FIVE
Ferryn
I think a day passed.
It was hard to keep track, to count when the pain and exhaustion made my eyelids heavy, blinking closed without permission, making me wake with a start seconds or minutes or hours later. I had no idea.
The one window, situated over the woman currently racked with chills on the floor, withdrawing from whatever cocktail that had been in her system, was blackened from the outside, not even a hint of sunlight or moonlight to suggest what time of day it was, how much time I had lost already.
My neck ached from hanging to the side when sleep stubbornly claimed my consciousness. It was a constant sharp twinge when I tried to turn my head. But it paled in comparison to the pain in my head, like my skull had been wrenched open, though I knew from inspecting the spot with weak fingers that it was unlikely. Just bruised and miserable with dried blood caking to the hair around it. My face felt swollen, gums tender, and a back molar wiggly. Wiggly, but not hurting aside from when it pulled against the thin nerve it was still attached by.
But, all in all, I was okay.
Okay enough that I needed to stop thinking about it. I needed to focus on other things. I needed to force my numb legs to hold my weight so I could make my way to the communal toilet, maybe see if there was something there I could bash off, hide down my bodice for the next time someone came down.
No one had.
And it was both a relief and a source of never-ending tension.
Because they would come. Eventually. And a part of me just wanted that part to be over with, so I stopped spinning possible scenarios in my head about what might happen when they did.
And if they did come, who would they come for?
The girl detoxing, desperate for a cure, willing to do anything for the blissful escape?
Chris with her haunting stare?
Or me?
My stomach twisted at the idea.
And that was exactly why I needed to stop sitting, waiting for fate to come to me. I needed to take it in my own hands. Even if they were bruised and hard to bend. They were small and injured, but they would work, they could still do damage, they could help me claw, punch, crawl my way out of this if that was what needed to happen.
"Ugh," I groaned as I forced my knees to the floor, pushing my weight on them, then attempting to rise to my feet, immediately assaulted with the evidence of their disuse - pins and needles, sharp and throbbing and uncomfortable.
"You should have laid down," a voice called. Scratchy. Chris.
My head shot over, finding her watching me with those voids she called eyes.
"I didn't want to be that vulnerable," I admitted, seeing no reason to lie.
"You think you can fight."
"I will fight," I shot back immediately, the voices of the women who had raised me strengthening my tone as well as my resolve.
"It's pointless," she told me, gaze moving from mine, staring off across the room.
"Fighting for yourself is never pointless," I told her, shaking my head as I forced weight onto my other leg, leaning back against the wall to let it come back to life before I forced it to carry me across the room.
"There are more of them. And they're big. And they have no hearts in their chests. You can kick, bite, hit, and they will just hold you down harder, laugh at your weakness."
My heart crushed in my chest, deflated and bruised, and I knew at that moment that no matter what happened, if Aunt Janie detonated a bomb to kill them all, and Aunt Lo came storming down the stairs right now to save us, that it would never be the same. My heart. It would never be what it once had been - not ignorant, but innocent of the ugly in the world. Because here I was, looking at what it could do to a girl. A girl just like me. A girl who probably had a crush on a boy. A girl who had hobbies. A girl who realized when she was taken that she should have told her parents she loved them more, should have tolerated her siblings more.
"All it would take is one good hit," I insisted, unwilling to let go. Of my fight, my determination, knowing that if I did, all I would have left was defeat, acceptance of my circumstances.
And I couldn't let that happen.
I couldn't make myself a victim before I even had something to feel victimized by.
"They hold your arms down," Chris said, tone as empty as her eyes, her lips barely moving as she spoke. "There's never just one of them, you know? There's always two or three. I guess they get more money that way."
I closed my eyes tight for a second, willing my eyes not to tear up, not to let those pictures take root in my brain.
"There's no way to hit them. Even if you did, you still couldn't get away. And then they will make you regret hurting them. Whatever you think you can do to them, they can do worse to you. A lot worse."
I couldn't help the thoughts then, couldn't stop them from tearing through my brain, making me hate the world for creating monsters, hate society for allowing men to think they could use their bodies as weapons and get away with it, for taking a girl who had likely been just like me, innocent of men, and force them to learn nothing of them but the brutal, the evil.
"Look at me," I demanded, hearing venom in my voice. It was flooding my mouth, laced with some primal urge to infect, to sink in, to lace the bloodstreams with burning pain. I was alive with desire to do that to these men. For what they did to this girl. Her head turned, chin lifting, eyes settling on my face, seeing but empty. "I am going to get us out of here. No," I went on when she started to scoff. "Look at me. Listen to me. I am not going to die here. Or have that happen to me," I said, waving a hand across the room, "which is just as bad if you ask me."
"You've never even seen this place. The men with guns in it..."
"Not yet. But I will see it. I will see it. And I will remember every inch of it. And I will find a way to get a key, to get a weapon. And I will get us out of here."
"You won't be able to," she said when I was silent again. "Remember every inch. When they're done," she added, swallowing hard. "Especially the first few times," she went on, all but confirming what I had thought about her prior innocence, but instead of pity, all I felt was rage. Burning, flooding my bloodstream with gasoline, and striking a match, it blistered through me. "You'll be too hurt, too sick. You won't remember anything else."
"I will," I assured her. Prideful, probably, but I refused to accept any other reality. One where I was too traumatized to even think of escape anymore. "I will remember. And maybe I will be in pain, but I will use that. Do you hear me? I will use that to fuel me. And I will get us the hell out of here."
The tips of her lips twitched slightly at that. Like she maybe found my determination amusing for a moment before grim acceptance replaced it.
"You'll see," she told me as a creaking sounded overhead.
Her body stiffened, so much so that I knew that someone wasn't just happening over us for the first time in hours, that someone was coming. She would know far better than me.
"Ferryn," she said suddenly, shocking me.
"Yeah?" I asked, hearing hesitance in my own voice, the first time I realized it even could be there, that this situation did have the potential to weaken me somewhat. And nothing had even happened yet.
"Go somewhere else," she told me, tone desperate, like it was imperative that she tell me. "Go to the ocean or a carnival. Or to your first kiss. Or Christmas. Go anywhere else."
With that, her mouth closed, and her eyes shuttered, blanked out, letting me know that was what it was. When she went all hollow. She was going to the ocean or the carnival or to her first kiss or her last Christmas.
Click.
Slide.
Click.
Locks opening.
My stomach twisted even as my hands went somewhat frantically to the hem of my skirt, yanking it down as far as it would go, as though the measly material would be of any kind of guard against men such as these.
Stomp, stomp.
Heavy legs on narrow stairs.
My throat felt tight, my tonsils seeming to want to get better acquainted.
My heartbeat didn't speed, but slowed, my breathing following suit, slow and shallow, seeming trapped by some invisible weight of anticipation pressing into my ribs.
A shuffling to the side dragged my attention away from the lower body descending the stairs, solid legs in dark wash jeans, to the side to find the detoxing woman on her knees, eyes huge, sweat making her hair hang limply around her face. If I wasn't mistaken, there was hope in her eyes.
Hope of being assaulted.
Just for a high.
Trading one pain for another.
My spit tasted sour at that as the clomping sounded closer, making my head turn back, but slower, like something inside me didn't want me to look, to see the face of a man who wanted to do unspeakable things to me.
But I wouldn't do it.
Avoid.
Pretend.
Escape.
My chin lifted as his boots stilled, stopping at the bottom of the steps, gaze immediately going to me.
It wasn't the man from the night before.
That was my first realization. His arms were too small, his midsection too pudgy.
And the lack of a limp said he wasn't the other either.
This was someone new.
New meant unknown.
Not that I knew what to expect from the others either. Cracks to my knuckles. Bashes to the head. Punches to my center. Fists to jaw. Comments about putting their hands on me.
But, oddly, I somehow would have preferred one of them.
This man was, I don't know, age was hard for me beyond my own age group, maybe in his thirties with close-trimmed brown hair, brown eyes, a scar through his eyebrow, with arms that were smaller than the man the night before, but still much stronger than mine, I would bet. And even if he was softer in the middle, it wasn't enough that it would slow him down, make him an easier target.
His hands pulsed inward toward their palms, demanding my attention. I found a ring with one key in one, hanging loosely off his thumb.
Carelessly, really.
And even through the dread that was a slimy, sticky thing coating every inch of me, there was hope.
If he wasn't smart enough to hold tight to those things, if he underestimated me that much, maybe this would all be over with before anything truly even happened.
As if hearing my thoughts broadcast, his gaze moved to me, even though the detoxing woman begged for him to Take her.
"Fresh meat," he rumbled, voice deep enough that maybe it would have been pleasing if it belonged to anyone else. "Little damaged," he added, moving across the floor to me, each step corresponding to my sluggish heartbeat. "But that'll fade in a day or two," he went on, clearly meaning my face which must have been more bruised than I could have realized. Vanity was something I usually did possess, spending countless hours trying to perfect a cat-eye liner or find the right red lipstick, shopping for styles that suited my body type, which was practically boyish right now, painting my nails, doing my hair. I probably spent as much time worrying about what was on my body as in my head, which I tried to convince myself was still a fair balance.
But right here in this basement, I was glad I was made uglier by black and blue and purple. Maybe, if I was lucky, there were some sickening shades of yellow and green mixed in too.
Not that ugly was a deterrent.
Rape isn't about attraction, Aunt Lo had once told me as she taught me how to get out of what she referred to as the 'rape position' - me on my back, my attacker pinning my arms to the ground, body weight pressing me down as well. Rape is about power.
I could be a swamp creature, and these men would still want to do terrible things to me, because that was what they got off on, not my looks - my fear, my pain, my helplessness.
I trained for this, I reminded myself as the man got closer, bringing with him the scent of sandalwood which I had always liked, but would never be able to smell again without it making my stomach roll. Even now, it went from pleasant to rancid, my nose curling up, my breath catching so as not to breathe more of it in.
This was why I spent endless hours with someone pinning me to the ground, scolding me when I forgot what I was supposed to do, and rolled onto my belly.
Never give up your back! They would yell at me, frustrated for reasons I guess I had never understood.
Because it was never just an exercise.
It was preparation for a possible real-life scenario.
When 'giving up my back' meant someone could yank down my pants and panties, and rape me without me being able to fight back in any way.
I trained for this, I thought again as he got close, as his head ducked to the side, eyes dipping, moving over the undeveloped length of my body. Everything about it screamed Not ripe yet. Don't pick! But there was a sickness in mankind, a preference even, for bodies decent people knew were too young, not ready. He shouldn't have been able to look at me and see possibilities. But that was what he was seeing as his gaze seemed to sear through my dress, seeking secrets hidden beneath.
I trained for this, my brain screamed louder. I am not a victim, it added.
My head shook slightly, clearing the fog put there by his predatory stare, making me remember that I had to stay present, I had to focus, to look for anything that might help me escape.
There was the key, still held too loosely, but just a few inches out of reach. He'd see me move. He would react, step back, get further away. I had to bide my time.
What else my brain demanded to know.
His shirt was too small, slipping up a bit in the back, revealing a sliver of his side, and something else. Something black. Sleek.
A gun.
He had a gun.
A key and a gun.
Those two things screamed freedom to me.
I just had to wait.
To find my opening.
To act.
Even if my palms felt a little sweaty.
You're allowed to be afraid, Uncle Edison had growled at me - growled because that was simply how he spoke, but you are not allowed to give up. Fear is a powerful motivator. Use it.
I swallowed, making his gaze go up, watching the moving of my throat like it was somehow erotic - the freak - for a second before he found my face again.
"Shame it's not your turn," he told me, sounding genuinely disappointed.
It took a long second, long enough that he moved back one more step, making any kind of attempt to grab the key impossible - to realize what he was saying.
It wasn't my turn.
But if it wasn't my turn.
Oh, god.
No.
But even as my mind formed the word of objection, his body was moving across the floor, calm and collected, like he wasn't fetching a young woman for the sole purpose of torturing her.
Chris.
"No!"
The word exploded out of me, dragging out every bit of rage and horror and ferocity my body could hold - which, as it turned out, was a lot. Enough to make him actually cringe forward at the loudness for a second before turning, shooting me an amused look.
"What? You'd rather they tag-team you?"
Bile rose in my throat, acidic and burning.
"I'd rather you fall, get a concussion, and choke to death on your own vomit," I shot back. Aunt Alex. That was Aunt Alex somehow coming out of my mouth.
To that, he threw his head back, laughing for a long second. "Yeah, I bet you'd like that."
With nothing else, he turned again, crouching down beside Chris' motionless body, stabbing the key into the chain at her ankle.
It clicked open.
Freedom.
Freedom.
But she was still trapped.
In a prison of her own mind, too beaten down to find the will to even try.
"Fight!" I demanded, voice deep, forceful, but pleading at the same time. "Fight him!" I tried again as he pocketed the key, reached down, and sank his unwelcome fingers into her hips, lifting her lifeless body with a grumble, throwing her over his shoulder.
"No fun anymore," I thought he said as he pushed himself back up onto his feet.
"Stop!" I demanded, pleaded, too sick to remember I was supposed to be strong. "Don't" I screamed as he moved toward me, smirking at my obvious distress.
See, there was knowing something, knowing it in a distant, clinical way. Like reading about the Persian's penchant for scaphism where they bound people to boats, ripped open their stomachs, poured milk and honey over them, then allowed them to be eaten by rats and insects, or the thousands of men and women who had spikes driven through their bodies from anus to mouth by Ivan the Terrible, or the actual burning of women as witches. It was a story on a page, true, but time-soaked, hard to grasp the horror.
Just like this.
There was all the training to stop it, talk about the motives behind it, endless stories on the primetime news, statistics and dramatizations on TV shows.
But it never really clicked.
The horror of it.
The inhumanity of it.
Trafficking.
Rape.
But there was Chris, a girl I maybe could have crossed paths with at some point, with hopes and dreams much like mine, who had never done a wrong thing in her life, thrown over the shoulder of a man who was bringing her to - and maybe participating in - a situation in which the term 'tag-team' could be used.
And she was limp as a sleeping baby, her mind abandoning her body to try to escape what was about to happen to it.
But there was no escaping it, not really.
The horror in her voice when she spoke was proof of that.
"Don't do this!" I demanded of the man instead, knowing Chris was deaf ears. "You don't have to do this!"
My voice was strange - shrill and squeaking.
"Have to?" he asked, head cocking to the side, resting on Chris' back. "No. Want to? Abso-fucking-lutely."
"You son of a bitch!" I screamed, shooting outward, not a single thought in my head but hurting him, clawing at him, doing something to him. It would be nothing in the grand scheme of things, but at least it would be some small bit of pain, something that said how evil he was.
My arms outstretched, knowing I didn't have the leverage to strike, but clawing out, scraping down the skin.
There was a sick sense of satisfaction coursing through me as a rough, pained hiss escaped him, a hot and gooey warmth much like the blood underneath my nails.
"Fucking stupid bitch," he growled, hefting Chris up higher, allowing him to pivot back, and strike forward, pain exploding across my unmarred cheek, fracturing upward until my eye socket felt fragmented.
The force knocked me back several feet as he turned to walk away.
Walk away.
With Chris.
To do unspeakable things.
Something came from me then, something animalistic, primal, something that reminded me of this book I had read once about women being descendent of wolves - a howling war call that sounded nothing like any sound I had ever made before.
The pain was a forgotten thing, lost in the recesses of a brain that could think of nothing but violence as I charged outward, striking out with the outside of my forearm, wrist, and hand, seeking a floating rib, hoping I could crack it clean off, making him fall, make his friends come take him.
And leave Chris.
But I was two inches too low, getting a growl as he whipped around, using his spin as momentum, arm cocked up, and elbow slamming full force into my jaw, sending me spinning toward the floor.
I had barely registered the crack of impact as my body hit the unyielding floor when I heard his boots going up the stairs.
Up the stairs with Chris.
"No no no!" I shrieked, slamming my palm against the floor in defeat, in complete and utter helplessness.
"Yes yes yes," he hollered down at me a second before the door slammed, and the locks slid and clicked back into place.
And the worst thought crossed my mind as I lay there, face screaming, side throbbing from the fall, breath coming in agonized huffs.
What if she has to pay for my actions? What if they took their anger at me out on her?
My stomach, as empty as it had maybe ever been, twisted and sloshed, bile creeping its way out and up my throat, threatening escape.
I pushed myself up, scrambling across the floor on all fours toward the toilet, sure I could tolerate a lot of awful conditions, but looking at and smelling my own puke for hours - or days - on end was not one of them.
I collapsed next to it, dry heaving for long enough that sweat prickled up over my skin, chilling me in the aftermath as I sat there, knees curled to chest, arms encircling them, forehead resting on my upper arm.
Rocking.
Just rocking.
Trying to breathe, to fight back the hysteria bubbling through my system.
It wasn't my fault.
Whatever happened, it wasn't my fault.
I was no more at fault than Chris for being born a girl.
This was on them, on the monsters wearing the skin of men, thinking they could parade among us, use us, abuse us with their twisted urges.
This was their fault.
There was a telltale burning at the backs of my eyes, making me press the lids closed tight, forcing the tears back, refusing to let them come - even if they were for her and what she was going through - refusing to let the evidence of them show on my face.
They could have my rage, my disgust, my marrow-deep hatred.
And nothing, nothing else.
That was all they deserved.
Righteous anger.
Indignation.
And any bit of pain I could inflict upon them.
My head lifted as my arms released my legs, my hands raising, curling into fists, showing me the evidence of some small bit of hurt I had brought upon him. He had my scratches down his face.
Maybe his buddies would laugh.
But he had to have a life.
Outside of them.
Outside of these walls.
Around normal people.
People who would see them and know there was only one explanation for them, people who would see him for the bottom-feeder he was.
A whimpering drew my attention away from my own hands, away from the knowledge of what they were capable of if I kept my wits about me, if I acted calmly, if I utilized the years of training I'd had.
"What's your name?" I heard myself ask, feeling guilty for having connected with Chris and not her, knowing we were all in this together, no matter what ways we found to cope.
"Mary," she answered as she held her knees, rocking on her side.
"I'm Ferryn," I told her, feeling a stab of pity for the sweat over her body, the pained look in her eyes.
I knew about drugs.
First, because of school.
Because of the assemblies condemning them, sure, but also because at least a dozen of kids in my grade and up were already heavy into heroin.
A generation of kids with no hope of a fair future, Uncle Renny had said once, shaking his head. Not surprised they look for an escape.
And they did.
Binge drinking.
Burning out.
Shooting poison into their veins.
Last year, a girl had OD'd on the floor of the senior prom.
She hadn't made it either.
Seventeen and dead.
I shared my father's bone-deep distaste for drugs, for what they did to people who had just been looking for a way out of pain - emotional or physical.
"Are you okay?" I asked, knowing it was a stupid question, that no one could actually be okay in this situation, let alone detoxing in this situation.
"Wish I had something in my system to throw up," she whimpered as she clutched her stomach. "The cramps are the worst."
"I'm sorry they did this to you," I told her, meaning it, though knowing how hollow the words sounded.
"They didn't do this. Not this anyway," she said, shaking her head, refusing to make eye-contact. "Been using since I was your age," she added, maybe finding that talking to me helped distract from the pain in her body. "Turned tricks before I could vote. One night, got so high I don't remember being picked up, just waking up here the next day."
"That's horrible."
"Life is horrible."
I couldn't agree with that, so I stayed silent.
My life wasn't horrible.
And I suddenly felt incredibly guilty for every moment I may have made my parents think I felt that way, every useless rebellion, every fight, every time I thought anything less than loving about them.
I had been a clueless, selfish girl, taking my good luck for granted.
"You're like her," Mary said a moment later.
"I'm sorry?"
"Like the other girl with the doe eyes," she told me. I figured, meaning Chris. "Fresh as snow."
"I guess," I agreed, looking away, oddly feeling almost embarrassed about the fact.
"Honey, if you have to guess, you're lily white," she informed me, voice firm. "Worse for girls like you," she added. "Shouldn't happen like that. The first time. But who am I to talk anyway? Shouldn't be your Uncle Jim when you're eight years old either."
Oh, God.
If possible, this bruised, battered, unrecognizable thing I called a heart inside my chest shrank smaller still, turned darker shades of black and blue.
So, so much wickedness in the world, so much human sickness, so many innocent victims.
"Anyway, if they offer it, take it," she went on as I moved away from the toilet, needing some distance, some space to put myself back together.
"Take what?" I asked as the chain slowed my pace, the metal slicing into my bare skin as I knew it inevitably would.
"The drugs. If they offer 'em, take 'em. They'll make it all easier to bear."
Again, unable to agree, I said nothing.
Maybe she was right.
Maybe they would make it easier.
But maybe I didn't want it easier.
Maybe I needed every moment of terrible to fuel me, to keep the fire burning inside. Because if I took the drugs, if I escaped like Chris, where did that leave me? Here forever? Or until I was no longer useless?
What then?
Would they kill me?
Since I had seen their faces?
Since I could identify them?
No.
Maybe escape - be it drugs or my own brain - would save me in a way, but it could doom me in others.
I might have to suffer this fate, until I had the tools I needed, until I found an opening I could use, but I was not going to let this be the last chapter in my story. Or, if it would be, at least it would be a brutal, blood-soaked tale of a woman who refused to give up.
If I had to die, I wanted to die fighting. I wanted to try to take them with me. I wanted to let these bastards know that they didn't win, they didn't break me.
They can never break me.
The anger coursed through me, finding a well deep inside that seemed to be fed endlessly, letting it flood my bloodstream until my skin hummed with it, until my pulse pounded with it, until my lips were shaking with it.
Sometime later, the click, slide, click, the stomping on the steps.
But not the guy from earlier.
The guy from the night before.
His gaze slid my way as he carried Chris.
I don't know for sure what it was I found there.
Confusion?
Interest?
Something, something I couldn't put my finger on, something I didn't have much time to ponder as he dropped Chris, blocking her from view with his massive body as he shackled her again, turned, and jogged up the stairs.
My stomach twisted as I sat there, scared, so scared that I didn't want to look.
But I didn't have that luxury.
Ignorance.
Not anymore.
This was the reality now, ugly as it might be.
And I had to be strong enough to face it.
My body shook as I forced my head over toward Chris' side of the basement, finding her sprawled on the floor, facing me, and I wondered if that was on purpose, to frighten me, to taunt me.
Because her beautiful face had been brutalized, bruises around her eyes, blood soaking into the whites of one, a dried trickle of it coming from her nose, more of it coming from her mouth, a fresh band around her throat of bruises, ones that matched her wrists, dotted up her arms and her thighs since they had stolen her pants.
My jaw shook as I looked her over, as the anger became something else, something that spread out of my small body, seemed to coat the air around me.
I swallowed back my saliva as I looked into her unseeing eyes, as Aunt Janie came back to me.
Never back down.
Never give up.
Fight.
And I was going to fight.
For me.
For Mary.
For Chris.
For every other unknown woman they had done this to.
I was going to make those fuckers pay.