One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

  Shana’s face snarled angrily, and she burst into a fit of rage. “All of this happened after you came. Why did you have to come? It’s your fault. Everything is your fault. It’s your fault they hurt me, your fault that Max died, and your fault that I’m being sent away. I hate you, Maggie Clarke.”

  Maggie couldn’t bear to think that these would be the last words they shared. “I know you hate me, Shana. But I don’t hate you,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Shana turned back to Cali and kissed her on the lips through the fence. John William watched their sorrow-filled exchange with sheer delight. When he motioned for her to step out of her kennel, she ran over to Seth, “Come here, baby,” Shana told him.

  Seth moved to the fence and put his tiny hand over hers.

  “You take good care of yourself, OK?” she said.

  “OK, Shana. But where are you going?” the small boy asked.

  “I’m going away, and we’re probably never gonna see each other again. But remember that you’re gonna be a really cool guy when you grow up. OK?” she muttered, not knowing what else to say to the child.

  Having seen enough, John William grabbed Shana under the arm and pulled her toward the stairs. “Let’s go. Time to become someone else’s bitch.”

  As John William yanked Shana up the stairs behind him, Maggie and Cali huddled together at the fence that separated them. Cali broke the silence. “They’re selling us off, Maggie. They’re not going to keep us anymore. That’s why they filmed us by ourselves. We need to wrap our minds around this.”

  Maggie began weeping. She hated her life as it was, but she had clung to the belief that someday she would go home to her family. The thought of continuing in this sick world without the other kids was unbearable. Maggie felt like she had the day John William took her from the mall. Then she looked across the basement and saw Seth, his eyes as wide as silver dollars, staring at her, waiting for her to make him feel safe, and she felt a gush of guilt. If they were all separated, what would happen to Seth? Worry about Seth’s fate overpowered her fear of her own destiny.

  Maggie did the only thing that she could think of: she sat on the dirt floor of her kennel and prayed that somehow they would all be OK and that Seth would stay with her.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Over the next week, men came to visit at all times of the day and night to check out Maggie and Cali. The routine was the same. The two girls dressed in lingerie, paraded upstairs, and stood in the middle of a room while men of all sizes and ages looked them over. In a week’s time, at least eighteen men came to see them. Seth was always taken upstairs alone because when Maggie was there, he would whimper and cling to her, and selling a whiny kid to street pimps was nearly impossible.

  Back in their kennels, Cali tried to keep Maggie’s spirits high. “Look at it this way. If we’re sold to pimps, then at least we’ll get to be outside again. I mean, we’ll be doing the same thing we are now, but at least we’ll have a little more freedom.”

  “That doesn’t change anything, Cali. We won’t be together anymore. I thought when we got old enough, they would just let us go. I want to go home. I miss my mom and dad every day,” Maggie said.

  “I understand. But maybe if we’re out on the streets, we’ll find our way home. At least we won’t be locked away where no one but these assholes see us. Right?” Cali argued.

  “I don’t know, Cali. I just don’t have a good feeling about any of this. I’m so scared to be alone. And what will happen to Seth? He doesn’t even know his last name or where he lived. How will he ever make it without us?” Maggie asked, wanting Cali to tell her that everything would work out for each of them.

  Cali didn’t have any answers. She wasn’t streetwise. The only thing she knew about prostitution was what she’d learned during her captivity.

  “Here’s the thing, Mags. We don’t have a choice. We have to make the best of what we got. This is all bad shit we’re going through. None of us belongs here, and Max definitely didn’t deserve to die here. I wonder how Shana is doing,” she murmured.

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about her a lot. Do you think she really hated me?” Maggie asked sadly.

  “Nah, she was just as scared and frustrated as the rest of us. She knew in her heart that Myles did whatever he wanted. He protected her for a while, and when she lost that, she also lost her ability to cope with this bullshit,” Cali explained.

  “Maybe she was right. Maybe staying drugged up is the best thing,” Maggie offered.

  “Don’t ever think that, Mags! The drugs are what got her sent to Camden. When I was waiting for a client the night before she was sold, I overheard John William telling one of the other goons that they had to sell her cheap because pimps don’t like their ‘property’ already hooked on drugs. He said they like to get them hooked themselves,” Cali said.

  The girls lay quietly, waiting for Seth to be returned to the basement. When John William brought the boy downstairs, he put him in his cell and addressed Cali.

  “Looks like your ratty ass will be leaving. You were gettin’ too old, anyhow. Your new boss is gonna turn you out like a two-bit whore. You’ll wish you were back here with me, girl,” he rambled. “Get yourself together. They’ll be back to get you tomorrow morning.”

  John William turned the basement light off as he went upstairs, leaving them in pitch darkness to face their demons. The contents of Cali’s belly began to churn. She had known that this moment was coming, yet there was no way to prepare for it. She leaned against the chain link fence.

  Maggie had started to breathe heavily when John William announced Cali’s departure. There was a buzzing in her ears, as if she were listening to static through ear buds.

  “Cali? What are we going to do? I don’t want you to leave. What if I never see you again?” Maggie cried.

  “Come on, Mags. It’s gonna be all right. I want to tell you something. I want you to listen to me real close. Ever since I met you, I knew you were special. You’re stronger than the rest of us. You know more things, and I need you to believe me about this. I always knew that you were the one among us that would make it out of here and find your way back. Do you hear what I’m saying?” Cali asked, serious as a heart attack.

  “I hear you,” Maggie answered mechanically.

  “No! Mags, I need you to believe it. You’re the one among us who will find her way back! You have to do it for all of us. To make things right. We’ve all lost so much, and when you break free, it won’t be for nothing. You can tell our stories to others and make sure that our families remember us,” she pleaded.

  It was the conviction in Cali’s voice that snapped Maggie out of her funk. “I believe you, Cali. I swear, I’ll do whatever I can to find my way home again,” she promised.

  “Good. Another thing. When I get to wherever it is they’re taking me, I’m gonna try to get a message to your parents. I don’t know how, but if there’s a way, I’ll contact them…mine too. Your parents are Lorraine and Rob Clarke, and you lived in Conshohocken. What else?” Cali asked.

  “My home phone number. If I tell you, can you remember it?” Maggie asked, excited that her parents would soon find out she was still alive.

  Maggie recited the phone number, and Cali repeated it several times until it was fixed in her memory. A few minutes later, she repeated the phone number to Maggie again.

  “Yep, that’s it. Maybe you’ll get home before I will,” Maggie observed aloud.

  “Not likely,” a man’s voice roared, and it was hot with anger.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The lights flew on, and there stood John William. He had never left the basement. Myles was suspicious about Cali, sensing she would try to rescue the two kids who remained. Maggie’s heart dropped in her chest, and her eyes darted around the basement like a wild animal as she wondered how much he’d heard.

  John William walked briskly to Cali’s kennel. “I heard every fucking word you said. We knew you’d be trouble. Well, sleep
tight, girly, ’cause trouble awaits your ass in the morning,” he vowed.

  The two girls stayed awake all night, trying in vain to comfort each other. They knew the reprimand was going to be harsh, but neither could imagine the extent to which the cartel would go to punish her. John William entered the basement at dawn and heaved his heartless mass of flesh and bones across the basement. He took Cali and Maggie up to the room where they had stripped and danced.

  Maggie and Cali clung to each other as they were led across the room. John William stopped and pulled a wire dog cage out from under a wooden table. The cage was forty-eight inches long and thirty inches wide. He bent down and opened the door of the crate. Looking at Cali, he said in an icy voice, “Get in.”

  Maggie was already crying, remembering how the men had pissed on her when she was forced into the same cage. Cali got onto her hands and knees and crawled into the cage. Then John William fastened three padlocks on the top, middle, and bottom of the wire door. He pulled on the door to be sure it wouldn’t budge. Cali was hyperventilating inside the small space, which her body nearly filled.

  “John William, please let her go. I swear, we were just talking. We’re never going to try to run away. I swear,” Maggie begged. At that moment, Maggie was willing to do anything to stop what was about to happen to them.

  “I’ll have sex with you,” Maggie blurted.

  John William swaggered close to Maggie. “You’re damn straight you will. You can count on that.”

  “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t punish Cali. Please let her out of the cage,” Maggie begged.

  “Nah, I ain’t gonna do that, and you’re gonna have sex with me anyway. How do you like them apples?” he mocked.

  Maggie heard footsteps approaching. It sounded like an army of people. She looked toward the doorway as Myles walked into the room.

  “You two have deeply disappointed me,” he said in a cold voice. “It’s time for you to go your separate ways.”

  Myles pushed Maggie toward the cage. She dropped to all fours and twisted her fingers between the wires. Cali put her fingers over Maggie’s, and the girls huddled together, only the wire standing between them. Neither of them spoke. No words could articulate what they felt. Fear gripped each of them so deeply that only death could release them from it.

  Myles walked over to the girls. His facial features looked depraved. His anger was raw, and his demeanor was so incredibly coldhearted that no one would ever believe Myles had a wife and children whom he loved. “You,” he said, addressing Maggie. “This is the second time you schemed to get away. In this business, we don’t tolerate snitches or runaways. You see, if we did, it would jeopardize all that we’ve built. I’ve thought a lot about what I should do to punish you. Then it came to me. I can punish both of you at the same time. Kind of like a two-for-one.” He laughed.

  Then Myles stopped laughing and bent close to Maggie’s face. “Such a shame. You had so much potential, and now you’ve gone and thrown it all away. Now it’s time to pay the piper.”

  “Please don’t separate us, Myles. Cali and I want to stay together. Maybe someone will want to buy both of us,” Maggie begged.

  Myles glared at her, his eyes clouded with pure contempt. “I can’t sell the two of you together. That would ruin my reputation and my business. If I did that, it would only come back to haunt me.”

  Right before John William pried Maggie’s fingers loose from the wire cage, Cali had a moment of unadulterated clarity. “Remember what I told you, Mags,” she whispered. “You’re the one among us.”

  Two of Myles’s men picked up the dog cage and carried Cali toward the kitchen. Myles grabbed Maggie’s arm and followed the procession. As they entered the kitchen, another man opened a door to the outside.

  It was late November, and the wind whipped the cold air, making Maggie suck in her breath. There was no indication of a sun behind the thick, dark clouds. A light rain fell on them. Maggie, like Cali, was wearing only a T-shirt, and both girls instinctively hugged themselves against the cold.

  Maggie took in everything around her. Their prison was three stories tall. Long balconies ran the length of the house on the second and third levels. Over the tall fence surrounding the property, the treetops looked as if they belonged in a supernatural-horror flick. The once-white house was pale gray from years of neglect. The windows were boarded up from the outside, which explained why there were only a few places inside where natural light penetrated. Weeds and bushes grew thick and thorny around the house, as if to keep people in, rather than out.

  Maggie searched for the car that would take Cali to her new “home.” Her desperation heightened as she realized that she might never see Cali again.

  They walked on a crushed-stone path around a row of large bushes that surrounded an abandoned in-ground swimming pool. The kidney-shaped pool was filled to the brim with murky, brown rainwater, which, under the sunless sky, looked black. The wind blew leaves in menacing circles across the surface, sending small ripples of water to the edges.

  For a fleeting moment, while moving through the backyard, Cali and Maggie’s eyes met. “I love you,” Cali yelled to her young friend.

  “I love you too, Cali. Come and find me someday,” Maggie called over the wind that whipped against her body.

  Myles, still dragging Maggie along, stopped suddenly. John William stepped forward, wrapped his hefty arm around Maggie’s waist, and hoisted her off the ground. Maggie watched as the two men strode to the edge of the pool and threw the crate, with Cali inside, into the water.

  As the crate hit the water, the coldness jolted Cali’s body. She felt as if tiny needles were being pushed through the surface of her skin. As she plunged toward the bottom of the pool, her eyes were open wide. The murky liquid blurred her vision. Within seconds, the cage hit bottom, and Cali’s lungs began to fill with water. The oxygen in her bloodstream rapidly diminished as she battled to breathe. The cloudy water forced itself into her sinuses. Cali yanked on the door of the cage with all of her might, trying to break it free of the padlocks. This further depleted her energy and her store of oxygen.

  A few minutes after Cali hit the water, she slipped out of consciousness and into the peacefulness of death.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “Nooo.” Maggie screamed, digging her nails into John William’s arm, a mistake she’d pay for later. “Pull her up. Please pull her up.” Maggie pleaded, looking at Myles in terror. Maggie let out guttural sounds and lashed out, but she was no match for John William, who harnessed her securely in his beastly, hairy arms.

  “Get her inside and ready for the next group. I’ve had enough of this useless drama,” Myles told John William.

  John William forcefully led Maggie back into the house. Before the door closed behind them, she glanced out to the yard. She imagined Cali under the water, struggling to get free from the cage. The images of Cali’s death haunted her, and she slipped into a state of shock. She stood looking up at John William. She had nothing left to say to him. The burden of loss and grief was so powerful that she went limp and slumped to the floor.

  John William showed no sign of remorse. He snatched a fistful of her long, black hair and walked toward the basement steps. Like a zombie, Maggie staggered to her feet and walked on, barely noticing the pain of her hair being yanked. In the basement, John William followed her into her kennel. He knew it would be only a few hours before an offer was made for Maggie.

  Maggie walked over to her mattress and sat down. She put her head in her hands, and rocked like a small child. She wanted Cali to be alive. She wondered how she could go on without Cali. Her loss was too great for the young girl to bear alone.

  A short time later, John William approached, his groin tingled. His ego soared as he recalled the scene outside and that bitch, Cali, plunging into the water. Maggie’s deep sense of loss and the way she completely gave herself over to grief turned him on.

  Kneeling next to her, John William pulled her T
-shirt over her head and ripped off her panties. She did not resist as he effortlessly flipped her onto her belly and took what he wanted. When he was finished, he slapped her on the ass. “I told you all along I’d get it from you. It won’t be long before you’re out there on the streets, selling your scrawny little ass for twenty bucks to anyone who will have you.”

  When John William left the basement, Maggie dressed and moved to the front of her kennel. “Seth? Are you OK?”

  “I’m scared. Where’s Cali? Is she coming back, or did she go to see God like Max did?” he asked in a cracked voice.

  “Yeah, Seth. Cali went to see God,” she said.

  Maggie was tired of fighting. She had been battling to keep a piece of herself since the day John William kidnapped her. Now all she wanted was an end to her suffering. She thought about all she’d lost since that day at the mall. It was too great a burden for her to bear alone. Now, only she and Seth remained, and there was no telling what the cartel would do to the two of them. The only comfort she had was that maybe, just maybe, Max and Cali were watching over them.

  That evening, John William took Maggie upstairs to the room where the films were made. She was told to undress and sit on the bed. As she waited for what was to happen next, her thoughts wandered to her mother. It would Christmastime soon, and her mother loved all the excitement surrounding the holiday. She wondered if her mom had experienced a joyful Christmas since she’d been gone. She hoped her mother’s life wasn’t as grim as her own had become and clung to the idea that her mom hadn’t given up hope of finding her.

  The door opened, and John William brought four men into the room. She’d never seen them before, and she looked at them fearfully. They checked her over carefully. A man named Rock looked into her soulful blue eyes.

  “Yeah, baby, you’re a real looker, aren’t you,” he mumbled under his breath.

  Maggie remained silent. She wasn’t afraid any longer. Nothing could compare to the pain of losing Max and Cali.