Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
BAILEY - BEFORE
Cat, Jasmine, and I get loaded into a van by a few of the men that work for King while Yuri watches with a sharp eye.
Goosebumps cover my limbs and I can barely control the full body shakes that began the moment I finished showering.
None of what I’m going through compares to how Jasmine is looking.
She’s inconsolable. They slapped her, drugged her, and now she’s barely coherent other than small sobs that escape her lips every few seconds.
She huddles close to Cat, who stares ahead with a blank expression.
While the two men in the front seat talk animatedly, I lean closer to Cat and whisper, “Where do you think they’re taking us?” A blink and sniff are the only signs she heard me. “Are you okay?”
Her bloodshot eyes find mine, and even in the darkness, I can make out the shadow of a bruise around one eye, poorly concealed under caked foundation.
“Do I look okay?” she says through gritted teeth.
My first instinct is to feel hurt, but words don’t sting like they used to. “It was a dumb question, I guess.”
Jasmine shudders, and Cat pulls her closer, whispering something in her ear. I can’t help but feel jealous of their obvious closeness. I’d give anything for an ounce of comfort in this nightmare.
“She’s lucky to have you,” I say. “Did you know each other? I mean, before.”
The van drives over a pothole and I lurch to the side. Through the windshield, I catch blurred highway signs.
“Lucky?” Cat says with a sarcastic tone.
“I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.” She moves a piece of hair from her eyes and checks that our captors aren’t paying attention before speaking again. “She’s my cousin. My baby cousin. I promised my aunt I’d look out for her when she moved to the city.”
“How old?” I ask, straining to see her features in the darkness.
“Fifteen,” Cat says, disgusted.
“Oh God.”
“Yeah. Except her new ‘boyfriend’ got to her before I knew what the fuck was going on. She left a note. Be back in a couple days.” Her voice lowers. “I looked for her... Three months later, I end up here too.”
This poor girl has already gone through so much. Thought she’d found love, only to be dragged into the biggest hell imaginable. I feel sick.
Shaking my head, I try to come up with a response, but nothing I can think of carries the weight of what I want to say.
Cat nods. “I know.”
“What about you?” I ask tentatively.
Cat scoffs. “Don’t worry about me, new girl. They won’t break me.”
Her words say one thing but her tone tells another story. I turn, giving her space, and stare out the window at the green overpass signs flashing by.
One reads fifteen miles to Manhattan. We’re still in New York. Somehow I thought we had to be much farther from my school. I feel worlds away from that life.
Mile by mile, the scenery changes from shadowy trees lining the highway to towering buildings and glowing lights. Traffic slows to a crawl as we hit the city. Stop and go hell that has the driver cursing and banging the steering wheel.
Through the windows of passing cars, I catch glimpses of passengers singing along to their music, couples talking, people simply existing without fear.
Just normal life that I took for granted.
Help is so close, I could reach out and touch it.
People surround us on all sides, but I’d be dead before I could even grab the door handle.
“Even if we were right in front of them, they wouldn’t see us, you know,” Cat says.
She releases a long breath and continues.
“We’re the invisible ones. The ones they send thoughts and prayers to online so they can feel better about their own privileged lives.
One look at us and they’d turn up their noses, cross the street, pretend we don’t exist. We’re dirty now.
Broken. The kind of problem that makes them uncomfortable because helping us would mean admitting this shit actually happens in their perfect little world. ”
I scrunch my brows and start to retort, but she cuts me off.
“Trust me on that, new girl. I’ve seen it firsthand… more than once.” She nods toward the men arguing in Russian. “That’s how they keep us. They know we’re beyond help. They make sure we look like the kind of people society has already given up on.”
“Shut the fuck up back there!” the passenger spits, then immediately starts back with his argument.
My entire body clenches but Cat just holds Jasmine closer.
“Have you ever tried to get out?” I ask after a few minutes pass.
Cat scoffs and turns to stare out the window. “Can’t.”
“Why?” I ask so quietly I barely hear myself.
“Because they’ll kill her if I do,” she says, looking down at Jasmine. “And probably make me watch first. That’s their favorite game… making us choose between saving ourselves or protecting someone weaker. They know exactly which choice we’ll make every time. Fucking bastards.”
There’s so many more questions I want to ask her, but now’s not the time, especially as our captors quiet down and Jasmine stirs. So instead, I count cars, silently wondering if Cat’s words are true. Would my call for help be ignored?
Finally, we park around the back of a building.
I have no idea what it is or where we are, but nausea rolls in my gut and anxiety grips my chest, making it impossible to take a full breath.
They haul us out of the van. Jasmine can barely hold herself up on the stilettos they forced us to wear.
She cries out as she’s yanked from Cat’s grip and dragged ahead by the driver.
I hold back the cry that tries to escape, while Cat’s body goes rigid. She’d kill them if she could.
It’s a brisk night and standing out here half naked in nothing but sheer lingerie doesn’t help. If I didn’t already feel raw and exposed from everything done to me at the house, this would do it. But there’s no time to dwell on that, not as the passenger pulls something from the glove box.
His oily dark hair shines in the dim streetlight, and pockmarked skin stretches across gaunt cheekbones. When he smiles at Cat and I, he reminds me of a skeleton. “Back up against the van,” he says. “Fight and I’ll make it hurt.”
My heart pounds but Cat holds her head high and obeys. She’s done this before. Been in this exact situation. So I follow her lead. That’s when I see what he’s grabbed. A syringe.
No, no, no.
“Please,” I whimper as I watch in what feels like slow motion.
His eyes narrow and he moves in front of me first. “What did I say? Bitch and moan and I’ll make it hurt.”
Then he jabs me in the upper arm—hard. In a matter of seconds, my cry of horror warps and my eyelids droop. The world tilts sideways and shadows bleed together like dripping black paint. My knees buckle and darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision, pulling me under.
I fight it, desperate to stay conscious, but I know the drugs will win.
I blink, and suddenly I’m staring at a popcorn ceiling, water-stained and gray. The musty smell of mold and cigarettes fills my nostrils as I try to focus on my surroundings.
It looks like some kind of run-down motel room. I’m alone… or I think I am. The bed beneath me, firm with coils digging into my back, feels like it’s swallowing me whole.
My eyes keep trying to drift shut.
I wake to a noise—a door shutting. My eyelids are heavy but I use every ounce of strength to pry them open.
“What a pretty young thing you are.” A man’s voice. Footsteps against thin carpeting. My head is too heavy to lift, my limbs like lead pipes.
“No,” I cry. “Please, help me.”
Do the words come out? I can’t tell.
“Shh,” he says. “It’s okay. I’ll take good care of you. Give you exactly what you want.”
A zipper that sounds louder than a bullhorn and then his hands are on me. Fingers moist with sweat. Breath stale and reeking of onion. I cry out. I try to kick, to punch, but his weight pins me down as he shushes me again and again.
I close my eyes and wait for it to be over as he uses me. I can barely make out the details of his face—his age, his race. But the way he grunts as he pumps inside me—that I’ll never forget.
It’s over quick… or at least I think it is. Moisture collects between my legs and on my lips where he kisses me as he walks away. Maybe it’s my tears, maybe it’s his saliva… I don’t know. The hinge squeaks and the door thuds shut.
I shudder and shake, scrambling up the bed, trying to wake the fuck up from this nightmare. What was in that needle? I can barely hold my head up.
“Help!” I yell as loudly as I can through the sobs. It’s barely audible. “Please!”
Where is Cat? Jasmine? I hope they’re okay.
The door opens again and I try to curl into a ball, but my heavy legs will barely move. I smell him this time. A nausea-inducing mix of cigar smoke and body odor.
“Help me,” I whimper, even though I know it’s in vain.
His laugh echoes in the stark room as he hovers above me.
I blink up at him, taking in his skin, leathery and lined, his dark hair with salt and peppered temples, his pressed suit and tie.
He runs a hand through his hair and his gold watch glints in the dim lamp light.
For a fleeting moment, I wonder if he’s here to help me.
“You’re new. I can see why you cost extra. ”
My heart sinks as I fight to roll toward the other side of the bed. “Please, I need—”
He grabs me by the ankles and pulls me toward him. “Uh, uh. Stay put if you know what’s good for you.”
I continue to pull away, my legs gaining a bit more strength. “No, no, no…” The words leave my lips in a stream of pleas until he slaps me, hard and without warning across the mouth. It’s so quick that I taste the blood before I feel the stinging ache.
“You will stay put while I undress,” he booms, harsher and louder than I’ve ever been spoken to. “You understand me?”
I don’t know what to do… I can’t do this. When I don’t answer right away, he slaps me again. My lip splits open. “Answer me, bitch.”
My hands automatically move to cover my face as I cry. “Yes.”
“Good… you’re learning already.”
His potbelly sags low, and his chest is full of thick graying hair. I don’t look at his shriveled dick as he rolls a condom on. “Can’t be too careful,” he says. “Don’t know where you’ve come from.”
He pulls me by the wrists and maneuvers me so I’m on my stomach, legs hanging off the bed. He’s rough… so rough. Fingers squeezing around the back of my neck as he yanks my head off the mattress.
I want him to just get it over with already.
What does it matter anymore? But instead, he uses his thick fingers inside me.
He pinches and slaps me. He pries my legs open and groans into my exposed flesh…
dragging this out and making me feel dirty.
I wish I could have more drugs. Sleep through this inevitable hell.
When he finally pushes inside me, hissing out curses like prayers, he finishes in three pumps. Thank God.
I lay there, waiting for him to move. For him to get up, get dressed and leave. But he doesn’t. I’m too scared to open my mouth. Too afraid to know what else is waiting for me. Then the door opens. And I chance a glance in that direction.
It’s the driver—over six feet tall, probably two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle. But it’s not him that has tears streaming down my face. He has Jasmine in front of him, shaking and crying.
The driver barely looks at me as he shoves Jasmine in the room. “Twenty minutes.”
The man, his limp dick still out, condom full and sagging at the tip, just nods. “Close the door.”
Jasmine leans against the wall, her curls wet and plastered against her cheeks. Her lingerie torn, breasts barely covered.
The monster who used me walks toward her. “You look so pretty with tears running down your face. Come, join your friend.”