Darkest Before Dawn (3 page)

W
e’ve been driving
for hours. Three hours to be exact. My senses are on high alert as I have been paying attention to every turn, every twist, every landmark. I’ll need it when I get out. And I
will
get out. We crossed the state line over an hour ago, got off at the Bremen exit, and now we are in the middle of butt-fuck Egypt with nothing around but cotton fields. For the past fifteen minutes all I’ve seen in front of us is the glow of the fluffy, white buds in the headlights. The guy to my left, whose name is Bubba—
fitting
—nodded off a while ago, after polishing off a six-pack. He smells like beer and sweat. His knuckles are caked with dirt. He’s utterly filthy and his greasy head keeps lulling over to the side and falling onto my shoulder. I nudge him off and sometimes he wakes up, grunting before slamming his forehead against the window and snoring.

The driver—Bubba calls him Easy Earl—he’s
only
on his second six-pack and he’s swerving all over the road. Every once in a while the tire rides over the shoulder. A mile back, he took out a mailbox. You’d think I’d be scared—and fuck, I am—but not of his driving. I keep hoping he’ll pass out at the wheel. I envision this jalopy swerving off into one of those cotton fields, hopefully hitting a ditch and flipping over a few times. I’d climb out of the busted windshield and take off. Their drunk asses would never be able to aim good enough to shoot me, much less run fast enough to catch me. A few times I’ve thought about jerking the wheel, but I don’t want to chance pissing Earl off. Something tells me he’s a violent drunk and I’d catch a backhand to the face. A busted lip.

“Aw, shit!” Earl groans as he slams on the brakes. Dust flies up around the truck as he shoves it into reverse.

“What the hell, Earl?” Bubba snorts and shakes his head.

“Missed the damn turn.”

“Fucking idiot.”

Earl struggles with the steering wheel before finally turning onto a gravel driveway. Pine trees loom over the path. The headlights shine bright, bouncing over the weeds and grass sprouting up between the sparsely scattered rocks crunching beneath the tires. Ahead of us sits an old farmhouse, almost antebellum looking. In its younger years I’m certain it was beautiful, but now the paint on the columns is chipped and weathered. The shutters hang loose, a few missing. There’s a single light shining through a dirt-streaked window onto the porch from the bottom floor. All I can think about is how much this house looks like the one in
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
.

The truck sputters to a stop. Bubba steps out then grabs me by the shoulders, yanking me out. I tumble to the ground, the cold, wet grass soaking through the knees of my jeans. In the distance I can hear crickets and bullfrogs. The sky is clear. I’m terrified, but all I can manage to think is that I’ve never seen so many stars. Funny the things you think about in moments like this.

Earl rounds the front of the truck and grabs my bound wrists, yanking me to my feet. “Now, Ms. Ava, we’s gots some plans for you.” Earl pushes me from behind. Bubba’s still holding onto my shoulders as they walk me toward the front of the run-down house.

Bubba snorts back some snot, clearing his throat with a hacking cough followed by thick sounding spit.

“It’s gonna be a long, long time,” Earl says, jerking at my wrists, “’for you leave here. You gots to earn the right to leave, ya hear me, girl?”

I say nothing, just drag in a stifled breath. The toe of my shoe hits the first wooden step of the porch and, suddenly, my legs feel like lead weights. I think I’ve been in shock for the past several hours. Something about being walked up these stairs like a death row inmate has made this situation all too real. I am hours away from my home—my father, my mother, my dead date. I wasn’t supposed to be home until an hour ago. That means for two hours no one has had any idea that something has happened. Unless, of course, someone stumbled across Bronson’s truck, but very few people go up to that park at night, and the ones that do aren’t paying attention to a parked car. These men must have planned this out. Earl said he had plans for me—this isn’t some spur of the moment decision based on panic. This was premeditated, which means they’ve thought this through.

Bubba slings the screen door back and we walk into the old house. Inside reeks of cigarettes and mold. Water stains cover the yellowed walls; cobwebs are in every corner. As soon as we set foot into the kitchen, two mangy looking dogs scamper up. Both sniff the leg of my jeans. One wags its tail, the other growls, baring its teeth.

Earl kicks at the growling one. “Aw, shut yer trap, Bear.” The dog scampers away, disappearing into a dark doorway.

I’m led to a stairwell that most likely descends into a cellar or basement. Bubba pulls a frayed cord and a yellow haze lights the stairwell. I want to scream. I want to cry. My heart bangs unevenly against my ribs, my chest constricting. The farther down the stairs we go, the stronger the smell of wet mildew grows. Once at the bottom, I look up. I can see the floorboards and pipes. I’m shoved through the cramped room and toward a wooden door. Earl opens it and pushes me inside. My foot hits a brick threshold which trips me. I fall to the floor, my knees banging against concrete.

“Now, this’ll be where you stay. Fixed it up for you.” A light bulb buzzes on, illuminating the cinder block room. Against one wall is a mattress with a dirty looking blanket thrown over it. There’s a toilet and sink in the corner. “You stay here. Don’t try to get out. This door’s thick. I’mma lock it, then padlock it. Besides, you come up those stairs, that door leads right into the kitchen. You come through that doorway, someone’ll put a bullet in that pretty little head of yers.”

Earl turns his back to me and goes through the door. Grinning, Bubba follows him out. The hinges to the old door groan as it’s slammed shut. I hear a lock slide into place followed by another latch click. There is no handle on the door, nothing but smooth wood. I collapse onto the mattress with my hands still bound, and now that I’m alone, I cry harder than I ever thought possible.

* * *

I
squirm
. I cry. He shoves my face in my pillow and the smell of the fabric softener nearly drowns me. I used to love the way it smelled because it reminded me of mother, but I hate it now because it reminds me of him.

“You’re a bad girl, Ava. This is all your fault and if anyone finds out they’ll think you’re bad, too. A liar. A dirty little whore, and no one loves a dirty little slut.”

His hands are so rough and large. And I pretend I can’t feel them. I pray that my daddy will come back early and kill him.

I nearly jump out of the bed. My pulse is racing, I’m covered in a cold sweat and I’m actually sobbing. Dreams like that are why I hate to sleep. During wakefulness I can deny it all I want, but in the covert of sleep those demons wait for me. And for the unknown number of days since I’ve been here, in this prison, those are the only dreams I have, so I try not to sleep. Taking several deep breaths, I pace the length of this small room.

I’ve been in denial that this has actually happened. I’ve bargained with God. I’ve cried. I’ve screamed. The unknown—that truly is the worst form of torture. What are these men going to do to me? Rape me then murder me? Keep me? I have no idea, but out of all the scenarios I’ve vividly played out in my head, I’ve decided I’d rather them kill me. Being held captive, having those filthy men on top of me doing whatever they want—I can’t handle that, but above anything else I can’t handle having hope that I’ll actually get out of here. My hands are still bound, the skin on my wrists raw and my fingers numb, and with each passing second, the reality that I am never leaving this place becomes far too real.

I
can see
it in Lucy’s eyes.

Interesting.

This one broke much more quickly than the others. A week of solitary confinement and only eight days of this: time with me. Her green eyes stray to my lips. Her chest rises in anticipatory breaths. She swallows as I gently sweep my fingers over her cheek, smiling when she leans into my touch.

“What are you thinking, Lucy?” I ask.

“How wrong this is.”

And there it is…a slight confession. And this
is
wrong. She shouldn’t love me. I am, in a sense, her captor. But the thing is, I have
made
her love me.

Emotions. You
can
control emotions. Fear. Sadness. Happiness.
Love.
Love is an emotion, and guess what? You can control that more easily than you think. I’ve spent the last four months studying the psychology of the human mind. Behavior. Motivation. And love is one hell of a motivator. I managed to find these people, thanks to the cell phone of that fucking john, Travis, and somehow, because I am resourceful as fuck, plus the son of the late Jacob Carter, which gives me clout, I managed to get hired in his position. Ever since then, I’ve dissected what makes people fall in love. It’s simple actually. And not only is it simple, but due to the particular situation these girls such as Lucy find themselves in, well, it is much different than running into a random girl at a park. I’m not
hoping
to find love. No, I’m wanting to manufacture it, bottle it, and sell it to the highest bidder.

And it is sick.

There is a psychology behind making a captive fall in love with their captor—evolution, if you will. Survival of the fittest. Because at one point in history, and as barbaric as it may sound, men took women by force. Most women were captives to the man they lived with. You fought, you died. You stayed, you survived. According to biology, it is almost natural to be captive to love. Love is, in a sense, a prison.

And on the same accord, controlling someone is easier than it should be. Mixing abuse with kindness actually forges a stronger bond than always being nice. It’s manipulation at its finest—having normalcy appear as an act of giving. Stripping someone of all power fucks with their mind. Pretending you love them in a world where love should not exist, well that just makes you a knight in fucking gleaming armor. What you must do is distort reality. Take away time and sense of self. Take away everything until all that is left is you. And here I stand with Lucy.

All that is left is me…

I smile. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

“How I feel about you.” Her eyes fill with tears.

Leaning in closer to her, I cup her soft cheek in my palm. I allow my lips to barely brush hers, but I won’t dare kiss her. “Tell me how you feel,” I breathe the words over her lips.

“I…” Her warm breath washes over my mouth. I hear her swallow. “I think I love you.”

The corner of my lip kicks up. “And that’s how you’re supposed to feel.” Her brows scrunch with confusion. “And I care for you,” I say, “but I’m not a man capable of loving someone.” I drop my hand from her face and turn to leave the room.

“Please don’t leave me,” she begs.

“I’ll be back. I promise.” I open the door and gently close it, locking both deadbolts behind me.

When I first started this job, I felt guilty for doing this, but over time you can justify nearly anything. After the first month, I realized that love can make you do crazy things. And it is because of my love for Lila that
I
do these terrible things. Am I hurting people in the process of trying to save her? Yes, but as I said, with time you can justify anything.

These girls are mostly homeless drug addicts or prostitutes or both. They have no family, no money. They have nothing, and at least this way, I am giving them
something
. They may be taken against their will, but they’ll see in the months and years to come what they will gain is much more than the inevitable overdose or jail time or miserable death that was waiting for them outside of these walls. In a sense, I am helping to
save
them.

Whistling, I make my way down the corridor to the open part of the basement where the initial holding room is. Earl’s raspy laugh floats down the stairwell from the kitchen. I glance at the last locked door on my left before heading up the stairs, wondering what this new girl will be like. How easily will she break? The thing that bothers me more than anything, at least I think, is that I actually find this entire experiment fascinating. And what does that say about me? I’ll tell you, that I’m not as good of a person as I once felt I was.

I kick the basement door open. The entire kitchen is filled with cigarette smoke. Earl’s at the table, a Miller High Life open in front of him and a
Playboy
—1989 edition—spread out in front of him.

“Lucy…number one eighteen,” I start. “You can have her whenever you like.”

“A’ight,” he says. He doesn’t glance up, just licks his fingers and turns the page. “Gonna start on the new one?”

I cross the kitchen, open the fridge, and grab a beer. “Yeah,” I say.

The top pops when I open it, the beer fizzing. I lean against the counter and glance around the dirty kitchen. I hate this place. It’s filthy. Infested with rodents and roaches, but I have no choice but to stay here. I’m needed to train these girls; however, I am not Earl’s fucking bitch and live-in maid. I keep my quarters immaculate. I’ve found that, although I can convince myself things which are morally wrong are in some ways right, I can’t convince myself that living in squalor like this is.

A roach crawls over the table and Earl flicks it across the room. Watching the insect flip back over and scurry under the pantry door, I take a sip of the cold beer. “Where’d you say you picked this one up from?” I ask.

“Some park.”

“Turning tricks, huh?”

Earl slowly turns around in his chair, draping his arm over the back, his
Playboy
still in hand. An uneasy smile curls across his lips. “Nah.”

I narrow my eyes on him and take a step away from the countertop. “What do you mean ‘nah’?”

He shrugs. “Got paid a bit of money to take her. Figured that ol’ saying, kill two birds with one stone and all that shit, ya know?”

“No…” My heart rate kicks into overdrive, flooding my body with adrenaline. “I don’t
know
. Why don’t you fucking explain?” My jaw tenses.

“Aw, hell now, Max.” Earl tosses the magazine on the table. “This fucker wanted her gone, something about some insurance money and all. He paid me to kill her, but I ain’t that damn stupid. Figured I’d say I’d kill her. Bring her here, let you do your shit with her, then we’d sell her.” He grins, showing his yellowed teeth. “Double dipping.” He takes two fingers and feigns shoving them into something before sticking them inside his mouth and pulling them out with a disgusting slurp.

It takes everything inside me to not strangle him right here, right now. I take a quick swig of beer, swish it around in my mouth, and swallow before closing my eyes and dragging my hands down my face. “Earl.” I inhale. “Shit like that is how we get caught.”
And we can’t get caught before I find Lila.
“So what you are telling me is this girl has a fucking family? One that is most likely looking for her?”

He shrugs again, and now I can see worry etch itself over his stupid-looking face. “It was twenty grand…”

I shake my head. “I don’t give a flying shit, Earl. Is twenty-fucking-grand worth going to jail for?”

He hangs his head like a child who’s just gotten into trouble.
Dumb fuck.
I guzzle my beer and toss the can into the sink. “Like there’s shit we can do about it now,” I say with a groan. “She’s here, you just better hope to God you covered your trails.”

“I did,” he says as I turn to go back down into the cellar. “Used a gun from an estate sale.”

“Used…” I stop dead in my tracks
. “Used
a gun?”

He tosses his magazine down and stands. “Yeah, we found her ’cause of her Facebook status shit. Thought she was alone, but some guy was with her, so I had to shoot him. Twenty grand, Max. That’s lots of money.”

“You’re a dumb fucking bastard.” Pointing at him, I say, “You get caught, I will not go down with you. Get your fucking shit together, goddamn it.”

I yank the cellar door open and make my way down the steps with Earl right behind me. Once outside the door, Earl places his hand on my shoulder, moving himself in front of me. I hate when this fucker touches me. I really do.

“Let me go in first,” he says. He’s grinning from ear to ear. He lives for this shit right here. He’s a dumb inbred country bumpkin. He has no idea what the hell he is actually doing. All he knows is he makes money, so he can get high all day and drunk all night. That’s all that matters to Earl. “She ain’t ate in days.” His grin widens. “Bet she’s in a state.”

I shove the sick fuck in the back. “Open the fucking door already, would you?”

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.