You are the only person who can help me. I think they’re going to kill me.”
Natalia thought that was ridiculous. She scowled. “I have worked for these people for several years now. They don’t hurt people. They help people.”
“They steal women. They steal boys too. They kill people. I’ve learned so much about them. They’re dangerous. Trust me, when they are done with you, they’ll dispose of you too. They’re a bunch of thugs, mobsters. It’s a huge ring, and you’re helping them.”
Natalia wished that she hadn’t heard those words. It was so much easier when they didn’t speak English.
“I have to clean this up. Your doctor will be here shortly.”
“My doctor? You mean the executioner. Please—what’s your name?”
“Natalia.”
“Listen to me. You’re in danger. I don’t understand what planet you’re from, but when you’re no longer young and pretty, they’ll have no more use for you.”
“I resent that!” Natalia was actually offended. “They’ve never laid a hand on me, and they don’t abuse the girls I’ve taken care of here at the shelter.”
“The shelter. That’s a sham. It’s a grooming house for foreign prostitutes. They train girls to perform sex for men who like young girls. Boys too. Have you had boys here?”
“Never. No one ever has sex here.”
“No, they sell them. They do the bad things somewhere else. But, Natalia, you have to understand, just because you don’t see it, surely you understand what’s happening. You can’t be that stupid!”
She fell back onto the bed and began to cry. Natalia did feel sorry for her. Unlike the other girls, if she somehow had managed to free her, Carmen would be able to fend for herself, get help, and go back to her old life. But of course, that was impossible. She thought perhaps she’d question Dr. Nash when he arrived.
“Give me a phone. I need to call the police. We have to hurry. I have to get out of here.”
Natalia looked at Carmen’s ankle, now red and slightly bloody from her pulling on it. She didn’t have anything strong enough to cut through the chain on the cuffs. She could go to the hardware store and buy some bolt cutters, but if Dr. Nash came by and found Carmen unattended, Natalia knew she’d get in trouble.
And she didn’t have a phone. She’d never wanted one before.
“I don’t have a phone, Carmen. I don’t have anything I can use to remove that device.”
“Do you have a neighbor? Someone you could borrow a phone from? Is there a phone booth outside?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged.
“Well, look, dammit!”
She went to the window overlooking the street with the river beyond. Since her living space was on the second floor, over a parking structure below, she had a clear view of the block. There was a phone booth outside the convenience store she sometimes shopped at about a block away. But just then she saw a large black Mercedes pull up in front, and two men got out. One of them looked up at her through the window and nodded, giving a little wave.
Her blood pressure spiked as she stood at the crossroads, suddenly wanting to help the woman and not knowing what to do.
She waved back.
And then there were the sounds of footsteps coming upstairs to her front door.
“Natalia!” yelled Carmen. “Help me!”
She remembered the look on her grandmother’s face when she was taken away that day. All of a sudden, it occurred to her that the woman she’d loved so much did nothing to stop her from leaving with that man who later abused her.
Sold? Was I sold like one of her canaries?
Rage boiled her blood as she recalled being raped repeatedly, her private parts bloodied and torn, her future stolen, the future of all the other women she’d been reading about stolen at her very own hands. The scars from the rapes weren’t what made her ugly. It was what she had done that made her despicable. Unworthy of being loved. She was a non-person.
As she greeted the two men who wore black gloves, men she’d never met before who smiled and respectfully greeted her by her name, who’d been told perhaps the most intimate details of her life, how she’d been compromised into this position, she found it quite easy to lie to them.
“Gentlemen, she’s in the bedroom. She just woke up. I’m afraid she doesn’t like oatmeal.”
The younger, shorter one gave her a smirk. “That’s okay. We’ll make sure she gets something good to eat. We’ll take good care