Chapter 2
Chapter Two
VIOLET
“Are they feeding you the same fromage sandwiches as me, and the imported aqua?” My attempt at a joke falls flat, even to my own ears.
I’m aware of how pathetic I sound, but I desperately want to ask the girl I’ve dubbed Jean if she’s been fed enough, given enough water.
Not for me and my own personal future, but for hers.
Eight months in here is unfathomable, heartbreaking, and she seems to think she’s being sold into human trafficking.
Sex work. It has to be.
Part of me balks, rears back from it. That part whispers she’s wrong, she’s crazy, they wouldn’t keep her for so long, but… Maybe they do. With some.
Maybe they sell to the highest bidder.
Though eight months must mean she’s unhealthy, not looking her best.
Then again, some men just want a girl who’ll do all the depraved things. Slap a dress on her, some make up, and if she’s pretty, thin, sparkly like a new gift, then he’s happy.
My stomach turns.
Like a fantasy turned nightmare.
For a few minutes, I question my needs and desires, my dark side.
But this kind of future the girl faces?
Being locked away and at someone’s mercy, never knowing when the next move might come?
I don’t want that.
No one wants that.
No woman. No girl. Just the depraved men who don’t care about the girl they use. All they get off on is power.
Power to own, to buy, to use and abuse.
This is the wrong kind of dirty because the victim has no control. No power.
In my dark fantasies, I lay out the pretend I want. I have control and power in my safe word.
And more importantly, it’s not real. I want what is happening to me. It’s consensual.
The sex is, the intimacy and…when I think back to a few hours ago, a day ago, a million years in my other life, I see the difference.
Being with Cade as Cade or Cade as The Ghost is hot, dark, dirty.
It doesn’t matter if he’s chasing me, holding me down, locking me up, using me…it’s part of a controlled fantasy that feels wild, but I have the key, the power, the ability to stop it any time I want.
My fantasies and her reality are worlds apart.
And I ache for this girl and what her future might hold.
As for my own?
I can’t even go there.
They’re holding me. And Cade…He’s either on his way, or they have him, too. For something I don’t understand. But if he’s a world-class hacker, it’s going to have something to do with that.
As for what they might want with me…I can’t even go there.
I shift position on the cool concrete floor.
She’s been quiet for a long time after my stupid attempt at a joke to see if she’s getting food and water regularly.
But what can I do if she’s not? Nothing. The hole isn’t big enough for anything but talk. A connection in the cool underworld we’re in.
“Do you at least have an ensuite?” I ask.
She makes a sound like a sob, and my heart squeezes tight. “I don’t get hungry now. Sometimes, they make me eat.”
I lean my head against the wall, taking a sip from my bottle, thinking about the horrible, dry sandwich I’ve got tucked under my blanket.
I took a bite a little while ago, just to keep up strength.
I ate a lot of pizza with Cade, but time seems to move strangely in here, and I have no idea how long I’ve been here.
Not overnight, though. My eyes aren’t burning through lack of sleep, just with the tears I refuse to let fall.
“You should eat…” I stop. I don’t ask her name again, because when I asked her to repeat it a while ago, she ranted nonsensical things about secrets and how they wouldn’t reward her if she told.
And then she went so quiet I thought she’d passed out.
Or worse.
Because in her deluded ramblings, she sounds delicate, weak. Broken.
She often breathes hard, and her voice gets muffled, like she’s moving, and movement makes her tired.
Then after what seemed like a year, she whispered, “If I tell you again, they’ll kill me. Shhhh…I’m a secret.”
So, I keep the conversation light, even as I try to keep finding out things about her.
“Did they give you a cheese sandwich?”
“Yes, cheese today. Sometimes, just cheese, sometimes bread. Once, I got soup. And I spilled it.” Jean pauses. “I don’t like soup anymore. It still hurts…but bones heal.”
Fuck…they…did they beat her for spilling soup?
I shudder.
It would be easy for me to put it down as rantings by a girl who has lost her mind. Who was probably drugged because she often slurs, says strange things, like she’s hallucinating.
But I believe her.
I think they beat her for spilling a drop of soup. I think they might beat her for sadistic fun, to control her and destroy her. Break her in.
Is that my fate?
“I don’t like soup, either.”
And she giggles, a sound that borders on the edge of hysteria.
“I like the pretty buildings and the park. I miss the sky. Do you miss the sky?” Then it’s like a switch is flipped.
“I don’t like the bugs. They bite. Do you know when they’ll come?
They’ll bring me medicine. I need it. To control the bugs.
I need my medicine.” And she flips once more. “I like you. Are you my friend?”
“I’m your friend.” I hold back the tears as I swallow over the burning lump in my throat. “I like you, too. We can hang out when we’re free.”
“Oh, no. We’ll never be free. I miss the sky…” She weaves from topic to topic, making little sense. Her medicine might be to blame. That, and she’s broken in spirit and maybe in mind.
I’m sure the medicine is what she calls whatever they’re drugging her with. I have zero experience with drugs outside of pot and cocaine. Not that I’ve done either, but Jack has, though Jack likes his weed more than the coke.
But this isn’t either of those. This is hardcore shit that’s got her addicted.
And the bugs are probably her withdrawal symptoms.
I’ve been here a while and not one bug has crawled on me. And I haven’t even seen so much as a roach.
For a dungeon, it’s clean.
I laugh silently, the hysteria bubbling beneath it like a voiceless scream.
I focus on the girl. “Do you have family?”
“I like that old show, the Golden Girls. I wish they’d give me a TV.
I wish they’d come soon. Do you think they will?
I hope so. I need my medicine.” She falls silent, then, “But when they do, you must behave. They’ll hurt you otherwise.
I don’t want you to die. And don’t tell them you know me. You’re my secret friend. Are you real?”
“I’m real,” I whisper.
“I hope so. It’s hard to know what’s real and isn’t. I bet you’re pretty. I’m pretty. I know I am, or they wouldn’t have taken me. They like pretty girls only…” Another meandering word salad I don’t really try and follow.
I listen for hints of truth, the sparkling moments of clarity.
But Jean is drug addled, delusional, and suffering from being locked up and, I assume, tortured, for eight months.
It’s enough to send anyone off into their own world.
She’s frail, though. That doesn’t change.
But if I keep her talking, we’re not alone, and we both know no one is dead. Yet.
But I have more selfish motives.
I want her to talk to me so I can distract myself from the dark thoughts that circle me.
I might die here. I might end up like Jean, addled, waiting to be taken as a toy for men. A real one. And that’s a horrific fate, no matter how I look at it because there’s only one outcome from that, too.
Death.
All the roads in here lead there.
And the longer I’m here, the more likely that fate is waiting.
I gulp down a sob as she talks about trees and cats, and I think maybe she had a cat, but I can’t bring myself to ask. That’s not going to help. I don’t think any conversation will help. So, I just let her talk while I let my mind wander.
Where’s Cade?
The thought rushes me and takes my breath.
The longer I’m here, the less confident I am in getting free. Getting out alive.
I don’t even know if the man I’ve gone and fallen in love with is okay.
And I only told him I loved him once.
If he was here, I’d pepper him with kisses and tell him over and over how much I love him. How much I love both sides of him.
Cade and The Ghost.
What…what if they killed him?
What if I never get to speak to him again, tell him how I feel?
What if I never get to hear his voice or his laugh or feel his touch?
This isn’t about sex. It’s him. the way his touch made me safe.
My throat constricts, and I can’t breathe.
It’s like the world is imploding and black spots start to burst in my eyes.
I can’t deal.
What if he’s being tortured?
What if they carved him up alive?
What if…
“Stop it. Stop it now. This isn’t helping.” Then I raise my voice a little. “We’re getting out, you hear me?”
“Yes, yes. We’ll shop. Do you think they’ll be here soon? I hope so. I’m good. I’ve been good…”
And she’s off again. But I somehow have control over my thoughts again, I’ve clamped down on the spiraling. I need to stay positive.
Right now, my thoughts are all I have.
“Do you think—”
Jean stops as a door slams somewhere beyond our cells.
It’s not loud, and I try and remember the distance from the stairs to here. But I was being carried and stride matters.
It sounds like it’s a long stretch of space. And footsteps, soft at first, get louder.
Jean whispers, “We have to be quiet, or we’ll be punished.”
A million questions swirl up, but I have to stop myself firing them at her. It’s not her thinking or guessing or even just imagining we’ll be punished. I absolutely believe that, but it’s more the conviction, the knowing.
How many other girls have been here? How many were taken away never to be returned? Or how many were beaten, just like her?
Is this some kind of holding pen for a trafficking ring?
And why the hell is Jean so special she’s been held this long?
I’m not sure why I believe her on the eight months. But I do. Because I’d remember the date I was stolen, too. Forever. I might not notice time passing, but being taken? When? Where? Day? Time? Year?
Absolutely.
So, I shut my mouth.
I won’t speak to her, and I won’t sass the captors, either. Not for my own sake. But for Jean’s.
The girl has been into hell. And she knows there are deeper layers of hell waiting.
I’m not about to push her into them.
Or myself.
My door swings open, slamming against the wall.
As a man steps in, his frame almost the size of the door, my heart hammers in my chest.
He strides over to me and drags me up.
“The boss wants to see you.”
I tremble as his hand clamps about my upper arm, and I’m dragged from the cell. I try to look to see Jean’s door, but another sack is pushed over my head as we take the first step, and I’m blinded once more.
Oh, god. Why didn’t I push Jean for her name when I asked and didn’t quite catch it? Why didn’t I push for more of her story instead of letting her ramble?
There are basic questions I didn’t ask, like her age, where she’s from, her parentage. Mybe they’re known or important or maybe I’ve read about her.
All those things that might help me identify her if I get out of here. What she looks like, for starters. All I have is pretty.
What if they never take me back to that same cell? I might never know. And if I am taken back, what if she’s gone?
I start to struggle, earning a hard slap across my face that whips back my head.
After that I comply, and I’m led down the corridor for what seems like an endless distance, and then we turn.
Then the hood is ripped off as I’m thrown inside a room, barely managing to stay on my feet.
It takes me a moment, but then I zero in on the one man I want to see.
My heart crumples and throbs painfully. My hand flies to my mouth even as I want to reach out to him.
“Cade…”
He’s battered, bruised.
But he’s alive.
And he offers me the smallest smile that makes my heart skip a beat.
There’s another man in here. A body, too. And suddenly, a thousand things swirl around me.
And then I get what the smile was.
He wants me to know he’s alive, and to be quiet.
I focus on him.
It’s a cool expression, commanding. What I imagined The Ghost to have in his arsenal. But there’s nothing sexual about it.
He’s telling me, ordering me, to be quiet and calm by look alone.
I don’t nod, but I drop my gaze instinctively to the floor like I’m bowing down.
“See,” the man says in heavily accented English. “She is alive.”
Then the man pulls out a gun and points it at my temple.
“Now, disable that request, or I’ll kill your Violet in front of you. the choice is yours.”