"Stay in the fucking truck," he screamed.
I shook my head, sobbing, fighting him.
He leaned across me and shut the door of the truck, quickly locking it from his door. He had child locks set up, so I couldn't unlock the door or open the window.
I was trapped.
I had to hope that Beast was okay, that he was heading to a phone, that everything would be okay.
"I said to stay in the fucking truck," my father said, grabbing my hair and slamming my head against the hard glass of the door.
I saw stars and my world went black for a second.
"That's better," he said, as I stopped fighting.
He took out a roll of black tape and held my hands together roughly, taping them up so I couldn't move them.
It hurt, and I knew if he left it there for long, I'd lose all feeling. It was almost, but not quite, totally cutting off my circulation.
He started the truck and drove off, out of sight of the house where Beast had been shot.
I didn't say anything.
I felt frozen.
I had gambled everything on Beast calling the cops as soon as my father took me away.
I might have lost.
The truck stopped suddenly, between the house and the road. My father got the tape back out and bound my ankles together.
Before I could say anything, he'd crossed the tape over my mouth, too.
He got out of the truck and came over to my side, opening the door and unlatching my seatbelt, hauling me out of the seat. I tried to fight, but with my wrists and ankles bound, there was almost nothing I could do but utter muffled screams.
He tossed me easily over his shoulder and climbed into the truck bed, opening his big tool box and lifting up the top level.
There was a space there, filled about a third of the way up with old straw.
I shook my head, over and over, and tried to scream.
He tossed some fresh straw into the tool box and settled me on it, replacing the tool box and shutting the lid.
For a few long moments, I thought I was going to die there, suffocated in the truck.
Then, I realized that the metal box I was in didn't have a bottom, it was designed to rest right on the truck bed. It didn't fit quite flush, and there were gaps that let in light and air.
I forced myself to take deep breaths.
I was not going to die in the truck.
I was not.
Things were bad, and I wasn't comfortable, but I wasn't in any danger. Not from the truck, at least.
Unless we got into an accident, I thought, a little desperately.
Deep breaths, I reminded myself. Deep breaths. I was struck by the thought that I suddenly had a lot more sympathy for fancy Easter eggs, packaged in fake grass in little boxes.
I let myself giggle until I realized that I was on the edge of hysterics and I had to pull myself together.
Carefully, I started stretching my arms and hands, seeing how much mobility I was left between the tape and the box.
Not a hell of a lot, but I was able to get my phone out of my pocket, and, just barely, turn it on and stop the recording. No sense in draining the battery. Fortunately, it was fully charged when things started going wrong.
I turned the screen back off, wincing as I strained my fingers against the tape, and tried to think rationally for a minute.
The phone was cradled in my hands as though it were made of the most delicate glass. If I dropped it, I'd be out of options. There was no way I could contort myself to find it again in the straw.
Well, that was my first option. I could hide it in the straw and hope that Beast could call the cops and get them to track the GPS and find this fucking truck.
Beast.
I didn't even know if he was alive.
I was alone.
There was no one I could trust. No way I could call anyone, with tape over my mouth, and no one I could text who would help me against my father.
Wait.
Maybe.
Maybe there was one person.
She was my last hope.
I turned my phone back on and managed to hit my texting app. It took three tries to pull up Kandy's picture, but I made it in the end.
Help, I texted.
Johnny cabin. Beast shot.
I was sending messages a few words at a time. There was always the risk that I'd drop the phone. I needed her to have as much information as possible.
Send ambulatory.
Ambulance.
Me truck GPS cops please help.
I took a deep breath as the messages sent. At least I would have sent that much for her to go on. I could risk a longer message.
I'm locked in the tool kit and he's going to give me to Flores. It's really bad and I'm so scared.
I paused and thought for a moment.
If you don't find me tell the girls I love them so much. Both of them. They are everything to me and I'm so proud of them.
Another moment's thought.
Thank you for helping me see them. I'm sorry I haven't been a good stepdaughter. I'm going to try to hide the phone now.
I carefully checked that the phone was set to silent and was broadcasting the location, and I turned the screen off.
Almost immediately, I turned it back on, to see if anyone had replied. To check the time. To get a meager amount of light into the little box. I wasn't sure exactly what my justification was, but by God I wanted the comfort of the phone, bright and shining.
I forced myself to turn the screen back off, but my resolve didn't last long.
I knew that I was draining the battery too quickly with the constant flickering, and I had to pull myself together and deal with it.
It was time to turn it off for good.
There was no reason to hope that Kandy or Beast would text back quickly. Beast was – I couldn't finish the thought. Kandy was a safer topic. She was either asleep or feeding the girls breakfast, and either way, I couldn't expect her to notice her texts right away.
Even when I found Kandy frustrating, I had to admit that she wasn't one of those mothers always on her phone. After a long day, yeah, but not first thing in the morning.
She gave my little sisters the attention they deserved, a lot of the time. Like my own mother.
The thoughts of Kandy and my mother soothed me a little, and I was able to go almost a full minute without checking my phone.
I knew I needed to hide it, but I wasn't sure that I could force myself to.
There were no new messages.
Only three minutes had passed since I'd sent the texts.
I took three deep breaths. In, out. In, out. In, out.
At the end of the third breath, I checked my phone one last time - no texts - and turned my body as much as I could manage in the straw, slipping my phone into the thickest, oldest area of straw, shoving it away with my fingertips.
I made it to a count of twelve before I was trying to get back to it, scrabbling in the straw as far as I could reach.
Nothing.
I wasn't expecting that to make me feel any better, but it did. If I couldn't reach it, perhaps my father wouldn't be able to find it either.
Without the comforting slick weight of my phone to distract me, I couldn't stop thinking about the box, the straw.
I was drawing one, inescapable conclusion: My father had done this before.
He was worse than I thought.
The straw was old and disgusting, smelling like stale pee and sweat.
It wasn't a coincidence that the toolbox on the back of his truck had a secret space that fit a grown-ass woman. It didn't look any different from the toolboxes I'd seen on dozens of other work trucks, but I'd seen men work out of those toolboxes before and pull out level after level of carefully organized tools.
Why hadn't I noticed that I hadn't seen my father do that in years?
When my mother was alive, I used to see him working in the driveway, pulling each layer out of the truck lik
e a Russian nesting doll.
A thought struck me so hard I almost stopped breathing.
I hadn't seen or touched the bottom layers of the toolbox since my mother died. Maybe she didn't die, or maybe it wasn't from cancer.
Maybe she was the first woman my father sold.
I don't know why I was so sure my father was making a habit of selling women, but I was convinced.
He was so matter-of-fact. He had a clear, concrete plan, and a secret fucking compartment.
I couldn't be the first.
I tried to stay calm.
Counting didn't work.
Thinking about my sisters didn't work.
Wondering if Beast was alive really, really didn't work.
Finally, I shut my eyes and tried to sleep, focusing on taking deep breaths, on after another, and not thinking about anything in particular.
I found it comforting that I'd tried to do something to let people know where I was.
I wasn't going blindly and weakly into whatever was next without making an attempt to save myself from these monsters. I thought quickly and I took action.
Even if I died - even if I didn't - I would not be one of those girls you see on the news, who gave up and went quietly to their fates.
Be fair, I told myself. Everything I did was because I happened to have my cell phone in a pretty discreet pocket. If I hadn't, what the hell could I have done?
I tried to remind myself that I was no better than any other girls who might have been locked in this box, only luckier, but I didn't try too hard. The fierce pride I was feeling in myself was better than the mind-numbing terror that I felt without it.
Locked in.
My father had fucked up, not checking me for a phone.
Maybe he'd kept fucking up.
The truck had been going at a steady speed for a while, we were clearly on a highway. Not many highways around there had nobody at all on them at nine or ten in the morning on a Saturday.
If I could get another driver's attention, someone would be bound to call the police.
It was something.
I wriggled my way onto my back in the dusty straw and used my knees and elbows to press up as hard as I could, trying to lift the tool tray up.
It was going.
It was going.
It was heavy, but I could feel it lifting up towards the lid.
A wild hope seized me.
I might have a chance.
The tray hit the lid - and stopped. I could hear the clank of the padlock on the outside of the lock. He hadn't forgotten. He'd locked it.
My hopes were dashed, burst, destroyed.
I felt a scream rising in my throat and made no move to stop it, yelling my terror and frustration as I kicked the bottom of the box with my bare feet, over and over.
I didn't know if I was hoping to break the box or just hoping to make enough noise to get out.
The truck slammed on the brakes, throwing me against the hard metal.
I stopped kicking and the quiet roar of the engine revved back up to get back to the speed it had been going.
I kicked again, bracing myself for retribution.
The truck lurched forward again, harder, and I felt myself rising from the straw, hitting my head hard on the tray of tools above my head.
As I lay back, dazed, aching, the message was clear.
If I kept fucking with the box, he'd punish me. Swiftly and painfully. I wasn't sure that I couldn't be killed, slamming against metal and thick plastic enough times.
The wild thought occurred to me that at least he could hear me, and when the truck came to a stop, if he needed gas or something, I might be able to signal to someone for help.
Reason quickly asserted itself.
My father's truck had an unusually huge gas tank, and he was militant about keeping it full, going to a gas station at least three times a week.
He could drive two states away without having to stop for anything.
Anyone I signaled for help would probably just end up being Flores or one of his guys, and then they'd know I was still fighting. They wouldn't give me any chances to get free.
Just one more reason to believe my father had done this before.
I took deep breaths.
There was nothing I could do right now.
I knew that the smart thing to do would be to get some rest, even force myself to sleep, but I didn't think I could do it. Being in a closet was one thing, but a small metal box? It was so much like a coffin that it unlocked a visceral horror in me.
Instead, I thought about Beast.
Not whether or not he was okay.
That was too scary, too full of unknowns.
I thought about meeting him, silhouetted against the door, a huge shape in the night. The first time I saw him, I was so afraid. I thought he'd hurt me, rape me, beat me.
It took months before I could be around him without my nerves going haywire.
Thinking back, I'm not really sure when it happened.
One day, I wasn't afraid any more.
Not long after, I trusted him.
I'd never trusted anyone like that before, so it took me so achingly long to recognize it. I felt so stupid when I finally put it together. I felt so good around Beast, so safe.
He made me laugh.
Not many people had ever done that, made me laugh out loud without fear, without covering my mouth and looking around.
I trusted him to keep me safe.
I shouldn't have.
I was locked in a metal box.
I did, though.
Some part of me still felt like maybe he would leap onto the bed of the truck and free me, then pound his chest like a gorilla.
That was how rescues were supposed to go down, right?
Despite everything, the image made me smile.
I'm okay, Beast. I'll be waiting for you. Hold on tight, I thought.
I'll be waiting.
The rest of the trip might have been ten minutes, or it might have been hours.
Time lost all meaning in the box.
I don't know if I slept. It definitely wasn't restful. I was concentrating so hard on deep breaths and not panicking that it took me a minute to realize what was different.
The truck was slowing down.
For a while, I was jostled through turns. The truck came to a full stop a few times.
Every time I got up the courage to try to make a noise, the engine would roar and the truck would take off again, slamming me against the back of the box.
"Please, please, please," I chanted in my head, whimpering.
Over and over.
"Please, please, please."
I wasn't sure if I was begging my father to stop, Beast to find me, Kandy to call the cops, or just for God to kill me.
The truck stopped.
My father got out and slammed the door.
I heard voices talking, but couldn't make them out. They were too muffled.
One big thump - someone climbing onto the truck?
Now that the truck was stopped, I found myself wishing that we'd kept driving forever. At least I was alone in my box. No one could hurt me in my box.
I hoped that he wasn't ready to take me out.
"Please, please, please," I thought.
If I were still in the box, no one would touch me.
I knew what they'd do when they took me out.
My father had threatened it for years, but I thought it was so much bluster. I didn't believe him. Now, I did.
He had told me that as soon as I arrived, the pimp would hose me down with cold water and leave me naked and cold and alone. Then I'd be tied to my bed and get my first customer. They'd pay more for me because I was new. They wouldn't care if I screamed.
After a few rapes, once they thought my spirit was broken enough, they'd untie me and take me somewhere else, and ten or fifteen guys would take me.
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