the rock-loving girl. After that visit though, I could say, I was totally a rock-loving girl.

It was hard to explain how it all happened. I felt as if I should thank a divine deity. Loki made me do it sounds better though. Again, don’t judge me. Those Marvel characters just made me laugh.

The rocks, stones, crystals, they had many names. Many things they could do for you. This one little stone has helped me so much in the last few months. Was it mind over matter? Maybe. I wasn’t an expert, wouldn’t pretend to be, but I knew it’d been a way to keep myself from spiraling.

The negative that surrounded me daily was draining. My heart was racing, I could feel it under my hand. Usually, if I had the stone on me, I didn’t seem to feel as bad about my life. My strength shone while the negativity was choked out.

And there was a lot of negativity. My mom?—

Tears fell hard as I remembered what they did to her. She’d finally stood up to Brandon. She wasn’t going to allow him to take me out of the house. Her words played over and over in my head.

“You will leave with her over my dead body.”

And that was exactly what happened. Brandon pulled a gun and shot her. I watched horrified as the blood pooled between her eyes instantly before she fell over onto the floor. The man with Brandon had tossed me over his shoulder, my bound hands and ankles no use to me. He carried me to a car, dropped me into the trunk, and when I saw light again, I was carried into this place. I’d seen another man carrying a woman in as well. Another lay on the floor, her clothes in shambles. I wasn’t sure if she was alive or—nope. Still wasn’t thinking about that.

I was able to dig the stone out of my sports bra and clutch it in my fingers. I closed my eyes and prayed to anyone that could hear me. I just wanted to go home.

My anxiety was so high that I was shaking. This situation might be more than this stone or I could handle right now. The images of my mother fighting with him. Her fingers curled into claws as he lunged for her. She had been trying to get sober. She was trying to protect me. What did it get her? A bullet between the eyes.

The blood.

I squeezed my eyes shut, tried taking some deep breaths through my stuffy nose. If I wasn’t careful, I’d suffocate or choke if I vomited with this duct tape on my mouth. No one knew—or would know—where I was.

I didn’t want to die here, in this place.

If Mom would have let me call Dad last week, none of this would be happening. I could have been with him, leaving her and Brandon to do whatever it was they wanted to do.

I could be in school, have friends maybe. Be happy again. I’d not have to sleep in a locked room or the closet to be safe from the men that came in and out of her house.

The judge had never asked me who I wanted to stay with. Never talked to me about the changes in my mom over the last year. To be fair, I doubt anyone knew. When I was able to FaceTime Dad, she was right there, glaring at me the whole time.

If it was a text, she would see. Everything was looked at. I had no way of telling him what was going on. Look where that got us.

Dad would never have let this happen to us—to me. I dropped my head to my knees, counting in my mind. I had to get myself under control. Being emotional would only make everything worse.

My fingers squeezed the tiger’s eye harder. The pain reminded me that I was still alive. I was sure I’d have a chance of getting out of here.

Surely someone would know I was missing by now. Right? A neighbor would have found her body and called the police. The trailer park gossip would be rolling through town soon enough.

Even if they did—no one would know where I was. From that side of town, the cops would just assume I’d run away. I’d tried once, and they’d brought me back to her.

Why, oh why was this happening? Who did I piss off in a past life? Was I being punished for my mom’s bad deeds? Was I guilty by association?

Was that how this karma thing worked?

I hoped not.

I was taken out of the box I was in earlier.

Two men—I wish I could forget what they did. I was stripped down to my underwear, exposed to them while one took pictures. I tried to read his lips, but he had that camera up; I couldn’t always see his lips moving.

Someone was looking at the pictures. I didn’t get what was happening. My gut told me this was worse than I’d thought. Worse than having to sleep in a locked closet. Men shouldn’t look at me like this. They shouldn’t see my body like this.

Every time I shied away, tried to cover myself, I was hit. Once a bucket of cold water was thrown on me. I gasped, coughing, and they laughed. I could see the happiness on their faces at my discomfort.

My tears fell nonstop until they just quit. I had no energy to cry. My body hurt, my eyes burned, and I was beyond starving. I didn’t know when I’d last eaten. I tried to fight them off when they came in to drag me out for more pictures. All that resulted in were more hits.

This last time, I was too weak and tired to even try.

The open laptop on the box across from where I stood had a picture of me with a bunch of numbers rolling across the top. On the side it said things like “young,” “virgin,” “likes to fight,” “bid starting at 300,ooo.” I swallowed back the dread that swamped through me like sour milk.

Before I was taken back to my box, two others were dragged out of theirs. Both had matching bruises and were tied like I was. This was hell on earth, and we were all stuck here. Waiting to see what was going to happen to us.

I wanted to go home. I needed my dad to somehow show up and make this all go away.

At this point, I would settle for just waking up from this nightmare, even if that meant being back at home with my mom and sleeping in the closet.