The sound of a grunt and piss hitting the ground fills my ears as my feet touch gravel. The flow of urine doesn’t stop, meaning he hasn’t seen the door open and close, but the rough terrain under my feet tells me I’m not on any type of well-maintained road. He’s taking the backroads to avoid detection on his way to whatever border he mentioned.
With shaking hands, I manage to close the door as quietly as possible.
I make a run for the tree line opposite of the side of the vehicle he’s on, crouching low and watching to see what he does. Running away is my first instinct, but it could prove to be my biggest mistake, since I can barely see a few feet in front of me.
I watch as the man circles the vehicle, kicking the rear passenger tire like it’s been giving him trouble recently. I can’t manage a breath as he pulls a flashlight from his pocket and shines it into the back part of the SUV. I can’t remember if I pulled the tarp back over where I was.
Tears burn my eyes, the warmth of them heating my cheeks on their path down my face. I may be out, but I’m not free yet by a long shot.
I’ve never felt the kind of relief I feel when he turns off the flashlight, seemingly accepting what he sees, and climbs back behind the wheel. I watch the taillights disappear down the road, my body shaking uncontrollably from the cold. Like the weak person I never show anyone else, I sit there and cry.
As far as abductions and getting sold into sexual slavery go, I got off lightly. I wasn’t raped. Hell, other than being grabbed off the street and the guy with the scissors cupping my ass, I wasn’t touched. I know many women have it worse. I feel no sensitivity between my legs to indicate anything happened while I was unconscious, and the man on the phone proved he didn’t touch me even though he wanted to.
The massive man back at the house, although probably the devil himself, insisted I wasn’t their toy to play with, but I imagine that declaration was more about protecting his investment than protecting me from unwanted attention.
A rush of freezing air across my body tells me two things—one, it’s too cold for me to be a couple hours from the Mexico border, even in winter, and two, I’m not out of the woods and safe yet.
The man could quickly realize I’m no longer in the vehicle, making him turn around to look for me, or I could freeze to death before coming across someone to help me.
Reminding myself that I’m a survivor, one who lived through so many terrors as a child, I stand and start walking in the opposite direction of the way the man was traveling with me. My bare feet are no competition for the gravel on the road, and my progress is very slow going, but I’m determined. All I need is a car to drive by, or a house where I can call the police.
What seems like hours pass before headlights flicker in the distance. I rush to the side of the road, unwilling to take a chance that my captor has come back to look for me. The vehicle is within a quarter of a mile of where I’m crouched when I realize it’s not the same vehicle, but I don’t stand and wave like most people would. I can’t take the chance of some opportunistic fuck seeing me in nothing but a towel. I could end up right back in the same damn situation.
As it draws closer, I pick up a rock from the ground, throwing it at the car as it rumbles past. The rock hits the side panel of the car before bouncing off into the grass. As I hoped, the brakes light up as the car stops. I nearly cry with relief when a woman gets out of the car and circles around to the side I struck to assess the damage. If it were a man, I’d do my best to stay hidden.
“Help,” I say as I climb up the embankment toward her car.
She jolts with a scream, frightened at the sight of me, and I know I’d react the same way if I were in her position. Hell, I probably wouldn’t have stopped on this sketchy-ass road in the dark in the first place, but it seems some Good Samaritans are better than me.
“Please help me,” I beg when she looks like she’s going to circle around her car and drive off before I can reach her. “I’m hurt.”
She freezes, her head dipping in the early morning light as she looks down the length of me. I don’t imagine I look very intimidating with bleeding feet and nothing but a towel to cover me.