by Ella Miles
This man isn’t Enzo. Neither is the man to my left. They are both too cold to be Enzo.
I can’t walk, but it doesn’t seem to matter to them.
They drag me to a van.
I have nothing left in me to fight as they toss my broken body into the back. No strength to prevent them from tying my arms and legs with rope. And then blackness covers my eyes.
I don’t understand why they are kidnapping me, and I know better than to ask, Enzo reminded me of that.
Enzo.
Is he behind this?
Or is Black, the man he works for, responsible?
It doesn’t matter.
All I know now is that I’m being taken, and I no longer have any strength left in me to survive.
Part II
Taken by Lies
11
Kai
Broken.
For one thousand and ninety-five days I’ve done everything to keep myself from breaking.
Shut off my mind off during the beatings.
Escaped the depths of the darkness in the night.
Locked down my body during the rapes.
Imagined a new life when I was tortured.
Gritted my teeth through the violations.
Tried every tactic I needed to survive.
Closing myself away.
Envisioning a better life.
Plotting my revenge.
None of the strategies worked long term.
I hate Enzo for what he did to me, but my need to extract revenge was never enough to keep me alive.
I would try blocking my reality out by pretending my stomach didn’t constantly ache, and my body wasn’t bruised, my bones shattered.
That would keep me alive for a few weeks.
But then came the loneliness.
Being alone was worse than the pain. Not having a friend, a family, or anyone who loved me, that was what made me give up hope more than anything.
It’s been over three years since I was taken.
When those strong arms grabbed me, and the hood went over my head, I didn’t know what my future held.
Nothing.
I am nothing.
I am nobody.
I am a ghost.
A commodity to be bought and traded.
I was sold for one million—that was my worth.
I look down at my naked, bruised body. There isn’t a patch of skin that hasn’t been colored. I doubt I’m worth as much now as I was when I was originally sold.
Who would want a pile of bones like me?
The boat rocks, and I heave. There is nothing in my stomach to come up, though. Sometimes I think it would be easier if I would just starve to death, but no matter how much I’ve tried, my body won’t give into the sweet release. My body has adapted and learned to survive on far less food and water than what it should be capable of.
I’ve tried finding weapons to end my life, but there are none to be found on this yacht.
I’ve searched, no man carries a gun—not even a knife.
I don’t understand the men who keep me.
Nothing about it makes sense. I don’t even know who is in charge. Who is my master? They all share in the torture. They all revel in the pleasure of watching me slowly disintegrate.
No.
I won’t break.
That’s the only thing keeping me sane for the last one thousand and ninety-five days.
The thrill at watching the men in frustration as I continue to hold on to who I am and what I’m capable of.
Their primary goal is breaking me.
I overheard them placing bets on how long it would take and who would deliver the final blow.
Three months…
Six months…
One year…
When I made it one year, they stopped betting. I think most of them thought I would never break at that point.
I won’t.
I can’t.
Staying strong doesn’t mean I’m safe; it means I’m foolish. Giving in to them would be easier.
They wouldn’t torture me as often.
They could give me a command, and I would obey.
I would resolve that this is my life, and the last drop of hope I’ve been holding onto would leave.
They could keep the door unlocked. Maybe even stop at a port and get off this godforsaken boat.
But I can’t break.
I’m not sure it’s possible.
I don’t know why.
At first, I was stubborn, defiant even.
I wouldn’t give these men the pleasure.
But then, my strength left. And now, I have no idea why I won’t crack.
Three years is a long time. I should feel changed, different.
When I was taken I was just a girl; now I’m a woman. I’ve spent many of my formative years held captive on a boat full of dangerous, cruel men. Rapists, savages, devils.
I close my eyes as another wave hits the side of the yacht. If my body had any muscles left, I would be shivering from the cold and fever that has continuously taken over my body. I would be vomiting everything in my stomach. But all my body can do is cringe, I can’t even brace myself to keep from sliding on the slick floor as the boat tosses me about.
I hate boats.
I hate the water.
I hate the men.
I hate Enzo.
Right now, I hate the water most of all as we rock viciously side to side. I don’t know where we are except that it has to be deep in the middle of fucking nowhere. That’s the only way the waves get this big, unless a hurricane or tsunami is chasing us. With my luck, I have no doubt a storm is afoot.
I should have hated the water from that first day when Enzo left me to drown in it. But I didn’t hate it; I’m not even sure I hated Enzo then. He was just following orders from his boss, Black, when he tried to kill me. He was surviving as much as I was, and then he gave me a chance at freedom. Swim to shore and leave Miami, and then he wouldn’t kill me. That was the arrangement.
It sounded like a fair deal at the time. And the night I spent out in the ocean didn’t make me hate the water, I grew to appreciate it more. Its power, strength, and freedom I envied and respected.
It was when I made it to shore, and Enzo’s men kidnapped me, breaking our arrangement that I could live as long as I left, that I learned what hate was.
I know more about hate than I do love.
I don’t think I’m capable of love anymore.
You hear that? I can’t love. You broke me! You win!
Another wave crashes, sending me against a wall.
Maybe if I told them I was broken this would stop?
No, this never stops. This never ends.
The boat rocks again, proving my point that this is now my life. Stuck on a boat with the worst of humanity.
I could end it, that tiny voice in my heart whispers again.
I can’t with a weapon. I can’t with food, but I could let the sea take me. With the storm pursuing us, I would be gone in seconds.
The pain would be gone.
At first, I couldn’t imagine taking my life. I was too proud. Too full of hope. Filled with a determination not to let them win. That vanished the first year.
The second year, I couldn’t because of my father. He is the only family I have, and even though we don’t always have the best relationship, he loves me. He would find me. I couldn’t give up for him.
The third year was the hardest. I had no one to live for, not even myself. I’d given up at ever having a normal, healthy life again, even if I was to escape this torturous boat ride. My father had surely given up on me, or at least, I had given up on him. The only thing keeping me alive was Enzo.
I can’t even explain it.
It wasn’t revenge; I’d long given up on getting revenge or even needing it.
I only had one question I needed Enzo to answer…Why?
Why me?
Why when he took me out on his yacht three years ago did
he choose torture over killing me? Was it the only way he could keep me alive? Because if given the choice, I wish he would have just killed me that day.
Why?
The question will haunt me forever. It might be the only thing keeping me alive.
Until now…
The yacht seesaws and lugs causing my body to slip from the wall I was leaning against and slam into the door to my bedroom.
Bedroom, ha.
This isn’t a bedroom.
It’s not even a gilded cage.
The room has four walls and a floor. No bed. No dressers. No bathroom. Nothing that would bring me comfort. When I first arrived, I was given a blanket and pillow, but that was soon taken away from me.
Now I have nothing, not even clothes. And in some way, having nothing is freeing.
Another quake of the boat, this time bigger than the last. I instinctively grab the door handle to keep from sliding back against the far wall. Not because it will hurt—it will—but pain means nothing to me anymore. Because despite the three years at sea, I still want to control my own fate, no matter how hard these men and the sea try to take it from me.
My pathetic grip on the door handle is barely enough to keep me against the door as the yacht is thrown again in the waves and wind of the sea.
Fuck.
We are going to die.
We’ve never experienced a storm quite like this. This is the end.
Dammit.
This is not how I want to go. When I die, it will be when and how I decide.
“You hear me! I decide when I die!” I shout out.
Yelling like that used to get me a beating from one of the men. They tried to get me to give up my voice along with my body and soul.
I never ceased. Eventually, they stopped responding, learning being alone was harder for me than dealing with their brutal violence. But today, even if they wanted to hear me, they couldn’t. The wind’s cry is too sharp to hear anything except its wicked howl.
Another creak and bang of the boat sound as the yacht violently slaps against the water.
My door flies open, the door handle ramming into my stomach knocking all the air out of me.
I gasp for breath as I fall to the floor in agony.
Even the sea wants me to break.
“Never!” I cry when I finally catch my breath.
I get to control how this ends.
Another sway and my body slides into the opening of the door. I inch out into the darkness of the hallway. I’m used to darkness, my hole of a room has no light, no electricity, and no windows to the outside. My eyes have adjusted to the pitch black of night, but the hallway almost always has light. The storm must have taken out our power.
I smirk, taking comfort in the fact that the men who held me captive for years won’t survive past tonight either.
They don’t deserve a quick death. Tonight I hope the storm traps them in this vessel as they slowly suffocate or starve. However, it's unlikely that they will suffer a slow death. The odds are far greater that they will be knocked out by a massive chunk of the ship or the water will drown them quickly, but I can hope.
I move one hand in front of the other as I begin to walk.
I feel my shattered bones crunch into more and more despair with each movement. My bruises burn into my body with each brush against the floor begging me to stop.
I won’t stop. Not until I take my last breath.
The yacht lurches forward sending me the length of the hallway to the stairwell.
Shit, stairs.
I have to make it up a flight of stairs.
I haven’t climbed in months. Can I really ascend stairs?
I bite my lip, more determined than ever to choose how I’ll die.
I stare down at my broken toe I earned after I shared my food with one of the other women the men kept on board. I haven’t seen or heard another woman on board in weeks. If I did, I would have to free them as well, so they too could choose their own fate and how they will die.
I grab the railing and pull myself up. I wince as I again put pressure on my broken foot that hurts like a motherfucker.
Broken bones are the worst. Nothing but time will heal them. And I have nothing to set the bones correctly. The fingers in my left hand won’t bend fully because they healed crooked. The broken ribs are worst of all, because the shattered splinters slice into my lungs making every breath painful.
Stop wallowing in self-pity and do something to end this.
One step, then another, then another.
It’s painstakingly slow, especially since I have to stop each time the yacht veers to the side, and I use all of my energy just holding the ground I made up the stairs.
The door is the last obstacle before I’m on the main deck. But one simple turn of the knob and the door bursts open in my face. It hits me hard, but I smile.
Almost there.
I’m thrown onto the main deck as the boat jerks forward again and then stops suddenly, like we’re traveling in a car that has just thrown on its brakes to narrowly avoid hitting a child playing in the street.
But we don’t have any way to control how the yacht moves, not in this storm. Mother nature decides when the boat moves forward or stops. Or even if it stays afloat at all.
The rain pelts down on me as I lay on the main deck. I tilt my head upward feeling the cold droplets cascade over my face in one heavy stream.
Kai means sea in Hawaiian. You were raised by the ocean, just like me. You know how to tame it as easily as I do. If you want to survive, you will. Enzo’s words come back to me. I knew before he told me what the name I called myself when I was three means. I was born Katherine but never felt like it fit. Kai is more fitting.
I shake my head.
Kai means sea. I was born by the sea. I will die at sea, I say in my head, already knowing my fate and how wrong Enzo’s words were. How wrong the name I chose for myself was.
Unlike three years ago when Enzo tossed me overboard and I eventually saved myself, this time I won’t be coming back up. I won’t have a buoy to hold onto through the night. I won’t have the strength to swim for shore. We are in the middle of the fucking ocean—no one can save me.
And that brings me peace.
I let the rock of the boat push me to the railing on one side of the boat. Thank you, gravity.
The railing is the hard part. I won’t let the waves push me over; I want to do this myself.
With the rain pouring down, it’s hard to feel like I’m not already letting the ocean take me. I grip the slippery railing cautiously, one wrong step and I’ll be gone.
Slowly I climb up on the railing with my feet on the bottom rung, my hands gripping the top.
I suck in a breath, but it’s mostly water entering my throat at this point. It burns down my lungs, making me cough and gasp for a clean breath.
I don’t have much time if I’m going to be the one to decide.
Carefully, I hike one leg over the top of the railing and then the other until there is nothing between me and the ocean but letting go.
A wave splashes hard onto my body, knocking me back against the railing. I don’t know how the surge didn’t take me then. I shouldn’t be strong enough to hold on and fight the wind, rain, and waves.
I close my eyes, trying to feel one moment of freedom. One moment that’s mine. One where I can forgive the sea for the pain it’s caused me and let it take me in mercy. In one swift pull, I’ll be gone.
I have no one to say goodbye to. Nothing left to think or worry about.
I don’t think of heaven or hell.
I’ve been living in hell, and I can’t imagine such as place as heaven after what I went through.
No, I long for darkness to take me and never give me back. I ache for a long sleep where I never wake up.
Peace.
I feel it for a moment. The sea seems to calm as if accepting me and preparing me to take the plunge.
“Take me,” I say. I let go.
I fall for only a half a second, before a hand grabs my wrist. My feet didn’t even leave the bottom rung.
“What the hell?”
I turn back and see Jarod holding my wrist. When I first arrived, I thought he might have the most empathy. He was the one I tried to break and persuade to show me compassion, but it only made him try harder to break me—more determined than all the rest. And if I had to say who the leader is, it’s him.
He’s the captain of the boat, the leader of the crew. But only here. Enzo is the leader back home.
No, Enzo isn’t a leader either. He follows orders from Black. Black is the one I should hate the most.
“Let me go,” I cry, knowing one slip of his hand and I’ll be free.
But Jarod is strong. One sharp pull and I’m back on the other side of the railing, but not to safety. I’ve learned there is no such thing. But I’m no longer on the edge of death like I was before.
“You crazy bitch,” he curses.
Another wave crashes and knocks us against something sharp. My head pounds, and now along with the water flowing down my face, I feel the ooze of blood.
My eyes grow heavy, and the world turns foggy.
“Shit,” Jarod curses.
He tosses me over his shoulder as he carries me inside. To my surprise, he doesn’t take me to my room. It’s the only room I’ve been in for months. No, instead he brings me to another room—to one with a bed.
A bed?
Why would I need a bed?
Are they going to rape me in a bed instead of on the floor?
I should fight, but I have nothing left.
I’ve given up.
I have no hope.
I have no fear.
I am nothing.
I don’t shiver.
I don’t react.
I’m not even sure I’m breathing.
Jarod tosses me on the bed, and I don’t move, not even to cover my naked body or gain warmth.
My eyes are open, but I don’t see the men standing over me. I see nothing except darkness. Am I dead or dying?
They say you see a white light before you die, that your entire life flashes before your eyes. That isn’t my experience. I see nothing but gloom and death.
“Is she dead?” a voice asks.