“You have the package?” the voice said.
“Yeah, boss. We’re headed for the border now.” The passenger sounded eager like he wanted to please this guy.
“Any problems?” The voice asked.
The two men looked at each other before the driver spoke for both of them. “Just a minor one, but we took care of it.”
There was a pause. “Don’t be late.” The video chat bell rang signaling that the voice had hung up the call.
I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard that voice before. It was so familiar yet I couldn’t place it.
The driver turned left causing the dead body to shift closer toward me. I held back the vomit that was rising in my throat. The van stopped. My heart was in my throat competing with the vomit to choke me. I peeked and saw the two men get out of the van. I struggled to prop my body against the back door so I could get a look out of the window. There were a group of men talking to the two men who had kidnapped me. They had tattoos on their face and body and many of them had a matching tattoo insignia. I assumed those were gang tattoos. Terrified they'd see me, I tried to duck down while still peeking.
The driver spoke to one man who was standing in front of all the other men. He yelled at the leader in Spanish. They had an exchange of words and then out of nowhere the leader of the gang pulled out a gun and shot the driver. I saw the passenger jump back in shock. His tone of voice also changed. He waved his arms in the air and it sounded like he was begging the man not to kill him, too. The gang leader looked at him for a moment before raising his gun and shooting him dead where he stood.
I covered my mouth to prevent myself from screaming. Out of nowhere, I heard other shots ring out. The gang members appeared surprised and they all turned around to find a group of men shooting at them. I watched them take cover and start shooting back. What was going on? Did I really end up in the middle of a gang war in Mexico?
I dove to the floor and covered my head praying that no stray bullets would pierce the metal van and hit me.
Sirens blasted in the air getting louder as the shooting died down. For several long minutes, I heard nothing. Then I heard a voice speak English. “Check the van!”
Terror swept through me like a tornado. I couldn’t move myself to move. The sound of footsteps got closer. This was it. I was going to die right here. I closed my eyes and said a prayer to God to keep my parents safe.
I heard the back door of the van open and a black-haired man stood there in a blazer and blue jeans staring back at me. On his blazer jacket, he wore a metal badge. My brain slowly realized he was a police officer. “Marlene? Is that your name?” He asked.
Too overwhelmed, I nodded my head and began to cry.
The cop held out of hand for me to help me out of the van. I pulled him in tight to me and didn't want to let him go. He was the first figure of normalcy I had seen in a month.
“Are you hurt?” He asked.
Still sobbing I mustered up the strength to answer. “No.”
“You are safe.” He placed a hand on my shoulder to comfort me. “Stay here. I have an ambulance on the way.”
“Thank you,” I muttered.
I sat on the ground watching the police work the crime scene when I noticed a cop around the bodies of the driver and passenger. He was digging in their pockets. He pulled out a cell phone from the driver’s pocket and put it in his own. I couldn't help think the phone was evidence and it was strange that they were handling it without gloves. I dismissed the thought, grateful to finally be safe. I was finally free.
CHAPTER 12
A week later I was still in the hospital for dehydration and malnourishment among a couple of other things. My mother never left my side. My father still had to work but would come to the hospital every day after work and sit with me while my mother got some sleep. I told them everything and apologized for disobeying them that day and sneaking over to Dmitri’s house.
FBI Special Agent Don Roberts was the man who pulled me out of the van that day. He came by to check on me and to get my account of the events. I told him everything. About Dmitri and his parents. About the other girls locked in the basement. About the two guys who drove me to Mexico and the poor unfortunate stranger who died trying to help me.
Special Agent Roberts looked at me strangely. “This isn’t adding up, Marlene.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He took a long pause. “We can confirm there was a student named Dmitri who attended your school, but we cannot confirm that his parents worked at the embassy. He has since withdrawn from high school and we are checking into that.”
“All I know is what he told me,” I was shocked.
“There’s something else,” he began. “We went to the house you described.
“Were you able to save the women?” I was excited that all those girls would be saved.
“There were no women. There was no sign of anyone in the basement or in the house. According to the real estate company, that house has been vacant for months.”
The news hit me right in the gut and blasted the air right out of my lungs. “What do you mean? I spent a month locked up in that basement with them.”
“Our team went through the entire house and did not find one clue that could determine that anyone you describe ever lived there.”
CHAPTER 13
I ’d been at this for hours and I was still getting the same results. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Not after everything I’d been through. My posts on Facebook and Instagram about the kidnapping and my story had been wiped clean from the internet saying that it violated their terms of service. I knew that I hadn’t violated any rules. This was something else. Something more devious. I tried it several times and each time I refreshed the page it came up blank.
“Mom!” I shouted down the hall until she answered me. “Please come here!” I pounded my finger on the keyboard, hitting the ‘enter’ key repeatedly until my finger turned red and throbbed.
“What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong?” My mom peered into my room looking concerned.
“Look at this,” I explained and showed her what I was talking about. “You can’t tell me this is some coincidence.”
“That doesn’t seem so strange to me, darling.” My mother insisted. “I mean if you’ve told your story and they pulled it down, then maybe it’s too intense for the internet.”
“Something is going on, mom. I’m not imagining it.” I turned to her, my cheeks burned in anger and frustration.
“Calm down, honey. It will all be alright.” She shifted her stance to stand in front of me. “Maybe if you step away from the computer for awhile. It’s making you a little paranoid.”
“I’m not crazy, mom. Don’t call me crazy!” Tears streamed down my face. I was so hurt that she could call me paranoid.
“I didn’t call you crazy, Marlene. Please calm down.” She gave me a strange look.
I blurted out. “You and dad can’t pretend it didn’t happen! It happened. It happened to me!”
I began crying and shaking, unsure of what I was going to do. The room felt heavy and dark. I tried taking a deep breath in but the air seemed too thick.
My mom opened her arms and stepped forward to embrace me, “We know it happened, Marlene. We are so sorry it happened to you.”
She held me in her arms and for a moment I felt like that little girl who scraped her knee and was healed by her mother’s love. “Just believe me,” I pleaded.
“I do believe you.” She cried.
“They’re coming after me. It’s not over.” I released myself from her embrace and ran out of my room, down the stairs, and bumped into my father.
“What’s going on, pumpkin?” He grabbed my shoulders.
“They’re going to come after me, daddy. I need you to believe me. Please daddy!” I cried.
“You’ve been through a traumatic time, Marlene. Calm down.” He said.
“They’re taking my posts down on social media. Th
ey don’t want the truth out there.” I plead.
“Who’s taking your posts down?” He looked at me sideways. “Who are you talking about?”
“The people who kidnapped me. They had a whole system set up. They know how to hack into any system, I’m sure of it.” I heaved in a bunch of air through my mouth as my nose was stuffed up with mucus. I leaned my head into my father’s chest.
“The kidnappers are dead, Marlene. Don’t you remember what happened in Mexico?” My dad put his hand on my head.
“No! Those were the guys who were going to deliver me to the guy who paid for me. They weren’t the masterminds behind this. Please daddy, believe me.”
“I do believe you, princess.” He said. “But you have to calm down. It won’t resolve anything by dwelling on it. You’re scaring us Marlene.”
His comment infuriated me. I pulled away from him. “I have a right to dwell on it daddy.” I lifted my arms and mimicked air quotes on the word ‘dwell’ in a condescending tone. “You and mom don’t understand. Nobody understands.” I pushed past him and ran out the door before either one of them could stop me.
I took off running in the direction of Dmitri’s house. It was the one place that could prove my story true. I pumped my hands and let my feet carry me a couple blocks until I was in front of his house. I bent over in his driveway, trying to get my breath. I heard there were new owners but I didn’t care. For all I knew, they could have been in on it, too.
Two kids from the neighborhood rode past me on their bikes, reminding me that before all of this life was simpler and I wished I still felt that way. I wished I could have gone back before all of this. I felt so ashamed of having chased Dmitri, lying to my parents and sneaking over to his house.
I walked up to the house and knocked on the door. A woman with short black hair and small frame answered the door wiping her hands with a dishcloth. “Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” I pushed past her and ran inside, ignoring her screams and protests.
“Tom! Help!” She called for a man named Tom, who I assumed was her husband.
He followed me into the kitchen. “Who are you? What are you doing in our home?” The man screamed.
I noticed the house was furnished differently this time than from what I remembered. I opened the basement door.
“Hillary, call the police!”
I turned on the basement light and ran down the stairs. My heartbeat violently as I looked around. A shock of disbelief came over me. No one was there. Not one person was down in that basement. This couldn’t be reality. The walls were painted white and drywall covered the wood slats that were there before.
I fell to my knees in utter desperation. I knew I wasn’t imagining all of this but it was all too overwhelming. Pulling my knees into my chest, I began crying. A voice peered from out of the confusion repeating the words, “I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy. I’m not crazy.” That’s when I realized the voice I heard was my own.
Dropping my head in my hands, I rocked back and forth unable to stop the panicked feeling swelling up inside of me. A barrage of footsteps stomped down the stairs and then I felt several pairs of hands grab my arms. Officers held me down as I screamed. They fastened tight handcuffs around my wrists.
I’m not crazy. I know I’m not crazy. They were here. It happened to me.
CHAPTER 14
“M arlene, would you like to speak to the group today?” Mrs. Anderson asked. She was the psych ward counselor and had been my one-on-one therapist for the past four days.
I looked around to see everyone in the group looking at me. My palms began to sweat as I shook my head no. The room was filled with about twelve other residents here all dealing with their own mental health issues. Some seemed crazy while others seemed stressed but normal. I didn’t belong here and would probably never forgive my parents for admitting me.
“This concludes our meeting for today,” Mrs. Anderson dismissed us. I returned to my room and laid down on the bed, ignoring my roommate’s failed attempts at singing to an old eighties song.
There was a knock on our open door. One of the staff called out to me. “Marlene, don’t forget you have a session in about five minutes.” She smiled and then left.
Early on in my stay here I tried to tell the staff about my story. I tried to give them the information about the kidnappers and Dmitri and his parents, but everyone looked at me like I had lost my mind. They all had the same fake smile plastered on their faces, head cocked to the side, nodding in understanding, but I could tell they didn’t believe me. They thought I was just another crazy person telling made up stories.
I got up and walked down the hall to Mrs. Anderson’s office, knocked on her door, and waited for her to answer. She opened the door. “Come in, please.” She gestured for me to sit in a chair on the opposite side of hers across from her desk.
Mrs. Anderson was smart and appeared to be a decent human being to me, but I felt like she was just patronizing me at times. I was so exhausted from this week and trying to convince everybody that my story was true. Eventually, I gave up trying.
I grabbed the water bottle sitting next to my chair, unscrewed the cap and took a big swig.
“You have done well these past four days.” She tapped her pen on the desk. “You will be able to go home tomorrow.”
A sliver of a smile appeared out of the corner of my mouth. It had been the first smile in over a week. What did it mean that I could go home? I’d go back into my parent’s house where neither of them believed me. I sunk lower in my chair and stared out of the window watching a bird take flight. I wished I could have been a bird and flown far away from my life here.
“Do you want to add anything to our conversation yesterday?” She asked.
“No, ma’am.” I’d already told her everything that happened to me. It felt like wasted effort to try and convince the people around me that I was still in danger.
“What about your social media posts. Why do you think there are people who are blocking your posts?” She asked.
“Because I can identify them. I’ve seen their faces and I know who they are. I can point them out if I had to, but you don’t believe me. Nobody does.” Sitting in the leather chair, I drew my knees up into my chest.
“And why do you think they would risk coming after you?” She asked.
“Because they probably know about what happened to the two guys who were taking me to Mexico. They know by now that they were killed and that I was set free. It was all over the news.” I answered.
The press had been camped outside my house for days trying to get an interview with me. My father’s attorney managed to arrange security to protect me from it. A pang of guilt and shame overwhelmed me. I’d put my parents through so much worry. All I wanted was to get out of here and return to some kind of normal life. Although I knew my life would never be normal again. This wasn’t the kind of thing you just moved on from.
I missed my friends and I missed high school. I just wanted to put the whole thing behind me. It still stung that no one believed me. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I left. I still had to protect myself because I knew it wasn’t over. There’s no way they’d let me live having witnessed what I saw.
My heart was having trouble forgiving my parents. They were the ones who admitted me into this program. I’d been so angry with them four days ago, resolving never to forgive them. My mother was crying when they took me away. My father assured me everything would be alright. But to me? It was a betrayal. Why didn’t they just believe me? Especially after what I’d just been through. How could they do this to me?
Feelings of bitterness swelled inside of me. I wiped the tears away from my eyes, pretending there was something caught in them.
“You’re going to be okay.” Mrs. Anderson said.
“How do you know?” I turned my head to wait for her response.
“Because you’re a survivor.” She retorted. “And that’s evidenced by the fact you
’re still sitting here today.”
It was a kind compliment and part of me knew it was the truth, but I felt so alone. Nobody understood what I’d gone through. And I felt guilt for all those women who didn’t get away. The women who would still have to suffer through the filthy conditions of a basement, and the humiliation of being sold as an object to the highest bidder. I wondered where they were right now.
My eyes shifted back to the birds outside wishing again that I could be one of them and fly north for the winter. Maybe I could change my name, dye my hair and be somebody entirely different.
“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss today, Marlene?” Mrs. Anderson asked.
“No,” I said.
“Okay then. I’ll sign your discharge papers today. Your parents will be here tomorrow to pick you up.” She shuffled the papers on her desk.
“Thank you for being so kind to me,” I said.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with you, Marlene. Remember the tools you learned here when things get scary.” She stood up and walked around the table to shake my hand. I reached out to meet her halfway and she held my hand for a moment. “I know it might be difficult to understand or believe right now, but you have parents who love you and who are on your side. Reach out to them when you start feeling anxious.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” I said.
She opened the door to her office. I stood up and gave her a hug. “Thank you.”
She gave me an encouraging smile.
I went back to my room and laid on the bed I’d made up that morning. We were responsible for making our beds each morning. It was one of the rules and honestly, kind of a confidence builder for me. It was something I could accomplish each day and feel good about.
I put my hands behind my head and crossed my ankles wondering when the terror in my mind would stop and when I would return to that naive seventeen year old girl again, knowing full well that girl was dead.
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