by Hattie Jude
My phone pings with several texts in a row and I nearly drop my snacks in my hurry to see who it is. I’m so mad at my mom I can’t think straight.
I haven’t heard from her since yesterday.
Luci: I’m scared, Gabi. There’s a new video of you.
What? Where? When did you see it?
Luci: Someone I didn’t know sent me a hard copy.
Who? How? I don’t understand. I need to see it.
Luci: My parents aren’t letting me leave the house. Can you come get it? I don’t want them to find it. With all the questions the cops are asking about Jen, they’re threatening to make me change schools.
Hide it. I’ll come as soon as I can.
I put the snacks away, go back upstairs, and change into my jeans. I pause outside Raf’s door, but I’m too keyed up about the video. I can’t stand the tension I know will be there between us in the light of day. He’s like a bad hangover, every day-after worse than the last time I partook.
I wait until I hear him leave his room, listening when it sounds like he stops outside my room and then moves down the stairs. He goes out the door and I move to the window to see what he does next. He starts running when he reaches the back gate and I decide to make my move while I have the chance.
There’s a guard outside the door and I point toward my house.
“I just need to get something really quick. I’ll be back in a minute.”
He nods but then proceeds to follow me. I sigh, wondering how I’m gonna get to Luci’s without him on my tail. And then wonder what would be the problem with that. I’m free to leave.
“I need to run out for a while,” I tell him.
“Okay, give me a minute. I’ll follow.”
I nod and get in my car, watching as he walks next door and disappears to his car. I grin, pleased that he didn’t get in the car with me. It hits me that I’m wasting time. I start the car and don’t wait for him, pulling out of the driveway and speeding to Luci’s. From the rearview mirror, I see him pull out, but I’m too far ahead of him now and lose him easily. My phone starts going off when I’m a few blocks from Luci’s and I ignore it. I don’t have to look to know it’s probably Raf calling to chew me out for leaving.
It feels so good to get out of the house that I don’t even feel bad for disappearing on them. I’m not doing anything crazy, I just want to see Luci, maybe Ashton if I get a chance…and not have Raf hanging over our interactions like a jealous old man. Okay, maybe it’s a little crazy, but I’m going to be careful.
I pull up to Luci’s house and text her, letting her know I’m here. I don’t bother waiting to hear back before I get out of the car. She knew I would hustle over here.
I rarely come to Luci’s house. It’s a little off the beaten path. A pretty house in a different neighborhood than most of the kids from school, she lives in a smaller place with ivy growing along the front of the house. She prefers to come to my house, so I’ve never pushed, but if my mom keeps forcing us to stay with Raf, I’m going to spend a lot more time here.
Once I’m out of the car, I put my phone in my pocket and feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I look around to see if anyone is watching me and all is quiet. Too quiet. I pick up my pace and am a few feet from the door before I slow down again. A cloth goes over my face and my arms flail, everything fading to black.
I wake up in a fog, sitting up slowly and looking around. I’m in a bed and I almost expect to be tied down somehow, but I’m completely free. The room is all white and pretty. No windows, but a lamp is on next to the bed. I think I hear the beach and listen for anything else that might give me a clue of where I am. There’s a small bathroom on the left with the door open, the tiles of a shower barely showing from here. I stand up and pause, holding my head. I’m dizzy for a few seconds and once I have my bearings, I go to the bedroom door and turn the knob. Locked.
I slam my fist against the door.
“Let me out of here,” I yell.
Probably not the smartest move, but it seems like I’ll have to see my captor eventually. Why not speed up the process?
My next thought, ironically, is school. I’ve missed too much since starting Longlake. I have to get out of here and make sure nothing else gets between me and graduating.
Why that’s on my mind now, I don’t know.
When no one comes and I’ve searched the entire room for my phone (it’s not here) or something to tell me ANYTHING about this place or who has me (there’s nothing), I fall back on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
Tears drip back into my hair.
And then more anger.
Pacing.
Hours of my stomach turned inside out, gnawing with hunger.
And still, no one comes.
I imagine what Raf must be thinking now. He’s going to be so mad at me. My mom will finally feel bad for leaving me at the house, as she should. And in the next thought, I’m internally beating myself up for leaving the house and taking off before the guard could follow me. How could I be so stupid?
Once again, I’ve managed to screw everything up. Between Luke and my father, there’s no telling what kind of mess I’ve gotten myself in now.
But which is it? Luke or my father?
Chapter Fourteen
I fall asleep at some point, my last thought that I could never fall asleep with how hungry I am, how afraid, but I wake with a start. I hear voices in the distance but can’t make out what they’re saying. It’s too hard to tell if they’re familiar voices, but I get up and go to the door, straining to listen.
How long did I sleep?
I go to the bathroom and pace, wishing there was a window to distract myself. A way to tell the time. Anything to feel some sense of where I am.
The door opens sometime later, after I’m exhausted with more pacing, and I stand up, taking a step backward when I see a Donald Trump mask over a skinny body. I swallow hard, feeling hysteria rising in my chest, and try to figure out if I recognize the body underneath the baggy clothes. They’re slight. No matter how hard they’re trying to disguise with all the clothes, they’re not much taller than me.
A tray is placed on the table and the person leaves without a word.
“Wait!” I rush toward the door and pound until my fingers burn. “Come back. What do you want from me?” I yell and then the rest of what comes out feels like jumbled nonsense of me venting as they probably sit outside and laugh. I sag against the door when I start crying, not wanting them to hear my desperation.
Desperation breeds…nothing good. Or something like that. I know there’s a quote about what exactly desperation breeds, but it’s not fully formulating in my mind right now.
The smell of the food wafts across the room and I get up, taking the tray to the bed. I sniff it. Would I be able to tell if it were laced with anything? And what do I care anyway? It’s either die of starvation or die of drug-laced food.
It’s only day one…or two, depending on how long you slept. Day one if I’m going by how exhausted I still feel. You’re not dying of anything yet, I ramble to myself.
Cheeseburger and fries. Looks like a Shake Shack burger or something from a diner, and I wrinkle my nose as I try to decide if I’m too picky to eat the slab of unmelted American cheese. I’m more of a feta on my burger kind of girl.
I want to slap myself for my snotty thoughts.
I take a deep breath and go in for a bite, quickly inhaling the burger. It’s divine, unmelted American cheese and all.
I take a long swig of the drink and grimace—diet soda, yuck—but a pleasant feeling washes down my gut. Because with this drink, I know something.
It’s a girl keeping me here or at least picking out the food. A guy would never bring a diet drink.
I finish eating and once that’s settled, I exercise, hoping I’ll be ready when I see someone again. What’s with the Donald Trump face? I shiver but try to focus on the adrenaline pumping through my body.
I hear voices outside
the door again, this time closer, and my heart pounds out of my chest. I still can’t make out what they’re saying and my anger skyrockets. I can’t believe they’re holding me here like this.
I pound on the door again. “Are you gonna show yourself? Too much of a wuss to show your face?”
The voices stop and I lift my hand to pound again when it opens. I fall forward and muscled arms hold onto either side of my arms, pushing me back.
“Luke,” I whisper. My stomach gnarls into a painful swirl of hatred and nausea and I try to pry myself out of his grip.
“Hey, baby. I have you right where I want you.” He grins and black spots dance across my vision. I fight to not pass out, my eyes widening as I struggle to hang on.
“What do you want with me?” I ask, panting hard. He lets me go abruptly and I fall to the ground. I scramble backward until I hit the wall and he laughs.
“I’m glad to see you recognize the danger of the situation you’re in. Finally.” He presses his hands together. “You’re not in charge of this, Josephine. How does that feel?”
“I don’t go by Josephine anymore,” I snap. I remember now how much I started hating the way my name sounded across his lips. When I decided I was done with him and he turned into my tormentor. It all floods back and I start shaking. I’ve tried so hard to forget.
It was as if my avoiding him turned him on more. I saw a different side of him when I told him no. All of a sudden, the lilies were everywhere I turned, school, the coffee shop, my bedroom. And he was always there, lurking and grinning what I now saw as his sick smile. He tried to force himself on me one of those late nights, as I was rushing to my car from the bookstore. It turned everything between us even uglier. I knew I couldn’t handle it on my own anymore, but I was too afraid to tell my parents.
“You’ll always be Josephine to me.” His voice brings me back to the present and he shrugs nonchalantly, like he knows I’ve gotten lost in the past. He reaches his hand out, expecting me to latch onto it, and I take it, standing up slowly in front of him. “Here’s how we’ll play this,” he says, motioning for me to sit down on the bed.
I do. The last thing I want is to be anywhere near a bed with him, but I need to see what he wants before I decide how I will fight.
“Your father owes me money.” He runs his fingers along my jawline and then grips it tightly, yanking my head back to look him in the eye. My eyes fill with tears. “And you owe me time. I paid my dues in that cold cell you sent me to—how do you think that made me feel?” His fingers dig into my skin and I gasp. “It hurt. Memories of your tight little body kept me going, so I do have to thank you for that. If you weren’t the reason I was there in the first place, this would be such a sweet reunion.” He laughs and I close my eyes, tears running down my face. “No tears.” I feel his tongue on my cheek and feel my food rising up my throat. “No tears,” he says again, his voice harsh this time. “You’ll give me what I want and then I’ll decide whether it’s enough to let you go.”
“I thought you were working with Stefen. What was that about?”
He grins and it’s unbelievable that I ever thought he was so good looking. How does anyone look at him and see beauty? All I see is rot.
“I have my hand in a few pots,” he says. “And you’re the sweet honey in all of them. My little honey pot.” His voice slithers over me and he rips the neck of my shirt, baring my chest. Someone enters the room and I try to peer around him to see who it is, but he holds me in place with his hands around my neck.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see video cameras rolling in, large ones similar to those I saw the one time I snuck to my mom’s set. I want answers, but I can tell by the way he’s glancing around now, that his attention is on whatever scene he’s creating. Mirrors are brought in and two cameras on either side of the bed. Two people, both in masks—one Frida Kahlo on a huge burly frame, and the other Bill Clinton on a smaller but muscular frame—work on getting the cameras ready. I don’t see Donald anywhere and part of me wishes the girl was here for this. Maybe I could appeal to her feminine sensitivities before I’m raped on camera.
A spotlight turns on and Luke rips the rest of my clothes off, leaving me in my underwear. He makes a sound with his mouth, assessing me and shaking his head like he’s so disappointed.
“You used to have much better taste,” he says.
He unhooks my bra and I try to dodge his hands and cover myself with the blanket from the bed, but he’s too fast. He hauls me up and rips my panties off with one hand, leaving me naked in front of three men.
Chapter Fifteen
I’m too mad to cry, but my body betrays me and the tears drip down my face anyway. I feel like a rag doll, the way he dresses me in a new lacy bra and panty set and then slides a silk floral dress on me. It’s long and demure. Pretty even. I barely register the approval in his eyes when he looks at me, the way he presses himself against me, hard under his pants.
I used to be proud of the way I could make him want me, but when I realized he used drugs to get hard like that, it whittled my pride down to nothing.
He leans back and grins and twirls me around, my dress unfurling around my legs, the breeze sending shivers up my spine. He turns me until I’m dizzy and in the next second brings me to a dead stop. I’m unsteady on my feet, so I don’t even see his hand until it’s near my face, the slap resounding. I step back and he advances, reaching out and giving my dress a yank so hard that the material splits down the middle, leaving my skin exposed.
His grin widens and he shoves me back on the bed. I scuttle backwards, trying to get away, making him laugh. I look over his shoulder and see the light flashing on the cameras. He’s not bothering to hide that he’s recording all of this now.
I imagine everyone at school seeing this and my skin heats with the shame. Why did I think I could ever outrun him?
Somewhere between him stripping out of his clothes and ripping off my panties to shreds, I decide to fight. It’s a bit delayed, but maybe that works in my favor. I knee him in the balls and when his hand reaches out for my neck to choke me, I duck and bite him so hard, I immediately taste blood. He screeches for help and the cameramen just stand there, momentarily in shock.
When he reaches back and punches my face, I take a breath and let go of his skin, shoving him off of me with adrenaline I didn’t know I had.
“You fucking bitch!” He yanks me by the hair and slings me back on the bed, his eyes predatory. “You wanna fight?”
“It’s the only way you’ll have me,” I tell him. And I spit out his blood, watching as it lands on his face and rolls down his chin.
He looks demented and I’m sure I don’t look much better. He crawls off of me and signals for the cameras to stop recording.
“Guess we’ll have to go with Plan B,” he says. His smile sends a slither over my skin. “It was my preference anyway.”
I press my hand to my cheek, feeling the puffy skin where he hit me. I’m relieved he stopped for now, but from the look on his face, it only means it will be worse for me later. I don’t know how I know that, I just do. He looks too cocky for someone who has been shut down.
I grab the blanket and pull it over me as he stands up and walks over to one of the cameras. I hear a few clicks and then he pauses when he hears something in the house. I don’t miss the look that passes between him and the other men, but instead of saying anything else, he rolls one camera out and the others follow. The door shuts behind them and I’m left alone again.
I go to the bathroom and take a long shower, feeling like I’ve dodged a bullet, but the dread for what will come next, the unknown, is so heavy, I stagger under its weight.
After hours of waiting for him to come back, the fear settling in my bones like a rattly winter cough, I wonder if this was what he intended for me all along. He must be watching somewhere—I know there are cameras still hidden here somewhere—loving how I can’t relax, the fear I can’t hide, the way I haven’t slept or eaten anything the
y’ve left. I’m hot with the clothes I was in before he had me change, clinging to my skin, but still I put my head under the covers, anything to not let him get an advantage over me. I don’t want him to see me or know anything about me. I’ve felt that for a long time now.
I avoided telling my parents about Luke for as long as I could, but he got more and more erratic after the night outside the bookstore. What seemed annoying at first—him turning up everywhere I went—became sinister when he wouldn’t back off. He followed me home one night when he knew my parents were at a work event and pounded on the door for an hour. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to call the police, but I was too afraid of what my parents would think. As it turned out, I was such a wreck by the time they came home, I had to come clean to my mom about what was going on.
I was shaking and crying, huddled on the floor of my bedroom. She came and sat beside me.
“Luke won’t leave me alone,” I whispered.
“Is this a guy from school?” She shook her head, puzzled that she couldn’t think of which Luke I would mean.
I shook my head and it took a few moments before it registered.
“Luke from work?”
I nodded and the blood rushed from her face.
The first thing she said was, “Your father will kill him.” And then, “Just how serious has it been with him?” I knew she was still hoping I hadn’t had sex with him.
When she realized how far it had gone, she was so upset, she went straight to my dad. I stood outside their room, wringing my hands, worried and yet relieved to not carry this secret by myself any longer.
My father put Luke in the hospital that night and still managed to get off without so much as a warning because of his friends on the police force. When they searched his room and found the videos of him having sex with an underage girl (me), they arrested him, and for a few blissful months, my home was peaceful.