by Jack Wilder
Wren paused, her voice shaking. She closed her eyes and gathered herself. The room was silent.
“They brought me to a hotel room. Somewhere far away from where they kept me. Men stood around in the room, haggling over me. I was being sold. I was being bartered away to a man who would use my body for sex, to make a profit off of me. I saw…I saw girls no more than ten, twelve, sixteen years old, naked and bruised and beaten, half-starved, being forced to perform sexual acts. Sometimes at gun or knife-point. Their eyes, those girls…they knew they’d never be free again. They knew they would be forced to…to be fucked…like animals, worse than animals—all day, every day, until they died. Excuse my language, but there’s just no other word for it. For what those girls endured. There was no one to save them. No one cared. Some of them had been sold into that by their own parents. Others were kidnapped like me. Stolen. Lied to. Coerced. There were so many of them. Not just local Filipina girls either. Americans like me. Germans. French, Italian. Girls on vacation, kidnapped. I was lucky.” She blinked hard and glanced adoringly back at Stone, then returned her gaze to the rapt audience. “So, so lucky. I was never forced to have to sex. Because I—I had—I was rescued. By a courageous, selfless man named Lieutenant Stone Pressfield. When I went missing, he came after me. He…he shed blood to save me. By himself, he got me out and brought me home.
“Thousands…millions of other girls all over the world aren’t anywhere near so fortunate. So blessed.” She paused again, gathering her thoughts, then continued. “This isn’t just in Manila. It’s not just Thailand and Taiwan and Russia. It’s here. In America. As I arranged this event, sought out donors and contributors and speakers, I met so many girls, and some boys too, who grew up just like me, going to school and church and playing kickball, average suburban American kids, who through one way or another, ended up sex slaves. No one talks about it. You hear about cyber-bullying, and suicide. You hear about hashtags and YOLO and Facebook and Twitter and hipsters and who got a boob job and who’s breaking up with whom…you hear about all that. There have been gay rights marches and elections and political campaigns…and there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of that. Some of that is important, things we should be talking about. But it’s time someone spoke up about this.
“Slavery didn’t end when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery still happens. Right now, today, this very second, there’s someone in chains, locked away until the next time someone pays to have involuntary sex with them. They’re drugged, starving, naked, and alone. No one is going to rescue them. This event, as incredible as it is, as many people are here donating their time and their money and their talent, isn’t even a drop in the bucket. It doesn’t even begin to touch the problem. But it’s a start.”
She closed her eyes, blinking away tears, swiping under her eyes with a finger. “There’s someone else here that’s going to tell you her story.” Wren stepped away, turned to take the arm of thin, fragile-looking blond girl with frightened eyes.
Lisa stepped up to the podium, visibly terrified and shaking. She had a piece of paper crumpled in her fist, and she unfolded it, smoothed it against the podium and read from it without looking out at the audience. “My name is Lisa Johnson. I grew up privileged. My father was a politician, a successful and important senator. I lived in a big house, drove a nice car, went on fancy vacations. I went skiing in the Alps, had dinner beneath the Eiffel Tower, and drank wine in Tuscany. When I finished my second year of college, I spent the summer backpacking around Europe and Asia. We went to Germany and France and the UK, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Spain, Thailand. And the Philippines. Manila. And just like Wren, I was kidnapped in broad daylight. I never even saw them. I was jerked from behind into an alley. A cloth bag was put over my head and a needle poked into my arm. When I woke up, I was in a locked room with no window. I was naked. I hurt, all over. I’d been…raped…while I was unconscious. Hours and hours went by, without a sound, without light or water or food. And then the door opened, and a man came in. He left the door open, and another man came in. The second man unbuckled his belt, took it off. He hit me across the face with it. I cried and screamed and begged him to stop, but he didn’t. When I was too hurt to move, he raped me. And then another man came in, and he raped me too. This…this went on so long I stopped counting how many times I was raped. They left me there, bleeding. I passed out, and when I woke there was a bowl of water and a bowl of dog food on the ground. Actual dog food. I was so hungry that I—I ate it.
“Some version of this happened every day. Really, there wasn’t day or night. Just…the time between.” Lisa paused to compose herself, and it took visible effort. “I have no way of knowing from my own personal experience how long I was in that room, but my family says I was missing for four months. No contraceptive was ever used. I got pregnant, and it was…rip-ripped from me. With a coat hanger. There in the room, just…dug out of me. I was raped again within hours. No one cared how loud I screamed.
“I’ll never be able to look at a man again, not the same way. I’m terrified of…of everything. I still sleep on the floor sometimes. I go to sleep in my bed, and wake up on the floor, in the corner, crying.”
She broke, then, crumpled. Wren caught her and helped her from the stage. Lisa’s father, Senator Johnson, took the podium, his face grave.
“What happened to my daughter…it can happen to anyone. It does happen, all the time. It’s probably happening to someone right now. I’ve helmed a lot of projects in my career. I’ve served on numerous committees and oversight panels. I’ve campaigned based on any number of social and economic and political issues. I still stand by all those things. But this? This is personal. This isn’t about my career as a senator. I’m not using this to get votes, or to get into the Oval Office. This is purely about stopping this evil from occurring any longer. It’s about making sure that what happened to…to Lisa—” his voice broke, and he paused for a long minute, breathing hard and blinking, before he could continue, “—that what happened to Lisa doesn’t happen to anyone else. It’s about helping those who have been through it and survived. Lisa was hospitalized for two months when we got her back. She went through dozens of rounds of surgeries to repair the damage done inside her. She’ll never have children. And psychologically? I can’t touch her. She freaks out if I try to hug her. My own—my own daughter, and I can’t even comfort her when she’s upset. It’s been more than two years, and she’s been in therapy twice a week ever since. The medical bills from all this are staggering. For someone less economically secure than I, the bills would be ruinous.
“To this end, I’m proud to announce the formation of the International Abolition Coalition. This is a multi-government cooperative. It spans forty countries all around the world, with more signing on every day. It encompasses police forces and national military forces, investigative agencies, aid relief organizations, the Red Cross, hospitals, halfway-houses, insurance agencies…the list goes on. The singular goal of the IAC is to halt human trafficking in its steps, to prosecute on an international level anyone found engaging in this vile practice, and to provide free, professional aid to victims of trafficking and sexual slavery.
“Miss Wren Morgan was absolutely instrumental in getting this Coalition off the ground. Her passion, her willingness to use her story, her personal engagement and tireless working has made this possible. She’s been one of the few people outside of my wife Annette and I that Lisa has opened up to.
“And as for Lieutenant Pressfield? I’ve already thanked him in person. He received a Silver Star for his part in rescuing my daughter, which he and his men accomplished at great personal cost. Four men died saving her. But a mere thank you, even a military medal…it’s not anywhere near enough.” Senator Johnson met Stone’s eyes, and the message Stone saw there was clear.
After a moment, the senator continued. “Ladies, gentlemen. Don’t just write a check and go about your lives. This affects us all. I know for a fact that there is a person in th
is room whose teenaged daughter is a victim of domestic human trafficking. This person…I won’t name them or provide any identifying information, but…this person’s daughter suffered from depression. She turned to drugs, and through a tragic concatenation of events, she ended up on the streets of Los Angeles, homeless and addicted to heroin, starving to death. She was forced into sexual slavery in return for food and drugs. This was in suburban Los Angeles, people. LA. Not Thailand or the Philippines. She was arrested for solicitation by the LAPD, and her story came out. She was returned to her home, to her parents, and now she’s living in a halfway house in Delaware, with seven others like her. This is our nation, ladies and gentlemen. It’s the country we’ve fought and died for. We’re supposed to stand for freedom and opportunity. But things like this are happening, just down the street from where we stand. People you know, their kids, their friends.
“Don’t ignore this. Don’t bury your heads and go back to your lives and your iPhones and Facebook updates. Make a difference. Every dollar donated, every second spent volunteering at any one of the IAC shelters that will be opening all across the nation in the coming months…it all helps.”
Senator Johnson stepped away, and the gathered crowd clapped and cheered. They quieted when Wren re-took the stage.
“Next up is a young woman named Irena Bulova. She’s originally from Russia, but she came to the US five years ago to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer. She was forced into prostitution, and only recently escaped. It’s her story to tell, and I’ll let her tell it, her way.”
Irena was a beautiful, petite woman of twenty-five or so with brown hair hanging in thick dreadlocks to her mid-back, a ring through the center of her lower lip and thin white scars criss-crossing her wrists and forearms. Two men took the podium away and another set a microphone and stand in front of a chair. Irene sat down in the chair, settled a battered, shiny black guitar on her crossed legs, and set about strumming and adjusting the tuning of her guitar.
“Hello. I met Wren three months ago, on the street of Washington D.C.” Irena had a soft voice touched by a Russian accent. “She seemed to see something in me, a thing she recognized, perhaps. It is in our eyes, what we have been through. She got me to tell her my story, and she convinced me to come here, and do this thing.” Irena breathed deeply, and then began strumming her guitar in a simple rhythm. “Out of hunger and desperation, I was made to be a prostitute. I nearly starved to my death before this happened, and from desperation and fear I continued to sell myself, not for money or for drugs, but for bread, and water. Often, this was moldy bread and dirty water. And I had to do much, turn many johns to get it. Only through the kindness of a police officer named Daniel Harris was I able to escape this and learn to become something else. During my time as a prostitute, my knee was broken. It was so that I could not run away. It was done on purpose. I will never dance, now. But I have fingers to play this guitar, which Daniel taught me to play. And I have a voice, with which I can sing.”
She picked a melody on the higher strings, eyes closed, and sang.
“Only one breath, and then another,
Only one day, and then the another.
I cannot hope, I can only breathe.
I am here, and I cannot leave.
The streets are empty in the dawn, and cold.
Buildings around me are gray, and old.
A sparrow hops from square to square just beyond me,
Brown and small, and free.
My arms have scars,
My window has bars,
A knife to free me made the scars,
A man who owns me made the bars.
The sparrow flies away, and I return.
Someone is waiting for me, watching,
And inside I burn.
My soul is dying, weeping without stopping.
And then one day, in the cold and swirling snow,
I meet a man, with a heart that is kind, and eyes that glow.
He heard me, listened to the pleading in my silent eyes.
Ignored the ‘I am fine’ lies.
Now, my window has no bars,
But always will I have the scars.”
Irena let the last note hang, quavering. She glanced off to the side, and a man in a policeman’s dress uniform watched her, his loving expression telling as much of a story as her song. Irena bowed over her guitar as the crowd cheered. She strummed her guitar once more, and then began playing again, but Stone’s attention was drawn away by the sight of Wren, hand clapped over her mouth, fleeing the room.
Stone followed, and found her in a darkened office, sitting in a visitor’s chair, slumped over and weeping. He knelt in front of her, and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. He didn’t need to say anything as he held her.
“I’m fine for days, weeks,” she said. “I don’t have nightmares as much anymore, or flashbacks. And then, suddenly, it all hits me, out of nowhere. That song. Lisa’s story. I was fine through it all. But then the way Irena looked at Daniel. It made me remember us, in Manila, and right afterward. How you saved me. And I just…I lost it.”
Stone kissed the top of her head. “You did something amazing today, sweetheart.”
“Not just today. This is what I’m going to do with my life. I didn’t know before. I was just going to college, figuring I’d end up doing…whatever. Teaching, maybe. That was the idea, I guess. I don’t really even remember a lot about who I was before, what I liked, what I wanted. This…organizing these events, getting people to tell their stories. Helping people who have been through what I went through, and so much worse…it’s who I am now.”
Stone nodded, then took a deep breath. “I spoke to Senator Johnson the other day. In all the craziness of getting ready for this event, I forgot to tell you. He came to me with an idea. It’s kind of…risky, but I think it’s worth it. Part of what Alan wants to do with the Coalition is get a taskforce going. A quasi-military group that goes in and shuts down people like Cervantes. He has several countries on board to help us, or at least look the other way when we go in and use any necessary force to shut them down. We’d be sanctioned by the US government, and Johnson wants me to lead it.”
Wren sat up, snatched a tissue from a box on the desk and dabbed her eyes with it. “So you’d be a soldier again?”
Stone shrugged. “Sort of. Not an official soldier, but I’d be doing what I did when I rescued you, except targeted and planned missions with current intel and backup, and proper gear.”
“Are you going to do it?”
He nodded. “I think so. It’s what I’m best at. I’m at loose ends in the civilian world.” He took her hand. “I’d have armor protecting me, and guys as good as or better than me as my team.”
Wren stood up, and Stone followed her to his feet, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I’ll be afraid for you,” she said, gazing up at him. “I’ll worry every moment you’re gone. I’m not sure how well I’ll deal with it, honestly.”
“I know. But here’s the other part. Johnson thinks there needs to be a female face waiting for them when we get them to safety, someone who knows how to talk to them. They’ll be traumatized, and they won’t trust men. Johnson is working on getting together a group of doctors and nurses, all women, to be the first-contact medical team. He wants you as the liaison.”
Wren just smiled and nodded, curling her arms around Stone’s neck. “I think that’s brilliant. We’d be together, that way too.”
“Always.”
She kissed him, her lips soft and warm. “Now, I’ve been gone too long. We should go back out. I’ll have to have Alyssa fix my makeup.”
Stone pulled back to examine her face. “Yeah, you’ve got some smears under your eyes.”
Wren frowned and smacked his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to tell me that, dummy. You’re supposed to tell me I look fine, so I can roll my eyes at how men don’t know anything about makeup.” Stone just snorted and nuzzled a kiss to her throat, which prompted a sof
t whimper from her. She pulled away, pushing him out the door in front of her. “Don’t get me started, George.”
Stone growled. “Don’t call me George, dammit.”
Wren just laughed and tangled her fingers with his as they made their way back toward the ballroom. Stone watched as Wren waved her makeup artist over, and he waited outside the bathroom while she had her makeup tended to. He fingered the small box in his pocket, worrying at the velvet with his thumb. He had a plan, a buddy from the SEALs and his girlfriend preparing a little private dinner on the roof of an apartment building, with a view of the capitol building lit up in the darkness. There would be roses, and champagne, and a proposal. And, hopefully, a tearful yes.
THE END
EPILOGUE
The girl shuddered in the darkness. She heard the footsteps approaching, and knew what it meant. She cowered in the farthest corner, scrunching down to make herself as small as possible.
Then, something unusual happened. There were loud bangs, explosions, rapid gunfire. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it scared her. The footsteps stopped, went the other way, and the girl sobbed in relief, grateful that she’d been given a reprieve, no matter how brief.
It was only a moment, it turned out. Loud bootsteps clomped beyond the door. A voice growling in a language the girl didn’t understand, a response in the same language. Then a deafening crash, and the door burst open, splintering, kicked apart by a huge black-booted foot.
The girl screamed, huddled in her corner and covered her naked, frail body with her arms.
No blows came. No hands forced her to the ground. She peered between her shaking arms, eyes wide, wet. A man knelt in front of her, clad head-to-toe in black body armor. He had an assault rifle in his hands, the barrel pointed down. His face was painted, and he had goggles of some kind on his face. He pushed the goggles up, revealing his eyes. Light spilled from the open door, and the girl could see that his eyes were brown, and kind.