by Anne Malcom
“Patricia was brought here a few months ago,” Mary Lou said.
Words and numbers were ricocheting in Ri’s mind. She couldn’t process the fact that these girls had been here, in this dank, dark place for years. That couldn’t be right.
“How is this even possible?” she said. “How could you have been here for so long?”
Ri had been wrong. Knowledge was not power. Now, she knew, her mind was falling apart, unraveling as the chain around her ankle tightened.
“Look around you,” Jaclyn said. “That’s how years could go by.”
“The walls are thick,” Mary Lou said. “We can’t hear when they’re coming down the stairs. We can’t hear them unlocking the chains on the other side of the door. Nothing travels.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I stopped trying to figure it out years ago. Years,” she repeated, blinking rapidly.
Ri could see it now, where her threads were showing. At first, she seemed kind, as normal as a girl could given the situation. But she was lost too. Broken. Parts of her mind. Sanity. It wasn’t there anymore.
“What door?” Ri demanded. A door meant escape no matter what they said. They’d been here for too long. They’d given up. Ri had more fight in her. She’d get back to that perfect summer day. To that perfect kiss. This would all be a nightmare.
Mary Lou pointed at the wall Patricia was curled in front of. “Do you see the separation in the concrete? It opens there.”
Ri squinted, her head pounding and gaze unfocused, but she did manage to make out a definite crack.
“And you haven’t tried to attack them when they open it, when they come in?” Orion asked, and it sounded almost judgmental, though she hadn’t meant it to. “Fight back or something?”
Jaclyn scoffed. “Stupid little girl.”
“There are cameras in every corner of the room,” Mary Lou explained. “Microphones too. The door is heavy. They can barely open it themselves. They’re heavily armed at all times. There is a lot to this. They’re not your average kid diddlers. They’re organized.”
Ri followed Mary Lou’s gaze to the corners of the ceiling. Red lights glowed in dark corners, and Ri could make out the shape of a small camera.
“Fighting back does nothing but make things worse.” Mary Lou’s eyes darted in Jaclyn’s direction.
Ri didn’t know it then, but she would discover later that Jaclyn fought back often in the beginning, when her will was still strong. It wasn’t a surprise, considering how feisty she was. But when Ri found out how she was punished, she would understand why someone like Jaclyn would stop fighting.
Orion sat in silence for a long while. She looked around the room and took it all in. She thought of the John Sanford and Patricia Cornwell novels her mother loved so much, and the true crime books she devoured like her Pall Malls. Ri ended up reading those same books, because she needed an escape, and she didn’t have the money or resources to choose who authored her escape. She’d read all about men like this, who treated people as objects and life as disposable.
She had learned to love those books, and she wasn’t quite sure why. She knew it was weird to be so interested in the horrific murders of another, but the books exhilarated her nonetheless. And it was the only thing she shared with her mother, their only commonality. She became addicted to reading about lives that were much worse than hers. No magic carpets, handsome princes, or mythical creatures. She had loved the reminder that things could always be worse. A perverse way of not letting her miserable existence seem so bad.
Until now. Now she was living that worst-case scenario. Now she had become the victim in those tragic stories she devoured and obsessed over. She had been plunged right inside one of those crime books because she’d kissed Maddox for too long, lingered in a dream for too long, ridden home late. She was the pawn, controlled by sick needs, and it was all her fault. It’s all she could tell herself.
Ri would later conclude—because she had nothing but time to think—that it made sense. She was cursed from birth by way of genetics and fate.
Some people were put on earth to be shat on. Divine comedy for those pulling the strings. Ri was one of those people. Maybe she deserved it. Maybe, in some past life, she’d sentenced herself to this. Maybe her parents carried it in their DNA, passing it over to her like cancer or mental illness. A Darby through and through. A life of depravity and despair.
“Do you have any good stories?” Mary Lou asked again, seeming to sense the storm raging inside Orion’s head. “We’re fresh out. I think I’ve told all mine at least three times over.”
“And they’re thrilling, lemme tell ya,” Jaclyn added, scoffing.
Ri’s eyes trailed to Jaclyn and she scrunched her brows. “Has she always been like that?” she asked, leaning toward Mary Lou and lowering her voice.
Mary Lou shrugged. “She’s grown worse, but she’s never been a people person.” Her eyes darkened. “Which I guess I understand—people can be pretty horrible.”
“And her?” Ri nodded toward Patricia.
Mary Lou’s lips turned down, her eyes softening. “She hasn’t adapted well. Not many of them do.” There was resignation, knowledge there.
“How many have there been?” Ri asked. The questions served nothing but her sick addiction. To dreary lives. Misery.
Mary Lou’s eyes went to the floor. Lines of distress wrinkled her forehead. “We shouldn’t talk about it,” she said, giving her head a slight shake. She forced a smile. “What’s your name?”
“Orion,” Ri responded, though her thoughts belonged to the girls who came before her, and whether they went quick or not. “But everyone calls me Ri.”
“Nice to meet you, Ri,” Mary Lou said, extending a petite hand.
Ri scooted closer, avoiding the crimson stain, and she shook Mary Lou’s hand gingerly before returning her hand quickly to her lap.
“Tell me something about you,” Mary Lou said. She was trying to distract her. Ri could see that.
“Are you telling me that this is my life now?” she asked, the words spilling out on their own. She couldn’t help the panic and confusion that set in often, hitting her in waves for much of her first year in The Cell. “I’m stuck here until the day they decide to kill me? Is that what you’re saying?”
Mary Lou put a hand on her shoulder, meant to comfort. Her other cupped her cheek. Ri bit her lip again. “We’ll find a way out,” she whispered softly. “It just takes time.”
Two
Ten Years Later
It was summer.
Another one of those humid, broiling days that kept the adults inside and left the children to play.
Sun shone brightly from an azure blue sky as the children ran around in their front yards, screaming in delight when the cool water from the sprinkler or the paddling pool doused their warm skin.
A father mowed the lawn, a beer in his hand.
Across the street, an older woman tended to her hydrangeas, wide-brimmed hat protecting her wrinkled face from the sun’s harsh rays.
Squirrels scuttered across power lines.
A house unlike the rest had a yellowing lawn. No flowers in the yard. No children. The paint on the house itself was chipped, and a white junker van sat in the driveway.
“No Soliciting” was printed in large block letters on the front door.
A mother running with her child in a stroller frowned at the house, annoyed at her husband for not buying them something in a neighborhood with a homeowners’ association. What a disgrace!
The inside of the house was what you would expect by looking at its exterior. Dirty. No, beyond dirty. It was almost like something you’d see in Hoarders. Beer cans and empty takeout containers littered the floor, dirt and dust on everything, and a rancid scent clung heavy to the air. The TV blared in front of a sofa where Thing Two—as the lost girls called him—watched with a beer in his hand and feet on the cluttered, dirty coffee table. He cursed at the screen as the newsman discussed the Rams football team moving b
ack to Los Angeles.
He hacked a loogy into his beer can and tossed it to the floor. “Goddamn, Kroenke needs a bullet in his head, man.”
He glanced back at Thing One to see if he had heard. Thing One was covered in sweat stains and he took heavy, hitched breaths as he reached for a box of cereal in a cluttered cabinet. A cockroach ran across the filthy kitchen counter in front of him, and he let out what could only be described as a shriek, throwing the box across the room.
His eyes wide, he took a steadying breath before storming toward Thing Two.
“When the fuck are you gonna do the goddamn dishes, you lazy piece of shit? Do you not see these fuckin’ cockroaches?” he yelled, swiping Thing Two’s feet from the coffee table. They hit the ground with a thud.
“What the fuck, man?” Thing Two groaned, wincing. “What’s your malfunction?”
Thing One poked him in his scrawny chest. “You’re my malfunction, you dumb sonofabitch!” Spittle flew from his mouth, landing amongst the stain on Thing Two’s dirty wife beater. “This is my mother’s house, and if she sees it like this, she’s gonna kill me. And if she kills me, I’ll come back from the fucking grave and skin you alive.”
Thing Two scowled at him. “Dude, maybe if you took half the effort to go for a fucking walk every once in a while you wouldn’t have a goddamn heart attack making a bowl of cereal,” he said, chuckling. “And you need to back the fuck up. Your breath is fuckin’ nasty. Whisky already?” he scoffed, shaking his head.
Thing One looked like his head was about to burst, his eyes wide, teeth gritted, but he said nothing. He had no time to.
Thing Two continued, manic from the coke he’d snorted not ten minutes before. He failed to see the irony. “It’s ten in the goddamn morning and you’re fuckin’ drinking whiskey like a fuckin’ alky. That’s probably why you can’t remember that your mama’s been here exactly two times in the last fifteen years and she’s on a fast track to goddamn dementia.” He scoffed, turning away from Thing Two. “I think we’ll be alright.”
Thing One glared at him, sweat beading on his brow line, the veins in his neck bulging. He quickly snatched up his much smaller counterpart by the neck, yanking him up from the shitty sofa, and snatched a pistol from a holster in his waistband, shoving the cold steel into Thing One’s temple.
Thing Two’s bravado quickly drained, his face going ashen. “What the f—”
Thing One smacked him upside the head with the barrel. “Listen to me, you meth-mouthed piece of worthless shit. You’ll keep my mother’s name out of your fuckin’ mouth, you hear me?”
“I didn’t say her name,” Thing Two whined, and he caught the end of the barrel again. He hugged himself, whimpering.
“Clean this house while I’m gone, or your brains end up as just another fuckin’ stain on that wall. If you want to live to get your next paycheck, to get your next hit, you’ll do as I say, you hear me?”
Thing Two didn’t even take a second to hesitate before he nodded his head. “Okay, okay, dude. Chill the fuck out. C’mon.”
Thing One pressed the gun just a little harder into the man’s scabby cheek, bringing out another pathetic whimper, before returning the gun to its holster. He stared coldly at Thing Two, his broad shoulders heaving up and down with each heavy breath, and then turned and walked toward the door.
He glanced back momentarily, his hand on the door handle, and he barked, “You keep away from them girls, motherfucker! I’m not kidding. The bosses wanna keep that new girl relatively clean for the members.”
“What about the other ones?” Thing Two asked, his brows high, his tone hopeful.
Thing One narrowed his eyes at the rail thin meth-head on the couch. “Don’t fuckin’ touch ’em, Terry. You got a house to clean.”
Thing Two held up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, fine.”
Thing One stared long and hard at the man before he made his way outside, slamming the squeaky door closed behind him. He scowled at some Lululemon bitch walking her dog as he dug the keys out of his pocket. She hurried on, and then he stopped, tilted his head, and watched her tight ass walk away. He bit his bottom lip, shook his head, and continued on to the beat-up van.
Thing Two made sure to watch him leave through the cracks of the tattered blinds, and once the van pulled out of the driveway and drove off, he yelled, “Fuck you!”
He smiled wickedly, a dark change in his eyes as he turned back toward the living room, eyes finding the door that led to the basement . . . to satisfaction . . . to control.
He knew he had a few hours to play. Thing One had business with their bosses and that was never a quick ordeal. Plenty of time to have his way with a few of them.
Everyone held their breath in The Cell. The silence was jarring. Orion could hear her own pulse rattling between her ears as she watched Jaclyn standing on Shelby’s back, with a hand cupping her ear against the ceiling. Shelby, being The Cell’s newest tenant, still had innocence in her eyes. She still had her youth. And, of course, the fear. But she was bigger than Patricia had been, and much bigger than Allison was, so she made for a good base. No matter that Orion had to pretty much threaten violence if she didn’t participate.
Jaclyn’s forehead crinkled as she focused hard on the sounds, the silence. Waiting for a cue. The sound panels and concrete kept their screams in, but they still let some sounds through: heavy footsteps, doors closing . . . they even heard a crash once.
Orion’s fists were clenched at her sides, her head thumping from swallowing down fear. There was no room for fear here. Just the plan. The plan was her guide, and, live or die, she would see it through. She would not spend another second in this hell. It would work or it wouldn’t. She couldn’t let fear get in the way.
Jaclyn moved her attention from the ceiling to Orion, and she nodded.
The pounding went away, calmness settling over Orion, strange and unnatural. She’d forgotten that calm was possible for a human being. Or, at least, one like her.
Then again, she didn’t consider herself human anymore. She had felt her spirit leave long ago, fading away along with any emotion other than anger. She didn’t cry anymore, hadn’t in years. Feeling was for the foolish.
She reached up to cover the camera in the corner with her hands, the blinking red light taunting Orion as it had for the past ten years.
Jaclyn climbed down from Shelby’s back, the chain on her ankle rattling as she did so, and huffed out a breath. “Anybody else feel like they’re gonna have a heart attack?” she asked, flashing a weak grin.
Orion had become accustomed to that terrible sound over the years—the metallic jangle of the chain hitting the floor. Sometimes, it was all she could focus on, and it boiled the anger inside her. Reminded her of her captivity. It was the only constant, really.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
Orion didn’t look at the empty ankle cuff laid out on the bloodstained floor beside her. What was the point in that? Mary Lou was gone, and that’s all there was to it. Sure, she could’ve fought for her, but right along with her spirit, Orion’s fight left her long before that day two months ago, when she unwittingly said goodbye to Mary Lou for the last time. Maybe, in her heart, she knew it was coming—with that cough that rattled in her chest like death ringing a doorbell—but she didn’t allow herself to think it could be true. But it spurned in her the desire to fight, once and for all, and for that she felt forever indebted to Mary Lou.
Orion dropped her hands, the joints of her shoulders groaning from the unnatural position she’d had them in. She barely noticed it. Pain didn’t mean much anymore.
“You guys ready for this?” she whispered, glancing at the women wearing little girls’ nightgowns like living ghosts. They’d retired the medical gowns for something different. It was their way of trying to make them look younger. Make them more appetizing. But they all knew their womanhood was their death sentence. If they didn’t do something, they’d be nothing more than a stain on this floor, and new gi
rls would be wearing ankle chains and scars. It was only a matter of time before they’d meet the same fate as Mary Lou, and all the other women before her.
Jaclyn was the first to nod. Confident. Cross-legged on the ground to hide the sharpened toothbrush in her lap.
They had collected things over the years, the Things got sloppy, didn’t notice one less toothbrush to be collected. A pen gone from their shirt pockets.
Shelby nodded too, not as confident as Jaclyn, of course. She still had hope of another way, still carried a belief that one day police would come bursting in to save them. Her eyes were clouded with fear, reservations. Her grip on the small, thin piece of metal in her right hand was limp, unsure, but she held it nonetheless.
Orion read her hesitant eyes for a moment and then nodded. She took a seat. “No turning back,” she whispered, trying her best to remain confident She knew she was ready to die rather than spend another day in this hell. She also knew that if they were caught and the plan failed, death would be the least of their concerns.
Jaclyn scoffed. “Not a fucking chance.”
Shelby shook, sobs taking over her. Her bottom lip trembled.
“This is serious, Shelby,” Orion said, cold with a hint of cruelty. She knew the kind of girl Shelby was all too well, and she wasn’t about to waste another second nurturing the girl or walking her through it. “Stay focused.”
Shelby nodded, swallowing visibly with her eyes moving to the ground.
Slight footfalls and a groan sounded from the other side of the room. Sounds they were all too familiar with, but it chilled their blood the second they heard it regardless.
The large concrete door struggled to open, a smell even worse than inside The Cell wafting in as Thing Two’s scrawny arms came into view.
He muscled the door open, then licked his lips, adjusting his crotch as he eyed Orion and the others with a hunger that was born somewhere in the depths of hell.
“Now, who’s it gonna be today?” he asked in a sing-song tone, pointing at them. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a tiger by her toe. If she hollers, make her pay. Eeny, meeny, miny, may.”