My mind was racing away from me, and I committed to getting a grip. After all, Janice was the one who saved me from being murdered by the FBI and drove me to safety. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s part of the plan that I’m not meant to know. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and drifted slowly off to sleep. Sometime later, a knock at the door woke me up.
“Come upstairs. We’re gonna talk about our plans for tomorrow.” Robert called out through the door.
“The Raid is happening tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yes, he replied.”
“Where’s Janice?” I asked as I opened the door to face him.
“She’s still in bed. Why do you ask?”
“I saw her last night whispering to someone on her phone and it was a little suspicious. When I confronted her, she ran upstairs.” I explained.
What do you mean?” Robert stopped, turned around and looked at me before turning to run up the stairs. I followed quickly behind him, running to catch up. We walked down the hallway toward Janice’s room. Robert turned the knob and opened the door to find that she wasn’t in it. Her bed was undisturbed and hadn’t been slept in. Janice was gone.
Robert’s eyes widened in a slow realisation of what was going on.I felt a surge of panic as the pit of my stomach threatened to empty its contents. This was bad. This was terrible. I saw the window wide open and ran over to it to look outside. Janice’s car was nowhere to be found. I looked again around the room, hoping I was wrong, hoping that she hadn’t abandoned us, but I noticed that all of her clothes were gone. Everything she owned was gone. Robert looked out the window and then back at me. As our eyes met, we both realized this was as bad as it looked.
I noticed a red laser light was on his stomach. It didn’t register to me at first what it was,but as it moved up to his head forehead I realized it was a laser used on a weapon to track a target. “Robert, look out!” I screamed.
It was too late. Blood splattered all over the room and all over my face. Robert’s lifeless body dropped to the ground. I screamed repeatedly to the horror that was unfolding in front of me. More gunshots followed, this time shooting at the house. I heard the ping of the bullets as they hit the wall behind me. I ducked and fell to the floor. The bullets were coming much too fast to be a simple pistol. It must have been a higher powered semi-automatic weapon. I held my hands over my head, trying to protect myself. I heard the chorus of screams upstairs as the others realized what was happening. It felt like forever until the bullets stopped. I crawled out of the doorway and went upstairs. The people were scrambling around as they grabbed their guns.
“Stay here, Marlene.” The woman with the hat said. They took off through the front door, cocking their guns, getting ready for retaliation.
CHAPTER 29
I kept my head down and peeked outside. What I saw amazed me. Fifteen of our people stood outside, guns locked and loaded at the ready. Observing and watching. They slowly surrounded the perimeter of the area to see where the gunshots were coming from. They ran out into the middle of the field, unafraid of what they might find. I stared outside, looking for the shooter. Was he up high somewhere or across the street? I wasn’t sure. Just then the gunshots started again. I saw my new friends, the team of people in the revolution that was supposed to help us, get gunned down in the middle of the field in front of the house.
Terror swept over me. There was nobody left to help us. It was a surreal feeling. Like I was living in a nightmare that wouldn’t end and I couldn’t wake up no matter how hard I tried. Robert was dead and now all of these good kind-hearted people, too. I couldn’t help but feel guilty. If it were not for me, maybe they would still be here. I screamed in horror and ran downstairs.
“Mom! Mom!” I shake her and screamed until she stirred out of her sleep. “Wake up, mom! We’ve got to go right now!”
“What’s going on?” Her grogginess was fading.
I pulled her out of bed. “How could you not hear the shots?”
“I don’t know. I feel so tired. What’s going on?” My mother asked.
“They’re all dead, mom. All of them. Robert and everyone else. They’re gone!” I yelled trying not to get hysterical.
I pulled her to her feet and dragged her up the stairs to the first floor. I showed her “Look for yourself.”
She looked outside and screamed.
“We don’t have time for this. Put on your shoes. We’ve got to go right now.” I yelled.
“Where’s Robert?” My mom asked.
“I told you. He’s dead. They’re all dead. We are going to be next if we don’t go.”
Suddenly she understood the weight of the problem and quickly ran back to the basement, grabbed her shoes and her things. I followed her and collected my belongings and together we ran outside the back door and into the woods hoping that nobody saw us leave.
I could hear somebody coming through the bushes, rustling up the tall grass as they ran after us. “Keep running, mom!”
My mother is older, but she tried her best to keep up with me. A bullet zoomed past my head and hit a tree. I remembered something I learned on the internet once that said if you’re ever being fired at not to run in a straight line but in a zigzag pattern. I tried it and it was harder than I thought. When the bullet passed me, I ducked and screamed. My mom fell to the ground as she tripped on a tree root.
“Mom, let’s go!” I turned around and helped her to her feet. We started running deep into the woods. The footsteps seemed to close in on us. I felt a pair of hands push me hard to the ground. A man in a suit with dark sunglasses wrestled with me as I fought and kicked him. He tried to get my hands pinned above my head but I turned and wriggled away.
“Get off my daughter!” My mom yelled as she hit the man on the head. She delivered blow after blow to the man.
Time slowed down as I watched her hit the man, impressed at my mother’s agility to still fight off an attacker. I didn’t know why that ran through my mind, but the surge of adrenaline put everything into slow motion. Another man ran up behind us and wrapped his arms around my mom, tackling her to the ground. She screamed and yelled before they threw her off her feet and stumbled backwards with the man on top of her. I got one good slap in on the man and then clawed his face, putting scratches over his forehead and nose. He yelped. I heard several other voices. There were men’s voices, and they were running toward us.
“Hold her still.” One man said.
“Hurry!” Another said.
I felt a sharp pain in my leg and realized that they injected me with something. My breathing was labored, and I was getting exhausted. My head grew foggy and my vision slowly faded to black.
CHAPTER 30
M y head pounded against my skull as I slowly woke up and realized that I wasn’t home. I wasn’t in my bed. I wasn’t in a safe spot. I was in what appeared to be a van. I tried moving my hand to bring it to my head, but I realized they tied me up. This looked familiar, and in fact, the van looked like the same van from last time. I tried to look around, but my vision was still a little blurry. As it cleared, I noticed that my mother was laying next to me asleep. They must have drugged us. The last thing I remembered was being in the woods with a team of men all around us.
A familiar voice toward the front passenger seat rang out. I turned, trying not to gain attention from anyone, but get a peek at who was sitting in the passenger seat. I confirmed my suspicions when I noticed Janice’s brown hair.
My blood boiled seeing Janice. She had betrayed us all. And as a result, sixteen people were dead. I didn’t want them to know that I had been awake, so I pretended to be asleep for the next several minutes. The van slowed down and then turned. I heard Janice and the driver talking. We were turning into a gas station. The driver put the van in park and turned off the ignition before leaving. I sat there looking at Janice. She was unaware that I was awake until she turned around and saw me looking at her.
“I’m so sorry, Marlene.” Janice said.
“You betrayed us all. How can you live with yourself?” I asked.
“I had no choice.” Janice’s eyes started to tear up. “I’m so sorry.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “We’re back in DC.”
The door opened suddenly, as the driver got back in the van. I put my head down and pretended to be asleep so that he wouldn’t notice. He turned the ignition on, put the van in reverse, pulled out of the parking lot and drove on. Janice turned around to take a quick look behind her and made eye contact with me. As I peeked to see what’s going on, she had a guilty look in her eyes. She should have felt some remorse. She was responsible for making everything worse.
I wondered why we were in DC. I heard the familiar noise of traffic as we drove over the bridge. It was the Potomac. I put my head on the little window that separated me from the driver’s seat and noticed that we were driving closer to the White House until I realized we were at the gate. The driver pulled up to the security guard and rolled down the window. “You got the girl?” He asked.
“Yeah, and her mom.” The driver responded.
“Move on.” The security guard waved him through. The van drove down the driveway.
“Why are we at the White House?” I asked.
“Shut up.” The driver yelled back. He turned into a dark garage that seemed to go underground. He parked and after a minute opened the back of the van. There were several men in suits waiting. When the van doors opened, they grabbed me and my mom. One agent slung my mother over his shoulder. They made me walk with my hands tied behind my back. I saw Janice stay in the van as we were taken away. Where would they take us? And what would become of Janice?
I followed them, understanding that the only way to figure out how to get out of here was to comply for now. They led me to a door that had a lock on it. One agent typed a code on the door and put his fingerprint to be scanned on it. The door opened and inside was an elevator. I started shaking because I didn’t know where we were going. I got nervous the deeper we went in that we would never come out.
We entered the elevator, and one agent pushed the button. It went down for what felt like ten minutes. We must have been going to the underground bunker that was created for the president in times of national security threats. The doors opened and I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. In a room were hundreds of girls on the ground chained up. The room extended like a long corridor. The girls watched me as they escorted me past them. It was strangely quiet. Tears fell from my eyes as I realized the horrifying truth. I was once again the victim of trafficking.
CHAPTER 31
T hey put my mother and I in a room separate from the rest of the girls. I didn’t know why they made that decision, but I was grateful. I had already experienced that environment more than I ever wanted to in my life. While I was sorry and empathetic to those girls, I needed the time to think about how we were going to get out of here. The room was clean and white, and looked like they had used it for meetings.
It almost looked like it used to be an office, but the chairs and tables and everything that would adorn an office was taken out and the only thing that remained was carpet and walls.
Somehow my mom could sleep again. I didn’t know if it was just because of all the trauma we had endured over the past few days. My father’s death hit us both hard, but I knew that my mother depended on my dad for everything, especially emotional support. I wasn’t sure what we would do from here on out without him. When she woke up, I told her everything about what had happened, how Janice had betrayed us and where we were.
“Mom, it’s just so awful. This is exactly how it was when I was kidnapped before.” My voice squeaked.
My mom reached out and pulled me to her. We embraced and held onto each other because that’s all we had.
“This is a sick world we live in, Marlene. Whatever happens, just know that I love you.” She squeezed me tight.
“I love you too, mom.” We both cried as we held each other in the empty room.
The door opened suddenly and a man with a mask on walked in with a tray that contained a plate with two microwaved burritos. He sat it on the floor before backing out, shutting and locking the door behind him. There wasn’t any time to react or overpower him.
My brain seemed to have been foggy and delayed from being able to make quick decisions. I looked at the food and then my mother. She picked it up and ate it. I took it away from her. “Don’t eat this or anything that they bring you. How do you know they haven’t drugged it?”
“But I’m hungry.” She said.
“You’ll be alright,” I said. “Just don’t eat or drink anything they have given you.” I warned her.
“You know your father made me burritos all the time when we were first married and broke.” My mother smiled at that memory.
“Oh really?” I offered.
“Yeah, he always made the times we struggled feel like an exotic experiment.” She laughed. “He’d tell me we were eating like the Aztecs ate long ago. I knew he was full of it, but I loved his imagination.”
We spoke for a little while, comforting each other about the wonderful memories of my father. I fell asleep shortly after and awoke with a knock on the door that woke us out of our sleep. The door opened and a vast crowd of at least fifty women wearing blood red robes passed by the door. The man threw two red robes, matching the women walking by.
“Take your clothes off and put this on.” He said.
“Where are we going? I demanded.
He ignored me and closed the door. My mom and I looked at each other, unsure what to do. We were supposed to take our clothes off, but that would not happen.
The same man opened the door again, only this time he had a gun pointed straight at us. Take your clothes off and put the robe on, ” He demanded.
My mother nodded to me, showing that we should do what he said. We quickly took our clothes off except our underwear and put the robe on over it.
“No. Take all of your clothes off.
Again, my mom and I exchanged glances, embarrassed and humiliated at this already, but knew that he could kill us both if we didn’t do as he demanded. We took off our underwear and threw them to the side. I fasten the red robe with the ties that were attached to it.
“Get out here,” he demanded and waved the gun at us.
We both walked out the door into the crowd of women in robes. The man was careful to walk behind us.
“where are we going?” I asked again.
He didn’t respond. He just looked straight ahead and urged us to move faster in front of him. If he would not answer me, then I would try to figure it out myself. Why did he want us to have red robes on? Why the color red? It dawned on me and my eyes widened as I remembered talking with Janice in the cabin in the woods. My breath caught in my throat as I realized this was a human sacrifice ritual ceremony under the White House.
He was leading us to our deaths. Quickly, I looked for any door that might be open or a way that we could escape. This long corridor didn’t allow for any way but forward. There were so many women crowding the hallway that it was impossible to move. I started crying, feeling helpless and unsure of what to do. I just kept walking forward, knowing that my fate would be sealed if I continued to comply with these people. The women stopped at the end of the hallway in front of the large double door. The man pushed me through another door separating me from my mom.
“Mom!” I screamed.
My mom reached her hand out for me, but it was so fast that she couldn’t grab me in time. The door closed behind me.
“Why did you separate us?” I screamed. “Let me see my mother!”
The man pushed me forward up a staircase. I hated I was crying, but my emotions were taking over and the fear was overwhelming me. It was a biological reaction. Inside, I was furious and hellbent on finding a way out of here. I climbed the stairs and reached the platform. There was a huge glass wall and on the other side of it a room full of people in black robes. I looked th
rough the glass and saw a huge underground arena and a stage in the middle of it. There were hundreds of people in seats in the room, but I couldn’t see their faces. It was extremely quiet. No one said a thing.
I looked behind me and realized I was the only one in this glass case room. I was the only one wearing red in a sea of black audience members. On the walls, I noticed there were pentagrams and other satanic symbols written in what looked to be blood. It carried over onto the ceiling. The audience members were sitting on couches facing each other. It was a gruesome sight. My knees shook from fear. It looked like I was the sacrificial lamb who was being led to the slaughter.
CHAPTER 32
T he man who had guided me to the room at gunpoint left and shut the door, locking it behind him. Another man from across the room entered through the door and shut it behind him. “Nice to finally meet you, Marlene.”
The voice behind the mask removed his hood and mask. His smile creeped me out. And then I recognized his face. It was Hullman. Terror swept through my body as adrenaline rushed through my veins. This was the man who tried to buy me in the beginning.
I said nothing, too terrified to move. My eyes darted around the room, watching everybody stare at me through black hoods and masks. I heard a wave of laughter emanate over the room. Hulman took my arm as he guided me to the center of the room.
“Sit down.” I did as he instructed and sat down on the ground in the center of the stage. They decorated it with a circle and a pentagram in the middle of it. The audience followed me with their eyes. “You have caused a lot of damage to your social media account. We are going to save you for last.” Hullman laughed. “Ladies and gentlemen, reveal yourselves.” Hullman instructed.
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