Chapter 17
ELSIE
The water pounds over my face, and it almost feels like drowning. I wonder what drowning actually feels like. I’d want an easier way to go, something less painful. I’ve been through enough suffering.
From the very beginning when they took us, the pain began. And every year, it got worse. When we were first taken, they brought me and Kayla into an empty warehouse with cages all around, each one filled with women and children.
I tried to run, biting one of my captors on the arm and ripping out a piece of his flesh. Then he beat me. Days later, they dragged me and two random girls into a car, blindfolding us, then placing woven bags over our heads.
When we arrived, they threw the three of us into a room. But we weren’t alone, and that day…that was when I truly realized how truly evil people can be.
“Shh,” I tell the girl whose name I don’t know. “You’re going to be okay.”
But that’s a lie. I already feel my tongue burning as I say those words out loud.
Three men sit on the red velvet sofa, black masks covering the top half of their face, a sinister sneer planted on each of their mouths. Their suits are as dark as the souls they no longer have. Because doing this to us, it’s inhuman.
The girl cries louder, covering her breasts with her hands. She looks like she’s my age. Eighteen, nineteen tops.
The other girl beside me is maybe a couple years older. I can’t be sure. I don’t know them.
But I am them.
We’re all the same. Every one of us.
The men have violated us so many times that I’ve lost count in these last few months. I’ve tried to block it out, lying there, hoping that if I don’t make a sound, they won’t hit me. But they usually do.
There are some who prefer to just get the sex over with, but others…their appetites are a lot more depraved. And I have an eerie feeling that the men before us share that same thrill. Once they’re done with us, once they pay our captors, we’re returned back to the cages.
“Drop your hands,” the man in the middle demands, heaving a raging breath as he moves off his seat, stepping up to her. “If I have to ask you again, I will make you do it, and you won’t like it when I do.”
“Just do it,” the other woman says, her voice ripping with a cry, a bruise on her face from the man she was with last night.
But the girl won’t drop her hands, shielding herself from their view.
My body is bare for them, my arms at my sides. Fighting them won’t make a difference. They get their way in the end. Fighting only serves a purpose when you have a chance to win. And with them, we don’t.
When she doesn’t do what he wants, he grunts in frustration. He picks up his belt from the floor beside him. And with cruelty stamped in his gaze, he runs it up her trembling thigh.
My eyes grow with terror, my pulse splitting my heart into two.
He whips it out, striking her on the forearm.
“Drop those fucking hands. Your body is going to be ours whether you like it or not.” His free hand roughly grabs a chunk of her hair and pulls upward, his face nearing, teeth baring.
“You were expensive. And me and my friends will enjoy every penny of what we paid.”
He whacks her hip, and she yelps, her hands shaking as she sobs.
“Stop it!” I tell him. “You’re hurting her.”
His eyes snap to mine, but there’s no life within them. Darkness is the only thing they hold.
“If you don’t shut your mouth, you’ll be next.”
The words have me in a state of panic. I don’t want that to be me, but I don’t want that to be her either.
My body jolts as he hits her again, harder this time, right across her back. And with the next blow to her stomach, she collapses on the ground, and he’s doing it over and over.
“You fucking whore!” he screams as he strikes her until blood seeps out from the raw welts on her back.
My heart pounds until my chest aches, my tears falling endlessly as I weep, the girl beside me inconsolable. My eyes go to the two men, looking unaffected while they sit and watch, a drink perched in each of their hands. This is fun to them. They’re enjoying it like they’re watching a performance.
He drops the belt, forcing his shoe into her back as she lies there sniveling, his foot burying deeper. And before I can stop myself, I run for the small table, only a foot away, and pick up the only weapon I can find: the ice pick.
With a guttural scream, I rush for the man who holds that poor girl on the floor. He turns instantly, a wicked tilt of his mouth as he releases her, slowly marching up to me. I stay in place, my pulse thundering so loudly, I grow dizzy.
The other two men don’t do a thing except laugh. They think this is funny. That I’m a joke.
“You bitch. Now you’re going to pay for it.” He grabs my arm, trying to pry the pick out of my hand.
And he almost does. He almost takes it from me even as I fight it, tightening my fingers with whatever strength I can muster.
But just when I think it’s over, that he’s going to kill me, the other girl jumps onto his back, clawing at his face while she lets out a growling scream, like a caged animal finally set free.
“You fucking whores!” he snaps, twisting her arm, his back to me as he throws her onto the floor. “I’m going to make you bitches regret this.”
He lifts his foot, ready to stomp at her stomach, but he doesn’t see me coming.
The ice pick is still in my grasp as I tiptoe behind him.
The men keep laughing, oblivious that someone like me could take down one of them.
But without another second’s thought, I slam it into the man’s neck, pushing it as deep as I can.
He stills as I rush back a step. His foot drops like lead against the tiled floor.
“Shit…” the other man says, both of them quickly jumping off their seats, grabbing me from behind while the ice pick is still jammed in him.
Unsteadily, he turns and collapses with a thud.
“Who’s laughing now?” A cruel grin takes hold of my face, anger swelling in my gut.
“You’ve really done it now, little girl.” The asshole’s voice behind me creeps up my neck, and I can practically taste the foul liquor on his breath as he tightens his arm around my middle.
The other one takes his phone out of his pocket and dials, and when someone answers, he says, “We need you in room two.”
A few seconds later, the door opens, and in walks Agnelo, the man who bathes my body in utter fear.
“What a mess.” He swipes a hand through his gelled-back black hair, then shuts the door with a thud. “Which one of them did it?”
The one who called him gestures toward me with a tilt of his head.
Agnelo snaps those deathly eyes my way and marches up slowly. I break into a full body tremor, barely able to swallow.
His hand snakes out, and he grabs my chin, staring at me with a menacing gaze. “Do you know what you’ve done? Who you’ve killed? The mess I’ll have to clean up because of you?”
He strikes my cheek with a heavy palm. I cry out from the sharp sting, the other man laughing cruelly at my ear.
“Nothing to say, bitch?” Agnelo slaps me again, and the older girl gasps a cry.
The one who was beaten is barely moving. I wonder if she’s already dead.
“I—I’d do it all over again.” I snarl, even as the tears swim down my face.
I won’t let them scare me. I don’t fear death. Death is better than this.
“Bring me the other girl,” Agnelo demands.
The man obeys, grabbing the older girl’s arm and making her stand, even as she trips on her feet.
Agnelo’s hand falls to her hip, the lines of his forehead more pronounced as his eyebrows rise. His fingers slowly crawl down between her legs as he fondles her.
“Aren’t you pretty… It’s too bad you’re going to die today.”
She shudders, her shoulders shaking. “P-please. I—I’m sorry. Don’t ki-kill me.”
“Too late for all that now.”
He marches over to me, reaching into his pocket and removing a gun.
Oh, no.
I shut my eyes, my labored breaths pounding through my lungs.
Don’t look. Just don’t look. It’ll be quick. You won’t have to suffer anymore.
The mental pep talk doesn’t do a thing to stow away the panic beating through my insides.
“Take the gun.”
Agnelo’s voice slams through my thoughts, and I stare back at him, finding his hand extending toward me with the weapon in it.
“What?” I whisper.
Does he expect me to kill myself? I can’t do that. Can I?
“Take the gun. Now!” he roars.
I jerk back, tears streaming down my cheeks, a shaky hand reaching for it. I hold it in my grasp just as the man behind me lets go.
Agnelo snatches my arm, the gun jittering in my palm while he leads me to stand in front of the girl.
What is he doing?
As I stand before her, taking in her ashen face, her tear-filled gaze, all I want to do is take her and run. But there’s nowhere we could go. Not from our captors. They’d find us anywhere.
“Shoot her,” Agnelo says from behind me.
I turn sharply to him. “Wha-what? No.”
My pulse pounds in my head, over and over until my head spins.
Please tell me I heard him wrong. Please!
“Either shoot her or I’ll kill you both.”
I swallow past the pain lodged in my throat. “I won’t kill her.” My lower lip trembles. “Kill us both, then.”
He chuckles. “You’ve got balls. I’ve gotta give you that.”
He reaches for his pocket, taking out a phone.
“What are you doing?” Fear trickles down my arms, goose bumps treading up my skin like they’re being sewn underneath my flesh.
“Calling one of my guys so he can kill both of your friends instead.”
“No!” I lunge for him. “Please! Don’t hurt them. I’ll…I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Just not this.”
My chest heaves. My throat dries. I can’t kill another person. I won’t.
“This is what I want.” His lips curl up. “Do this, and they won’t die. Don’t and…well, you should know by now how good I keep my promises.”
Yes, I do. I’ve seen him kill before. It’s easy for people like him. But not for me.
I pivot toward the other girl. Her life is just as valuable as my friends’. Just as valuable as anyone else’s.
“You have until the count of three, Ellie.”