Chapter 9 The Day I Disappeared
Days bled into weeks.
I barely left my room. Time slipped past in a dull, shapeless haze, marked only by meals I sometimes skipped and the quiet ache that never really went away.
Sometimes I’d hear Mom on the phone downstairs, her voice hushed, like she didn’t want me to hear.
“She’s doing better,” she’d said. “Still quiet, of course. You know how she is.”
“No, she hasn’t found a job yet.”
“Well… actions have consequences.”
Dad was in his office most days, and when he was home, he locked himself in his study. That had always been his version of fatherhood.
Close enough to claim.
Too distant to touch.
A week ago, Apple had a miscarriage.
I didn’t hear it from her.
I saw it online.
Tears. Photos. Long captions about loss and strength and healing.
Hundreds of comments. Support. Sympathy. Love.
She cried for the world and the world cried back.
Then one morning, Mom knocked on my door.
“Get up,” she said, brisk. “You’ve been here long enough.”
I pushed myself upright, my muscles stiff. “What do you mean?”
She crossed her arms. “You’re not a child anymore, Ashley. You can’t just sit here feeling sorry for yourself. It’s been a month. If you’re not working by the end of this one, you’ll have to find somewhere else to stay.”
It took me a moment to process it.
“You’re serious?”
Her mouth tightened. “I’ve already done more than enough for you. Food isn’t free. Electricity isn’t free. And I’m not going to let your father see how lazy you’ve become.”
“Dad hasn’t even seen me,” I said. “He barely leaves that office.”
“That’s because he’s working,” she snapped. “Someone in this family still has a sense of responsibility.”
The words hit deeper than I wanted them to.
“I’m still healing,” I whispered.
Her eyes flicked to my cheek, then darted away like the sight offended her.
“Then heal faster.”
She turned and walked out.
I sat there for a long time after she left, staring at the closed door.
Something in me went quiet.
After that, I stopped expecting anything from them.
I never realized rejection could be so loud.
Not shouting or insults. Just polite smiles, hesitant glances, and the way doors closed before I could finish a sentence.
Every morning I forced myself out of bed, covered my scars as best I could, and walked out with a folder full of résumés nobody wanted to touch.
At the café on Maple Street, the manager looked at my face and flinched before she could hide it.
“Oh, we’re fully staffed,” she said. “But… you look familiar. You’re not…?”
Her voice trailed off, but the meaning hung in the air.
The girl from the wedding drama.
The one who “cheated,” who “ruined the engagement,” who “destroyed a family.”
A public villain wrapped in bandages and shame.
I felt my stomach twist.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “I am.”
Her expression softened, but only in the way people soften when they want to look kind without actually doing anything kind.
“Well, I’m sorry. We really don’t have any openings.”
I nodded, even though we both knew she was lying.
There was a “help wanted” sign on the door.
I stepped back out onto the street, the bell above the door chiming behind me.
By the third rejection that day, my throat felt tight. The scars on my cheek itched under the cheap foundation. Every store window I passed caught my reflection and made my stomach twist.
I stopped at a corner store for water, just to have a reason to stand still for a moment, to breathe.
That’s when a gray sedan slowed beside me.
The man inside looked harmless. Mid-thirties. Clean shirt. Warm smile.
The kind of man who blended into every crowd.
“Hey,” he called. “You’re looking for work, right?”
I hesitated. “Uh… yeah.”
“My boss owns a small bakery. We’re desperate for help.” He nodded down the road. “It’s just a few blocks. I can take you.”
Hope flickered weakly in my chest. But I hesitated, unsure.
He caught it immediately, the flicker of doubt on my face, and leaned a little closer with an easy smile.
“Come on,” he said. “I promise it’s legit. You’ll love it there.”
My phone battery was dying. The thought of going home to my mother’s disappointed look made my stomach churn.
So I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I opened the door and got in.
The car smelled faintly sweet, something chemical beneath the air freshener. I barely had time to register it before he started talking again.
“See, it’s just up ahead,” he said, nodding toward the street.
I turned my head instinctively, following where he pointed.
“Right there—”
Something sharp bit into my arm.
I gasped, jerking back, but it was already too late.
I caught a glimpse of his hand, a syringe, before my vision blurred.
“What—” My voice slurred, my body suddenly heavy, unresponsive.
Panic surged, but it slipped through my fingers just as quickly.
Darkness swallowed everything.
And then everything went black.
When I woke, I was in a room I didn’t recognize.
Bars covered the windows, and heavy shutters sealed them from the outside, blocking even the idea of escape.
I pushed myself up too fast, dizziness crashing over me, and staggered to the door.
I pressed against it, but it was locked.
I had no sense of time. No idea how long I’d been out. Minutes. Hours.
I wasn’t alone.
I could hear them through the walls.
The other girls.
Crying. Whispering. Begging.
Earlier, a door had slammed open somewhere nearby. A man’s voice had thundered down the hallway, sharp and furious, yelling at one of them.
Then the sounds started.
A slap.
A dull thud.
Her scream.
High. Broken. Endless.
I pressed my hands over my ears, squeezing my eyes shut, but it didn’t matter.
I heard everything.
Finally it was quiet again.
Only her soft, shattered sobs leaking through the silence.
I didn’t need to see it.
I knew exactly what had happened.
He came for me next.
He didn’t rush. He stood there for a moment, just looking at me, his eyes dragging slowly over my face like he was inspecting something damaged. Something not quite right. His gaze lingered on the left side, and I felt it like a touch.
“Who are you?” My voice came out thin, shaking. “Where am I? Why am I here?”
Nothing.
“Please,” I tried again, my throat tightening. “You’ve got the wrong person. I don’t have anything, I can’t—”
He didn’t say a word.
He pulled a syringe from his pocket and stepped closer.
“No—wait—” I tried to move, to pull away, but my body was still heavy, slow, like it belonged to someone else. His hand clamped around my arm, fingers digging in hard, and the needle sank into my skin.
I gasped.
“What—what is that?” Panic spiked sharp and fast. “Don’t—please, don’t—”
The burn spread instantly, hot and thick under my skin.
Then something else followed.
Warmth.
It spread through me fast, sinking into my veins, heavy and suffocating. My limbs went slack, my thoughts slipping out of reach.
“No… no—” I tried to fight it, but my body wasn’t listening anymore.
I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t form a sentence. Everything felt slow and too fast at the same time.
I slipped into a drugged haze.
Then the pain came.
He grabbed my hair and yanked my head back. The slap cracked across my face, sharp enough to make my ears ring.
I cried out, the sound breaking apart halfway through.
“Stop—please—just—stop—”
Another hit.
Then another.
His hands, his fists, his weight. There was no rhythm to it, no pattern I could prepare for.
I tried to curl in on myself, to protect something, anything, but he caught my wrists and forced them above my head, holding them there like I weighed nothing at all.
My clothes were gone before I fully understood what was happening. Fabric tearing, skin exposed, his knee forcing my legs apart no matter how hard I tried to resist.
“No—please—don’t—” My voice broke, rising into something desperate, something I didn’t recognize. “I won’t tell anyone, I swear—just stop—please—”
I twisted, trying to pull free, but his grip only tightened.
“Please,” I sobbed. “I’ll do anything—just don’t—”
I fought and screamed, but it didn’t stop anything.
Nothing stopped it.
He forced himself inside me.
Everything after that blurred together. Pressure, pain, the sickening awareness that my body was no longer mine.
Time stretched and twisted until it didn’t make sense anymore.
When it was over, he let go of me like I was nothing.
Like I had always been nothing.
And then he left.
He came back the next night.
And the next.
It became a pattern. The needle first, always the needle. That burning flood through my veins, dragging me under until I could barely think, barely move, barely exist. Just float.
Every time, he shoved my face into the mattress, forcing the damaged side down, grinding it in hard enough to make me gasp.
“I don’t want to look at that ugly face while I’m fucking.”
He called it training. Said he was breaking me in, making me into something valuable.
A product. A slave.
Something to be bought and owned.
After a while, I stopped fighting all together.
Not because it hurt less.
But because it changed nothing.
I cried until there was nothing left in me. Until even that ran dry and all that remained was this hollow, aching silence.
I had never believed in God.
But in the dark, with nothing else left, I found myself whispering anyway, words I didn’t even understand, asking for something I couldn’t name.
6 Months in Captivity
I didn’t know how long I had been there before time stopped feeling real.
Days dissolved into one another, grey and endless, stretching into something hollow that I couldn’t measure anymore.
I learned not to ask questions. Not to resist. Not to hope.
Ten men had used me last night.
Part of me still felt everything. The shame, the disgust, the hatred, the guilt that clung to me no matter how much I tried to push it away.
And part of me felt nothing at all, like something inside me had withered and died just to survive it.
They told me if I didn’t perform, I wouldn’t get my next hit.
And I needed it.
God, I needed it.
The drugs were the only thing that made it stop. The only thing that dulled the edges enough for me to exist inside my own body without breaking apart completely.
So I did what they wanted.
I existed, but not really. Not in any way that mattered.
Sometimes the drugs twisted everything. Reality bent and blurred at the edges until I couldn’t tell what was real anymore.
That’s when I saw him.
A little boy sitting at the edge of the mattress, holding a small bunch of hand-picked flowers, stems uneven, petals slightly crushed.
“Get well soon, Mommy,” he whispered.
Something in my chest broke open.
I reached for him, desperate, my fingers shaking as I tried to hold on to something that felt soft, something that felt good.
But he always drifted away before I could touch him.
20 Months in Captivity
Every once in a while, they stopped giving me the drugs.
Those were the days I understood what hell really was.
I begged. I pleaded. I cried until my throat burned and my voice broke, but it never mattered. Nothing I said ever mattered.
My skin crawled like something was alive beneath it, trying to tear its way out. My bones trembled so hard I couldn’t keep still. My heart raced, fast and uneven, like it might give out just to escape.
I thought I was dying.
Part of me hoped I was.
They said I had been a bad girl. Said I needed to be punished. Said they wanted me sober enough to understand exactly where I was.
Clear enough to remember everything.
Withdrawal stripped me down to something raw and exposed. No haze. No distance. No protection.
Just pain. Just fear. Just the truth of it pressing in from all sides.
Those were the worst days.
Because the fog lifted just enough for me to see it all clearly.
I was still there.
Still trapped.
Still theirs.
So when they finally gave me the drugs again, I didn’t hesitate.
I took it eagerly, almost desperately, the moment they held it out to me.
The warmth spread through me, heavy and familiar, pulling me under, softening the edges, blurring everything that hurt too much to hold onto.
And I let it.
Because it was easier not to know.
Easier not to feel.
Easier not to be myself.
Unknown time in Captivity
Months turned into years. I only knew because the faces changed. New ones came. Others disappeared. No one stayed long.
Sometimes I caught my reflection in a cracked mirror. Thinner. Paler. Older.
Not me.
The girl who used to care about her hair or her smile was gone. She had been gone for a long time.
I stopped counting time somewhere along the way. I knew my birthday had passed, but it didn’t matter. It came and went like any other day.
There was no point in marking a life no one knew existed.
When they gave me the fog again, I took it.