34 | Hannah
Hannah
Gavin won’t come. No one is coming.
My vision is still black as night, but they shove me forward anyway.
One hand on my shoulder, another at my waist. At least someone had the decency to pull my pants back up before I left the vehicle.
I now feel like I have an ounce of dignity back, with my lower half no longer exposed to the world.
At least my legs can move independently again, instead of relying on a less-than-useful uni-leg.
I stumble forward, my feet searching for level ground while my useless arms remain bound against my body. Every shuffle across the packed dirt serves as a cruel reminder that I’m nothing more than cattle being herded, completely at their mercy.
My toes catch on the edge of a step, sending me stumbling forward. A little direction would be nice, a hand to steady me, but they just pull me along like an object.
We cross over what feels like a threshold, and the world changes. The grit of the desert is replaced by the sleek, clinical smoothness of tile, the breeze from outside fading away. We climb a flight of stairs and turn left, a mix of movement I can barely track.
Finally, the hands release me. I wobble for a moment, my mind struggling to find its balance.
As the restraints fall from my wrists, I flex my hands slowly—fingers stretching, wrist bending in the cool air-conditioned building.
Freedom, or at least the fragile illusion of it, feels heavy and strange.
A door shuts behind me, followed by the grinding, unmistakable sound of a lock.
I freeze, listening. Waiting.
Footsteps retreat down the hall, growing lighter with each second. Leaving me alone in the silence.
Slowly, I begin to lift my hands to my face; expecting to be stopped, yelled at, or hit. But there’s nothing.
I take a chance and pull the horrid fabric from my face. My eyes squint against the light, trying to make sense of the space. The room isn’t a warehouse or a cage. It’s... almost domestic.
There’s a bed, neatly made, a dresser, and a small bathroom tucked in the corner. It looks like a large hotel room, except the familiar comforts don’t make it any less terrifying.
I wobble my way to the bed and sit. My heart races alongside my strained breathing as I try to orient myself. My mind jumps to a thousand questions, but I know none of them will be answered.
Forcing my sore body up, I carry myself toward the door. My fingertips reach out and brush the knob, carefully turning it, trying not to make a sound. What I already knew is confirmed. It’s locked.
Of course it is, because why would I be allowed to just wander out? Still, I had to check.
There’s no escape. The reality bears down on me like a weight I can’t lift.
Sitting back on the bed, I rest against the headboard, breathing shallowly and taking in my new space, trying to think instead of panicking.
My reflection in the dresser mirror catches my eye for a second.
A stranger looks back at me. Her eyes are wide, lashes damp, left cheek swollen and bruising.
She looks like me, but a broken, beaten version of myself.
My eyes leave the stranger in the mirror, as though I can run from my very real circumstances.
Roughly an hour passes while I’m alone, and I use that time to clean myself up as best I can. I gently wash my face and rinse between my legs in a desperate attempt to reclaim a sense of self.
Once I’m dry and dressed, I sit on the bed and hear the distinctive scrape of metal sliding into metal just before the door swings open.
A guard lets a man wearing a white lab coat in and locks us in together.
“What the hell are you? Some kind of doctor?” I ask. My voice sounds even, though my pulse jumps. Maybe he’s here to check on my bruised face, but I highly doubt it. Why would they beat me only to send for medical attention? It doesn’t add up.
“I am. I’m here to ask a few questions, and we can go from there,” he says.
He drops his bag at the end of the bed and stands in front of me.
I pull the sheets up around my waist, a flimsy protective barrier. I don’t want another man touching me the way they did before.
“Alright. Ask,” I say, my voice ringing with more confidence than I feel.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“And how many pregnancies have you had?”
“None.” What the hell?
“Okay. And what do you use to prevent pregnancy?”
I snort a laugh. “Celibacy.”
“Ah.” He pauses. “Well, I have something here that will protect you from pregnancy. It works immediately and is over ninety-nine percent effective.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a package.
“Oh, um, no thank you. I don’t take synthetic hormones. They’re carcinogenic, and cancer runs in my family. I don’t want that.” I look at his bag, fear and confusion flooding my veins.
The doctor sighs, and for a brief moment, he almost looks sad.
“The men who are here and those who will come into this room do not care about you. They pay good money to do as they please. You are seen as disposable. Here, in this house, your body is no longer yours. It belongs to the highest bidder.”
I feel the color drain from my face. This can’t be right. They took me as collateral. They’re trying to get to Sarge, to the club, not traffic me.
My breathing picks up, and my throat constricts. “No, you’re wrong. I’m leaving here soon. They’re going to come to some agreement, and I’ll be let go.”
A single tear escapes down my cheek. As soon as my words hit my ears, I know they‘re not true. Men who take women from parking lots do not just set them free.
Honestly, I don’t know how long I’ll be here. I don’t even know if Gavin is trying to find me. To save me. But I hope to God that he is.
I want out of here. I need to leave this place.
“Well, in that case,” he says, his tone doubtful, “I don’t think you want to leave here carrying one of these men’s babies. Hm?”
He’s right. I don’t.
I shake my head, and he continues, understanding my nonverbal consent.
“This is a small rod, no bigger than a matchstick. It is inserted under the skin in your bicep. Please hold out the arm you prefer. Most times, the non-dominant arm is chosen.”
This may be the first and last time I have any say in something while I’m here. I offer him my left arm.
He grips my elbow, cleaning the inner bicep with an alcohol pad. After palpating my skin, he marks me with a marker, then picks up a long, white plastic thing that resembles a box cutter.
“Deep breath in, and out,” he instructs.
On exhale, a sharp pain shoots into my arm. “Ah!” I cry out, not expecting the pain to be that intense.
“That was the worst of it. You’re done.” He palpates over the stick, confirming the implant is now just beneath my skin, before wrapping it tightly. “Leave this pressure wrap on for twenty-four hours.”
He collects his things and makes his way back toward the door to knock twice. Right on cue, the door opens, and the doctor is gone.
The click of the lock brings a heavy weight of isolation and fear. My left arm throbs, a constant, pulsing reminder that the doctor’s words were the brutal truth.
Expendable.
The word echoes through the room’s silence. My breath catches on a hiccup of emotion before it finally crumples into a silent, gut-wrenching sob that shakes my whole body.
Gavin won’t come. No one is coming.
I’m not collateral. I’m just inventory. I lift my hand and press my fingers against the pressure wrap on my bicep, tracing the outline of the bandage.
It doesn’t feel like it’s there for protection.
It feels like a brand. It’s a permanent sign that I have been officially claimed by a darkness I cannot fight, not even with my own body.
I let out a soundless scream, biting down hard on my lower lip until I taste the tinge of copper.
I need to get out. I need to move. But my shaking body betrays me, and I dissolve into the bed, curling into a ball.
I cling to the fragile dignity I just washed clean, fearing it’s already stained beyond repair.
After a few minutes, I force myself to stop. I have to. If I break down now, survival isn’t possible.
I lift my head and scan the room. To my right is a single window, fortified with bars and what looks like an alarm sensor. This room wasn’t just designed to be a jail cell. It is one.
My skin crawls as I imagine how many women it has held captive before me. If these walls could talk, they would probably scream right along with me.
Thankful that they can’t, I head into the bathroom. My hand brings cups of water from the sink to my lips, washing the taste of blood from my mouth. The tap water tastes like chlorine, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Taking inventory of the room’s staples, I note the shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and bar soap on the counter.
The small closet holds an extra set of sheets, and, strangely, the dresser is filled with clothes.
They are plain, all large, and look fairly new.
The thought of clean clothes is appealing, but wearing what they’ve provided feels like accepting their ownership.
Deciding against the clothes, I begin searching for anything that might help me get out.
Crawling on the floor, I run my hands along the carpet, then along the baseboard molding.
I have no idea what I’m looking for, but I’ll be damned if I sit here patiently awaiting whatever monster is going to ooze through that door next.
As I reach the wall directly behind the bed’s headboard, a sudden sound makes me freeze. I press my ear to the cold drywall and wait for it to return.
When the sound happens again, a woman’s voice penetrates through. It’s muffled, but it’s undeniably female.
She sounds utterly terrified. Her voice is high-pitched and strained, coming out short and fractured.
Her words are indiscernible, and a rough male voice hacks through, coming across like he’s barking orders. If I had to guess, it seems like she’s either crying or pleading. Maybe both.
I pull my ear away from the wall so fast my back hits the bedframe.
That woman could be me. She’s right there, sounding just as scared and alone as I feel. In that moment, a sickening realization falls into place.
If I am truly collateral, that doesn’t mean they won’t make use of me while I’m here.
This is what they do. Their entire business is built on selling bodies. Taking me serves a dual purpose. They get to squeeze Gavin for whatever they want, and they get to make some additional money on the side.
The truth pierces through me like a sharp knife, carving out whatever was left of my hope. Tears are useless here. My gaze settles on the door, the metal lock mocking me. The men outside this room don’t see a person. They see a transaction.
I make a vow to myself in the middle of this silent, terrifying room. I will not be their inventory for long.
Easily more than twenty-four hours have passed since I woke up for my shift. The adrenaline that kept my body shaking finally drains away, and my eyelids feel so heavy. My exhaustion becoming a physical weight, a force I can’t fight anymore.
Through the barred window, the sun dips below the horizon, painting the room in a dying wash of orange and bruised pink. One thing Arizona can always promise is a beautiful sunset, even from a hellhole like this.
My head drops onto the carpet beside the bed frame, my cheek resting near the silent wall where that woman cried. Survival means fighting, but first, survival demands rest. Against every fearful instinct I have left, exhaustion wins, and the darkness quickly claims me.