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All I can think about is Lya and how badly I need her right now to make me feel safe. I want to scream her name and wake up from this nightmare, but it’s too late. No matter how hard I try, these men have me and they aren’t letting go. It’s better that she’s not here. They would do the same thing to her. She needs to stay hidden—she needs to be safe.
The men drag me toward a large black van and slide the door open. Just as they go to throw me in, I can faintly hear my name being called. I think it’s Lya, but I don’t know if I’m imagining it or not.
Every fiber in my body is screaming at me, telling me to keep fighting. So I do. I arch my hips as high as I can and slam them back down, hoping they’ll drop me. The guy by my feet loses his grip on one of my legs, and I kick him right in the chest.
“Little girl, you’re lucky we’re under strict orders. Otherwise, you’d be as good as dead right now.” He regains control of my leg and my stomach drops.
The men throw me in the back, causing my head to smack against the floor of the van. As soon as they slam the door shut, I’m engulfed in darkness. Tears begin to stream down my face, and my body begins to shake. I curl my legs into my body, and slowly rock back and forth as the vehicle starts to move.
Wait. The door! Reaching out in the darkness, I move my hand around, searching for the handle. Once I find it, I yank it desperately, but it doesn’t budge. I hit it over and over again as an ear-piercing scream rips from my lungs.
I’m trapped in here, with no escape and no idea of what’s going to happen to me.
For now all I can do is wait, and hope that my future is better than the horrible thoughts running through my head.
“Lane? Lane, hello? Are you still with us?” Lya is crouching beside me now, as I turn to look at her. She’s clutching my arm tightly, letting me know whatever’s just happened has scared her.
“Uh yeah, sorry, I was just thinking about something. What did you say?” Lately I’ve been zoning out a lot, thinking about the past. It always leaves me in a funk afterward, souring my mood.
No matter what happened in the past, one thing will always be true—Lya is my sister and the closest person I’ll ever have in my life. If I had to go through it all again just to make sure she was safe, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
“Are you sure you’re alright? You’re shaking, and really pale right now.” She looks absolutely terrified, unlike her usual confident self. If I keep zoning out like this, she’s going to think something’s really wrong with me. I have to get my act together and be strong for all of those girls who need me.
“Yeah I’m fine, I promise. Now what were you saying?” I give her arm a reassuring squeeze, and she moves back to her chair.
“I asked how many girls there usually are at Sutton’s?” Her brows furrow and she’s still giving me a worried look, but moves on with the conversation.
“Usually, there were thirteen of us at a time. Our ages ranged from teens to the oldest being about twenty-five. He always said that his clients liked diversity, so he would use us as long as he could.” My bottom lip trembles, thinking about the girls who got too old for him. The girls who he said had dried up pussies that were no longer of value to him.
“What happens when a girl gets older than that?” Thiago asks cautiously. I can feel his protectiveness coming through. He’s mad—not at us, but at this entire situation.
“I don’t know.” My voice is barely audible. “He just said he had to get rid of them. I think he hurt them or killed them, but I don’t know for sure what happened. He always left us wondering, to keep us in line. No one wanted whatever he did to those girls to happen to them.” I shake my head, looking down again. This is getting overwhelming and I feel myself gasping for breath. Pulling on the collar of my shirt, I try to give myself room to breathe. The walls begin to feel like they’re closing in around me, making the room smaller and smaller.
“What’s your plan?” I need anything to get my mind off of the memories that are about to drown me. All I want to think about is destroying Harvey like he destroyed me. I want to see him plead for mercy—the mercy that so many girls begged him for, that he refused to give. I want to hear him scream and cry for forgiveness before we end him.
I need to get my emotions in check first. If I’m going to help, I can’t keep letting the fear push me into dark places when it becomes too much.
“We’re going to try and lure him out through an internet advertisement selling young girls. We have the tech capabilities, and thanks to you, we’ll soon know what he’s looking for—what’s likely to capture his attention. But we need to know what we’re getting into first. We have to take out his men or anyone who could get in the way of us taking him down. Then we’ll be able to help get all of the girls out of there,” Lya explains.
“You think he’ll fall for it? He’s smart and savvy. He barely makes a misstep.”
“Clearly he’s not that good if we were able to find him,” Zep scoffs.
“I mean, I wouldn’t say taking nine years seems like it was easy.” I give a soft chuckle, because I tend to crack terrible jokes when I’m uncomfortable, but my joke earns me glares from around the table.
“Well, after we found out his name, it was kind of easy. Lya and I found him pretty quick on the dark web. He’s not the smoothest, but he at least knows how to erase himself from Google so the average person can’t find him. I’m surprised he doesn’t use one of those stupid code names.”
At Zep’s last comment, Lya just stares at him with narrowed eyes, before turning her attention back to me.
“We’ll need to know more about the ins and outs of his operation, Lainey. Everything and anything that could take him down, we’ll need you to tell us. That’s the only way this will go smoothly.”
Nodding my head, I agree. “Okay, I’ll try. I want to take him down, I want him to suffer for what he did to me. For what he did to the others. You’ll just have to give me time. It’s not the easiest to think about.”
I shouldn’t even have to think twice about this. There are other girls in that house. My best friend is there. But it’s so fuckinghard.
Lya stands and walks over to me again, grabbing my hand. “I know this is so tough, Lane. But you are strong, you are brave, and you have us. We won’t let him hurt you again. We will protect you.” Her eyes are filled with remorse. I hate that she felt so much pain over the nine years I was gone.
“I know, I... This is just a lot to process. I’m trying to deal with it all, but it’s hard. Just give me some time to think and I’ll help. Right now, I need some rest.” I squeeze her hand, as I rise from my chair. I can tell she wants to say more, but she doesn’t, instead just letting me go.
