Life hasn’t been great, but it’s been decent.
Until tonight.
Until I agreed to work a double, giving one of the girls the evening off so she could go to some school function with one of her kids. I was an easy target. All the people at work know I have no life and I’m up for earning overtime any chance I can get.
And walking home at midnight because I’m still saving to buy a car made me a target once again. Only the men that pulled up beside me wouldn’t listen to reason. They didn’t give me a chance to decline when they offered me a ride. I said no, and they snatched me up like I was a piece of furniture deserted on the side of the road.
“Shh,” a brunette whispers when the crying on my right gets worse. “You’re going to be fine.”
I’m not disillusioned that she knows more than we do, so her placating words don’t set me at ease.
All considerations that I’m stuck inside a nightmare vanished two days ago before I was shoved in the back of a moving truck. There were two other women. Now there are six, including me.
Escaping isn’t as simple as walking away in the middle of the night like I did years ago, and the longer we travel in darkness, bumping along in the back of this truck, the harder it becomes to hold on to any notion that things will ever be okay again. The men who took us have only opened the doors three times. Each time, they toss in a couple packages of food and another girl.
I’ve learned to stay as far from the door as possible. It puts some distance between the sneering men and also helps me maintain my balance on whatever rugged terrain we’re traveling on. I’m covered in bruises and scrapes because we’re less valuable than cattle right now, and whoever took us doesn’t have a single concern for our safety and well-being.
“We’re slowing down again,” one of the other women whispers, and even though I can’t see her, the fear is clear in her voice. I can tell from her location in the back of the truck that she was one of the ones that was here before me.
The last girl that was tossed inside whimpers, and I keep my mouth closed. It’s not my place to tell her that her prayers are going to go unanswered. She’s going to find that out soon enough.
We’re tossed around the back of the truck, our hands tied to thick ropes around our waists for several long minutes before the truck slams to a stop. The skin on my wrists oozes blood and pus from the constant irritation, but there’s no pain to be felt. Nothing is going to compare to what is to come, of that I’m certain.
The door on the truck rolls up, and I try to shield my eyes from the harsh light shining inside. The ropes I’m bound with don’t allow it, and I’m left squinting, trying to see what’s coming for me.
“Out,” one man snaps, but no one moves.
He lifts that huge rifle we’ve been repeatedly threatened with and a ripple of cries echoes in the back of the truck. I’m not brave or immune to the threat of being shot dead. Tears burn hot down my cheeks, everything in my head telling me I’ll be fine so long as I obey, but my feet are welded in place, my fear too great to face whatever is outside of this truck.
I’m no fool. I know why girls are snatched up off the street, and it isn’t to be taken to a castle to be protected and worshipped.
The brunette who spent so much time trying to calm everyone down is the first to climb out of the back of the truck, but no one else seems as willing. It isn’t until the man fires off a couple of shots into the pitch-black distance that we begin to move.
Rough hands grab me by the shoulder, the grip on my arm the only thing that keeps me from face-planting on the dusty ground. I know I’m going to have even more bruises, but the pain doesn’t really register as I dart my gaze around and notice two other men standing off to the side. A huge house looms to my left, the porch a wide expanse that would be welcoming in any other situation, but I imagine those concrete steps lead to levels of depravity I don’t think I would’ve faced had I stayed at the compound and married Charles McKnight. A lump forms in my throat just thinking that a man I despise is possibly the lesser of the two evils.
We’re lined up facing the two men I don’t recognize, and I’ve watched enough television to know that these men are our buyers. We’re being sold. I also know not to hold out any hope that we’ll be treated with respect and dignity, despite their clean appearances.