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“Stop!” I scream at the top of my lungs. His eyes widen, but he listens this time. Stopping, he turns to me with irritation lining his gaze.
“What the fuck is it?” He says through his perfectly straight, white teeth.
With my free hand, I point shakily towards the tree that holds the tire swing. I can barely see it, but I can tell it is rocking back and forth. It looks eerie, like this place has become abandoned. The life in the place is gone, except the tire swing that sways ever so slightly from one direction to the next. “L-Lilah. Please, I can’t leave without her!”
He sighs, hopefully getting irritated enough that he leaves me for dead. I’d rather try and survive this apocalypse by myself. The last thing I want is to go from one monster to the next.
Turning on his heels, he walks towards the tree while mumbling under his breath. My heart beats a mile a minute. I need to find Lilah. She has to be here.She has to be.He probably assumes he will be dragging me across the dirt, not expecting me to get a burst of panicked energy. I start running, nearly ripping his fingers from my arm, but he holds tight. He senses my panic because he speeds up with me, and together we make it to the tire swing.
No Lilah.
“Lilah!” I scream, tears of panic flowing down my dirty face. The gun shots haven’t stopped. It sounds like World War fucking Three here and all I want is to find my daughter. “Lilah!” I cry out again.
I hear a little whimper, and my gaze shoots to this mystery man the same time his flies to mine. “Over there.” He nods his head towards the destroyed flower garden.
Finally, he releases my grip and I sprint away from him and into the garden. It’s a mess of dirt and broken flowers. “Lilah!” I cry, and when I hear another whimper, I dart around a pile of creeping phloxes. There, curled into a ball, sweaty and dirty is Lilah. She’s crying, but when she hears the crunching of dead flowers, she peeks her head out of her arms. Once she notices it’s me, she flies out of her ball and into my arms. “Mommy, I’m scared!” She sobs. I pick her up, ready to start running when I feel a large hand clamp on my arm.
“We have to go.” The strange man says from over my shoulder. Confusion lays in his eyes as he glances from me to Lilah. I don’t even want to go there.
“Please let us go. I promise I won’t say anything.” I plead to the man.
He ignores me, pulling me along to a couple large vans sitting on the side of my hut that I didn’t notice before. Two bikes sit beside them.
Shit, these really are motorcycle rivals.
Once we get to the vans, I see the back doors opened and look into the eyes of the latest group of girls that have been brought to Mexico sitting and trembling in fear. They look panicked, emaciated, and horrified as they look at the destruction happening around them. What are these guys doing, and why do they want all the girls? Are they stealing them for their own ring? I don’t understand.
What if these bikers are worse than Santiago? I couldn’t handle worse.
The door to the van the girls are sitting in gets closed. Lilah and I get shoved in the one next to it. It’s empty, and that terrifies me on an entire different level. A blonde guy appears out of nowhere. He doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but he still wears the uniform. The leather vest, the biker boots, the blank stare. He might be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“Take ‘em to the club.” My captor says to the blonde as he nods towards me and Lilah.
“Mommy, I went potty in my pants.” It’s then I notice her damp shorts.
“Shh, it’s okay.” I shush her, trying to hear what happens between the two men outside of the van.
“What? Why? Why don’t they go with the others?” The blonde man says with a face full of confusion.
“Just bring ‘em there, all right?” He pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and sparks it up. Slipping his lighter back in his pocket, he glances up at me once more before hopping on his bike, revving it up and speeding away.
The blonde man squints his eyes where my captor sped off, before turning around and coming to shut my door.
“Please. Please let us go. I promise, we won’t speak a word. We just want to go.”
The blonde looks at me with sympathy. Genuine sympathy. “Sorry, kids. I don’t get it either, but I gotta listen to the VP.” He shakes his head, shutting the door and locking us inside.
A moment later, the van rumbles to life and we rock back and forth as the van makes its way across the gravel road and off into the unknown.
I close my eyes and just pray I’m not moving from one prison to the next.
7
Aziel
The wind whips at my face as I near home. The sad girl and the baby play through my mind the entire ride back.
Once we cross the border, I watch in the rearview mirror as the first van full of girls takes a right, making its way towards New Mexico. There’s a halfway house/treatment center that we have set up there to help the girls get back into the real world. Some stay there until their family comes to claim them. Others don’t have a family, and they’re welcome to stay there as long as they need to. Get back on their feet. If they’re underage, we make sure they go into a good foster care. We’re doing what we can to right the wrong. To patch the Band-Aid over the wound that is Santiago and his filthy trafficking ring.
