Chapter 44
Chapter 44
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‘Why is this happening now? Ava’s the one supposed to be kidnapped. And that happened when we were thirteen. I’m still twelve. I whimpered.
The van swerved, throwing me against a stack of iron boxes.
“Damn it!” I cussed out as a sharp pain cut through my shoulder down my arm.
The man with the scar, ‘Scarface, as I had named him in my head‘, glared at me through the little window separating the van from the back.
Hot tears trailed down my cheeks. “Please just let me go, I beg of you. Please!” I begged, my voice cracking. “My parents… they’ll be so worried.” The lie felt flimsy to my ears. Deep down, I hope they will. For a few minutes, at least. What if they don’t even realize I was
missing?
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I scrambled toward the entrance, my hands searching for a handle or crack. Anything to get out. “My parents don’t have any money! Please let me go”
“Any more words from you and I’ll burst your head” Scarface growled. My mouth snapped shut and I lowered my head. I still need my life to escape from here.
After what felt like an hour, the van finally slowed, bouncing over a rough, uneven ground before coming to a
stop.
Scarface and the driver- a fat baldie with red mustache- stepped out and opened the back door.
“Out,” Baldie grunted.
I scrambled out, my legs wobbly as I tried to adjust to the sudden brightness. Baldie grabbed my arm tightly, dragging me along with him. I quickly looked around my surroundings. It’s an abandoned warehouse with rusted doors and some burnt buildings. Must have been from a plane crash.
I could feel my heart almost bursting out my chest. “Please,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “Please let me out. I won’t tell anyone about you guys or this place. I’ll just… I’ll just disappear.
Scarface snickered. “You’ve already disappeared, girl. And you’re not going anywhere.” He leaned in close, his stinky breath hitting my nose. “The only way you’ll leave this place is when someone buys you. Until then, you sit your pretty ass down, you shut up and you do what you’re told to do. Understand?”
I whimpered. Buy you? The words didn’t make any sense to me yet I’m feeling terrified.
“I said, do you understand?” He growled.
I nodded my head frantically, tears spilling over my cheeks. “Yes”
“Good.” He straightened up, baldie unlocked a heavy padlock and shoved me inside, slamming the door behind me.
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Chapter 44
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I slowly turned back to see pairs of eyes looking up at me all at once. Girls. All around my age, some maybe a little older. They were laying on thin, dirty mattresses or sitting on the concrete floor. Their clothes were filthy and their hair matted.
A black girl with blue eyes and matted brown hair slowly approached me. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice raspy. “Okay that was a foolish question, I’m Liza.”
I could only nod, my throat too tight to speak. The smell of heat was too strong in here- a pungent mix of sweat and grime.
“Wh–what is this place?” I finally stammered.
“This is the waiting room.” A girl curled up in a corner replied instead.
“Waiting for what?” I asked, dread knotting in my stomach.
Liza shrugged. “For them to come and point.”
“Point?”
An Asian looking girl, smaller and thinner, whispered, “Men come. Sometimes women. They look at us. They point. And then the ones they point at… they get taken away.”
“Taken where?” My voice was a whisper.
Liza just shook her head. “We don’t know. They don’t come back.”
I wrapped my hand tightly around myself. Was this what happened to Ava? Was that why she turned the way she did?.
“How… how long have you been here?” I asked Liza.
“Three months,” she said, her voice devoid of emotion. “Kim has been here for five.” She added pointing at the thin girl.
Five months. The thought was incomprehensible. “Then how do they let you wash? Or get cleaned up?”
“Bath?” The girl curled in the sneered. “You think this is a hotel? We get a bucket of cold water once a week if we’re lucky. We’re not people to them. We’re just… things.”
“I’m sorry” I whispered. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s fine, Anabel is just a spoiled brat. She’s nice too but just surprised her rich family have been unable to find her” Liza said, sitting on the ground. I slowly nodded, joining her on the ground.
The days turned into a week. There was no natural light in our cage, only a single, bare bulb that stayed on day and night and a small window for air. A large pot of tasteless watering beans is brought in once a day and at first, I could not have a taste of it. It’s slowly becoming my best food. Our weekly bath was indeed a single, shared bucket of cold, dirty water.
I also learned the names of some of the other girls. There was Maria, who cried softly every night. There was
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Chapter 44
Jasmine, who had retreated so far into herself she barely spoke. Apparently, she was kidnapped along with her baby sister who was sold a week after. And there is Liza, my first friend, she’s surprisingly smarter than I had thought, she somehow got to know some information about them.
The heavy warehouse door creaked open. Liza immediately tensed. “Get up,” she hissed to all of us. “Look down. Don’t make eye contact.”
We all scrambled to our feet, heads bowed, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was it.
Footsteps echoed, several pairs of them. I dared to take a glance through my lashes. Three well–dressed men and a woman stood outside our cage, looking in as if we were animals at a zoo. Scarface stood nearby, a clipboard in his hand and two men behind him.
The woman pointed a manicured finger. “That one. The blonde.”
Scarface unlocked the cage and the men grabbed a girl named Sarah, who let out a whimper but didn’t fight. She was led away, sobbing. The cage door clanged shut.
My blood ran cold. It was so clinical, so cold–blooded.
One of the men, his eyes scanning us, spoke with a thick accent. “The smaller one. The one who looks young and scared. Clients like that.”
The men stepped in again and pulled out little Kim, the girl who had been here for five months. She didn’t make a sound, her spirit clearly broken long ago. She just shuffled out, her head hanging low.
I felt sick. This was a trafficking ring. We were being sold.
The group’s eyes continued to scan us. I kept my head down, praying to be invisible.
“The new one. In the blue. Clean her up. She should fetch a good price.”
My head snapped up in terror before I could stop myself, meeting the woman’s cold eyes.
Scarface nodded. “As you wish ma’am.”
AD
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
