Within another minute I was hit with a blast of air conditioning, and I planted my bare feet onto what felt like a hardwood floor. “N-no. No! Let me go.” I needed to get back outside. I needed to run.
“Walk,” the one behind me barked then mumbled a curse.
The man in front made a confirming grunt. “To the whore house for you then if you don’t shut up.”
My knees shook violently and hard sobs burst from my chest.
“Ah,” the one in front continued, “yes. Do that instead. Some might like it.”
Both men laughed, the sounds grating and taunting.
We slowed to a stop, and my head bowed as grief ate at me.
“Look at me. Look at me,” one of them demanded, and a hand grasped at my cheeks, forcing my face up. “One last time. You listen, bitch, okay? Cry if you want. Some like that, they will pay for that,” he said quickly, his voice still muffled. “You talk, you beg for help, they won’t want you. They don’t want a talking bitch. Got it?”
When my head shook, his free hand roughly cupped my sex, and I cried out, “Don’t touch me.”
“You talk . . . this will be used day and night, day and night, by anyone. You will be forced into a room to wait for the next man who pays for you. Got it? Got it?” he barked when I didn’t respond.
“Y-yes,” I said, trembling. A man who wasn’t Kyle was touching me, and it was crushing something inside me.
“Let’s go.” He released me quickly only to take my arm in his grasp.
I heard a door open, and I bit back a cry as we stepped through it. Wherever we were now made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The silence here was heavy, wrong.
“Three steps right . . . now,” the man at my arm said softly, but it still crashed through the weighted silence of the room and made me jump and trip over the first step.
No one laughed as the man brought me to an abrupt stop, and I wondered briefly where the second man was. Then I thought about the other girls still on the plane, and realized I didn’t want to know.
My heart raced and stomach swirled with disgust, fear, and horror as I wondered again how I had ended up here. But as I waited for something—anything—I stood completely still with my jaw clenched tight, determined not to let my emotions show.
The man holding me squeezed my arm and hissed a low reminder to stay quiet, but just as quickly his grasp loosened and he breathed, “Yes. Yes.”
I didn’t want to know what had made him excited. His words were making me lose my hold on my fragile composure.
His hold disappeared altogether, and suddenly his voice came from in front of me. “You do not move; you do not speak.”
I can barely breathe.
“Do not react,” he commanded urgently, but soft enough that I barely heard him.
My jaw shook and my breath came out in a hard rush at his words. I didn’t want to know what I wasn’t supposed to react to—his threat alone was more than enough to make me want to.
The thin material covering me was pushed from my body, and I fought against my zip ties to cover myself.
“Don’t,” he hissed. “They like you; do not mess it up now, bitch.”
“Ple—”
“Don’t!” He waited for a few beats before his fingers went to the back of my head, and I wanted to beg him to leave the blindfold alone.
I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t want to see.
The material fell away, and I blinked against the dim light in the room. It felt as harsh as the sun after being in pure darkness for so long. Once my eyes adjusted, I saw what my captor had been seeing, and a cry fell from my lips.
I was surrounded by dozens of one-way mirrors—each one taller than me, and just as wide. Every handful of seconds, a small, round light would turn on above one of them, only to turn off when another lit up. Then another. Then another. Faster and faster, like the lights were at war with each other.