He slides the first lock, then unlocks the padlock. The door swings open and I see her sitting on the same cot so many other girls have sat on—the cot my sister once sat on, I’m sure. This is always the hardest part for me: the initial contact. It’s not until Earl steps into the room that I get a good look at her. She’s scared. Alone. Her dark hair is matted to her face; the shirt she’s been wearing for the past week is splattered with blood. The moment she looks up, I know I need her to break quickly because that face right there is nothing but pure innocence.
She’s young, and unlike the others, she wasn’t lost. I can tell that. She wears fear like a cloak. All of her lost dreams and hopes are evident on her face. She had a life that was ripped away from her, and there is nothing I can do here to save a girl like her. Someone like her, all this will do is destroy her.
6
Ava
There’snoise outside the door and my heart goes into a sprint. The lock clicks, then the other lock slides, and the door creaks open. Earl coughs as he enters the room. A hazy stream of light pours in from the doorway, and I can see there’s someone behind him hidden in the shadow of the other room, but that man’s not short and round like Bubba.
“Y’ant something to eat?” Earl asks. I shake my head. “Aw, now, come on. You gots to eat.” He grins, his dingy smile making my empty stomach knot. “Promise it’s good eating.”
I’m starving and weak, so hungry the thought of food actually makes me nauseous, but I don’t want anything from him. “No,” I say.
The man behind him steps into the room. He’s tall. The white T-shirt he’s wearing stretches over broad shoulders and muscular arms. The material is so worn and thin I can make out the tattoos covering his chest, some wind down his arms. His face is striking and for a moment, I can’t help but notice how attractive his distinctive features are: olive skin, cut jaw, straight noise, and his eyes are deep and dark, almost black. But even with how dark they are, they are not sinister. When his eyes meet mine, I see something human—sorrow. Pity. I see a soul and that confuses me.
“Told ya she’s purty,” Earl throws over his shoulder as he steps toward me. He grabs at his belt and my heart holds back several panicked beats. This is it. He’s going to rape me. Maybe they are both going to rape me. Something overtakes me. I know I’m helpless, but I hate it. I hate him. And I just wish he’d get whatever it is he wants to do to me over with.
“Fuck you!” I say through clenched teeth, scooting back toward the wall as a last ditch effort to maintain some dignity.
Earl’s eyes widen and he stops midstride. “Purty little girls shouldn’t have mouths like that.” He laughs before taking another step in my direction. “Now, girl. Yous gonna eat because I ain’t gonna have you dying on me, you hear?”
“What do you want with me then?” I whisper. “If you aren’t going to kill me, what do you want?”
“Oh, I gots plans for you.” He taps his finger over his temple and winks at me. “I’m a smart one.”
I glare at him, debating about spitting on him. “I can tell by yourimpeccablegrammar.” The second the words leave my mouth, I cringe on the inside. That was stupid. Very, very stupid.
Laughing, he smiles before his hand reaches out like a snake striking prey. He fists my hair and drags me to my feet. I can feel several strands rip from my scalp as he brings my face inches from his, his smoker’s breath heavy in my face. “Grammar ain’t got much to do with it. And I suggest you watch your smart, rich-girl mouth, ’for I bust you in it.”
“Earl!” the man looming in the corner speaks as he approaches us. He grabs Earl’s hand from my hair and gently untangles it before pushing Earl back a few steps. “Just fucking calm down, would you?”
I fall to the mattress and suddenly, I feel safe…
Earl looks at me, then at him. “You know I don’t like people talkin’ ’bout the way I speak, Max. Makes me mad ’nough to spit.”
“I know.” Max pats him on the shoulder. “I know. But you don’t want to hurt her…” His gaze shifts from Earl to me, those coal black eyes of his narrowing. It’s like he’s studying me, taking me in. It makes me nervous because it gives me a shred of hope that he is a good person. That he will save me.
“Ava,” he says my name with such tenderness that my sleep-deprived mind allows my body to subtly inch closer to his. “I’m sorry about all of this, I am.” He bites down on his lip, dropping his eyes to his floor. “Sometimes life’s not fair, you know?”
And now I hate him. My emotions are in a state of havoc.
“May I?” He points to the mattress. I don’t move. I don’t make a sound. To be honest, I don’t even think I’ve taken a breath. He sits next to me, his weight causing the ratty mattress to dip. He looks up at Earl. “Go get her some food. A Pop-Tarts or something. Something wrapped so she knows it’s not poisoned.” Earl shuffles out of the door, locking only one lock this time.
Max’s attention turns back to me. I fight to keep my eyes from drifting down to that lip he keeps biting on. And here my mind goes, down some irrational path in an attempt to deny the dire situation at hand. Right now, instead of wondering how this man may kill me, I’m wondering what his lips would feel like over mine. I know how crazy this sounds, but the thing is, when you are in a position such as I am: bound and locked in a dingy basement, your mind grasps for some normalcy. In a normal situation, I’d be at a party with my friends. Possibly drunk and this guy, Max—we’d be alone in this room because he wanted to kiss me, fuck me. And if you were to take away the situation surrounding this moment—I’d let him. I’d want him to want me.
My eyes are locked on his and there is something about him, some weird connection that wants to surface that makes me want to experience him in every way possible. In a normal world, we would kiss. We’d fuck. And maybe I’d make him fall in love with me…
“Ava?” His deep voice drags me from my fluttering thoughts, from the protective realms of a daydream.
His finger brushes a stray piece of hair from my cheek and the warmth of his hand sends a slight electric jolt fluttering through me.Maybe this is fate.My mind tries relentlessly to make sense of why all of this is happening, and right now it is grasping at straws.
“I just need you to do what we ask,” he says with such a sense of calm, my rapid heartbeat begins to slow. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. I really don’t, but you telling Earl to fuck off…” He stretches his neck. “Well, he’s got a bit of a temper. Killed people over shit like that, all right?”
I nod.
I nod.
I nod.
