CHAPTER ELEVEN
It had been five years since I left the compound—five years since Captain Shoomaker and his team had stormed the darkness and pulled me from the hell I never thought I’d escape.
Five years of therapy. Of courtrooms. Of new names and moving out of my aunt’s house. Of trying to figure out who I was without the leash and collar.
Sometimes I thought I was healing.
Other times, I knew I was just hiding better.
I still remember the way Captain Shoomaker’s hand felt around mine that night.
The quiet strength in his grip as he helped me to the van.
The way he wrapped his jacket around me like it was armor. The way he looked at me—not like property, not like a victim, but like a human worth saving.
For a while, I clung to that.
Not just the rescue—but him.
At first it was small things. Check-ins that turned into conversations.
Conversations that turned into coffee. Then brunch, sometimes, when schedules aligned and the world felt almost normal.
He started showing up in places I didn’t expect—waiting outside therapy sessions, standing quietly by his car like it was nothing at all to be there.
One night after self-defense class, when my hands were still shaking from adrenaline and exhaustion, he just drove me home without asking too many questions.
Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like supervision.
And started feeling like…presence.
Safety, in a way I didn’t fully understand how to name.
But it has been almost four years since I last spoke to—or even saw—Captain Shoomaker in person.
Just once or twice since then, I caught him on the news, standing behind a podium talking about joint task forces and human trafficking crackdowns. Even on screen, he still carried that same haunted expression I remembered from the back of the van.
There were no letters.
No calls.
No visits.
Maybe he wasn’t allowed to anymore.
Or maybe he simply chose not to.
And I tried to tell myself that was fine. That it was better that way.
But I wanted to forget him anyway, because remembering made me feel small in a way I couldn’t explain—like I was reaching for something I had no right to want, aching for something that was never meant to stay mine.
I remember his face like it was carved into the backs of my eyelids. Like something I couldn’t forget, even when I wanted to.
Broad, solid features. A square jaw dusted with a neatly trimmed beard, the kind that made him look both safe and capable of violence if the situation demanded it. He always looked like he’d just come in from the sun—skin kissed by it, but never softened.
His eyes were sharp, steady. Not cold, but watchful. Eyes that had seen too much but hadn’t yet hardened to it.
I remembered the way his voice dropped when he spoke to me. Low. Very calm. Like I was something fragile he didn’t want to break.
The memory clung, quiet and unwelcome, as I folded socks at the laundromat—going through the motions without really seeing what was in front of me.
Until something caught my eye.
Taped to the community bulletin board, just above a flyer for piano lessons and two missing cats.
A glossy white ad with big, gold letters. One I didn’t remember seeing there before.
GIRLS NEEDED.
No strings. No limits. No one watching.
Must be 21+ to enter.
If selected, you’ll be escorted to a luxury estate—private grounds, elite company, no bills, no rules.
Total freedom. Designer wardrobes. Five-star dining. On-site spa and staff.
All you have to do is walk the stage.
Let the right one choose you.
One night. One decision. Your new life begins here.
Spots are limited. No experience necessary.
Discretion expected.
I stare at it for what feels like an obscene amount of time.
It’s insane.
Too vague. Too easy.
The kind of thing I used to warn other girls about—never go alone, don’t trust the glitter, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
But the words swim in my head like syrupy promises.
No rules.
Luxury estate.
Your new life begins here.
And isn’t that all I’ve ever wanted? To be wanted. To choose.
It sounds simple when I say it like that, almost like a game with rules I can learn and a way to win if I just figure it out fast enough. Like I could rewrite the ending I never got handed and finally make it something I survive on my own terms.
But even as I think it, something in me pulls back.
Because it also sounds like a trap—one I might not recognize until I’m already inside it.
The kind of gilded lie a man like Mr. Hirsh would dream up—velvet-soft on the surface, all polished smiles and careful charm, with something sharp hidden underneath, like a blade tucked behind perfect teeth, waiting for the moment it decides to cut.
And maybe that’s what makes me reach for it.
Because I had already survived Hell.
I had endured things no one should ever live through.
My body isn’t naive anymore, and my fear no longer rules me.
I could walk a stage.
I could smile.
I could pretend.
I’d done far worse for far less.
And if they thought I was another doe-eyed girl willing to be hunted, they didn’t know the wolf I’ve become.
So I take the tab with the address, fold it in half like a secret, and slip it into the lining of my boot.
If they wanted a girl, they were about to get something far more dangerous.
A week later, I walk into a room wrapped in shimmer and light—gold catching at every movement, sequins glinting like I’m made of something meant to be seen.
Everything is perfect.
Too perfect actually.
The lighting is soft. The champagne is endless. The other women are quiet—too quiet—and the men have that same hollow, greedy look I hadn’t seen since the compound.
That’s the first red flag.
And I already know—red flags don’t come with second chances.
Before I make the final decision to step into this world, I send one last email—to Captain Shoomaker.
I find his address buried in an old contact list from the investigation—the one they gave us when they said you’re safe now and walked away.
I don’t know what I expected.
A warning? A rescue? A reply?
Maybe I just need to feel like someone out there would come if I disappear again.
Maybe I still believe he will save me.
Hope doesn’t live big in me anymore.
It lives quietly. Small. Caged in my ribs like a sparrow with clipped wings.
But still…I hit send.
Just in case.
I should turn around, but I don’t.
Because when they line us up backstage and tell us to “smile, spin, and walk slow,” it hits me all at once.
This isn’t a game.
It isn’t a modeling audition.
It is an auction.
The truth crashes into my chest like ice water, stealing my breath, and still—
I walk forward.
One heel in front of the other.
Head held high.
Because I see their faces out there—one or two that looks familiar. One that resembles Tomas.
And in that moment, everything inside me sharpens.
This is how I would find him. This is how I’d find them all.
The ones that slipped through the cracks.
The ones that touched girls like me and never paid for it.
So, I force a smile on my face and sway my hips as I walk that stage like it is my choice.
Because if I was going to fall back into this world...I was going to burn it down from the inside.
The lights are blinding.
The stage is endless.
My heels click against polished wood while invisible hands in the crowd size me up like I am a car on display. Or meat.
I hate how easily it all comes back to me—the walk, the fake smile, the way I flaunt my curves. I had trained myself to survive with performance, and right now, survival means playing the part.
I reach the end of the runway. Pause. Turn slowly like they told us.
There is a glimmer of movement in the crowd. A lift of a paddle.
Another one. Then another.
It’s starting.
But just before the man standing near the side stage could announce the first bid, a deep, mechanical voice cuts through the microphone.
Louder than the room.
Commanding enough to freeze the air in my lungs.
“This one is not for sale.”
All motion stops.
“She was bought in advance. She belongs to The Warden.”
I blink.
What?
Murmurs ripple through the audience like a wave of restrained outrage.
Some men groan. Others scowl or whisper into each other's ears. The paddles lower one by one.
A woman in a black dress emerges from the side curtain and moves toward me.
“Come with me,” she says without making eye contact.
I am too stunned to speak. My feet move anyway, my instincts taking over. The moment I step off that stage, the silence behind me feels louder than the crowd ever had.
And in that single, aching breath between what was and what comes next, I whisper the only prayer I have left—that Shoomaker got my email, that he saw it, and that he understood.
Because if he didn’t—if no one was coming—then I hadn’t stepped off that stage into freedom at all, but straight into a darker kind of cage.
And no one would even know I am gone.
She leads me down a back corridor—fast. We exit through a discreet side door where a sleek black limo waits.
I hesitate, but she gives me a soft push toward the open door.
Inside sits a man dressed in black from neck to wrist, everything about him contained. A porcelain-white mask covers his face, erasing identity, leaving only the dark weight of his eyes visible. Eyes that don’t wonder. Don’t soften. Don’t invite questions.
But I know that mask.
Not just from photographs tucked into files I was never meant to linger over, or the rare glimpses of him beside Mr. Hirsh like a blade kept at his side.
I remember it from day one.
Orientation.
The way they lined us up too neatly, too quietly, like silence itself was part of the instruction. The way he stood at the edge of the room while we were told to stay still, to listen, to comply. I hadn’t known his name then—didn’t need to. The mask did all the speaking for him.
I remember how it felt when I realized he was watching us all without moving. Not scanning. Not searching.
Selecting.
And now, sitting here, I understand what I refused to understand then.
That mask never left.
It just found me again.
He doesn’t move when I enter.