by Theresa Papa
“That little girl is just a child herself. You call that properly taking care of a child? Oh, I forgot you wouldn’t know what a good mother looks like,” I chide her.
“All right, darling, I’ve done my good deed to prepare you. Now I’ve had enough of your sarcasm. Christian, please take her back to her room until we dock,” she orders with a wave of her hand.
Chapter 39
Bethie Pope
No matter how upset I am, the anger won’t ease the fear for my daughter. Here I was sure that no one would ever know about me giving birth to her except my friend Allie in college. She was a young mother, too, struggling to go to school while she worked to provide for her infant son. Allie helped me through the most emotional time in my life. And that says a lot with how my fucked-up childhood went.
As I wear down the carpet in my stateroom pacing, the memories I’ve tried hard to bury are brought back vividly. Especially when I found out I was pregnant from sex I didn’t remember having.
Tony was at Stanford for months, and there was never anyone else I got close to. The OB/ GYN gave me Dr. Baxter’s name to help me figure out what happened. She must have assumed I was roofied in some bar and sexually assaulted without my knowledge. I needed to know what happened to me. I had suffered from memory loss for a while but didn’t find the right doctor to figure it out yet. What it took, was several sessions of hypnotherapy to reveal to Dr. Baxter the details from my subconscious mind. It was even kind of difficult for the good doc to break the reality to me, so he played back the tapes of our session.
I recall my own voice describing the reality of my lost moments as I rub the chaffed skin on my wrists from the cuffs.
On the tapes, I told the account of being led from my bedroom in the middle of the night. My own father was still the culprit; he would bring me to Richard and take Amanda with him. Richard would ease his own conscience by feeding me a hot fudge sundae or a Frappuccino. Then most every time it was the same. He would tell me to undress and lie down on the bed while he masturbated, staring from the foot of the bed. I was never allowed to look away. Then he would film me with a boy close to my age.
Whatever they gave me made me compliant. The only baffling detail is that until Dr. Baxter played the taped sessions back, I never remembered anything afterward like when I was a small child.
There is a knock on the door, followed by Christian entering.
“It’s time to go, Ms. Pope. We are docked. I have to put this over your head when we get into the car,” he says as he holds up a black hood.
I wrap my arms around myself and shrug before I follow him up onto the deck.
The last rosy bits of dusk paint the western sky as the sun sets on the horizon. The gleaming white yacht looms over us as we descend the ramp, its length enormous and sleek. I take a deep breath of the salt air. As I look backward, my eyes are drawn to the long rows of portholes and then to the balcony higher up where my mother stands once again to witness the facilitation of her betrayal.
~~~
By the time we arrive, and I’m allowed to remove the hood, as inky black skies loom overhead. The only light filters from a security fixture above the massive garage door of the industrial building as it rises up from within the jungle. The place seems so remote and menacing in its location among the trees at night. Christian pulls us into the structure through the garage on the right and closes the door quickly behind us. He politely opens the car door for me, and I step down to study the surroundings. With only a few lights above us, I can make out what looks like a movie set. There are all kinds of expensive cameras, sound, and lighting equipment neatly arranged around a playground setting. The devil must be more creative in his films now. I was only filmed in a little girl’s bedroom set, with dolls at a tea party that never happened. A sick anguish consumes me when I ruminate on all the innocent children’s lives Richard has ruined for money.
Christian politely moves me along as he opens the door to a room. He uses the dim light of his phone to guide us inside without revealing what lurks in the blackness around us. He presses me down into a seat and connects my cuffs to the steel arm.
“This is where I say goodbye, Ms. Pope. My orders are to leave you now.”
“Thank you,” I answer, not knowing why I would thank the messenger of my captor. But Christian has been very respectful and almost gentle with me. When Eva showed she liked him, it proved to me that he’s a gentle person. Children sense these things. I choose to assume that he needs the money Richard pays him to feed his family, and I silently forgive him.
I try to adjust my eyes, but it seems as if I’ve been left in a black hole with no way to delineate the surroundings. Now that I’m alone, I can feel how fast my heart beats. I bring my legs up to my chest and wrap my free arm around my knees.
All at once, there is a blast of light that reflects off a movie screen at the front of the room. I can see now that I’m in a theater. As I look around the room and ignore the screen for now, a lone recliner easy chair calls to me.
“My name is Bethie, what’s your name?” comes from the speakers to bring my attention to the screen. To my horror, the voice is my own at five years old. The visage on the screen looking back at me is my five-year-old self. The innocence in my expression brings tears to my eyes because I know now what happened that day after this moment on the screen. I was given the same drug that Jake gave me yesterday, and when it took effect, Richard filmed me being raped by a boy a few years older than I was. I was still too young to know how wrong it was. The drug made everything feel good while it happened to me. The boy was obviously educated by Richard on how to do things while he succumbed to the drug himself.
The next few minutes, I’m mortified as the boy undresses the girl. The whole scene takes place in that frilly girl’s bedroom I remember. The girl is told by someone off the screen to twirl around first, then lie down on the bed. Her erratic breathing makes her chest rise and fall as the boy climbs on the bed next to her. He looks for direction from the off-screen manipulator, nods toward him, and pulls her legs apart. Using his fingers, he massages the girl there. She half-shrieks, half-moans. He looks back again at the director and climbs on top of her…
“Noooo! Stop! Please! Stop it!” I scream.
The film pauses with the nasty picture frozen on the screen. A light comes on in the corner of the large room to illuminate the person in the recliner who was hidden by shadows previously. His profile is the first glimpse I have of the devil. From the depths of hell, he is resurrected into my life again. My throat closes, and panic tightens my chest to render me speechless.
“Hello, Bethie, so nice to finally have you here in the flesh,” Richard says. He swivels the chair and stands to his full six feet two height. White teeth spark against the shadows of his face in the projector’s light. He’s still as trim as I remember, dressed in a dark suit expertly tailored for him with a fitting blood red tie. As he walks toward me, his finer features come into view. He hasn’t aged except for small lines around his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. His black hair is also graying at the temples. He stands in front of me so close I can see the feral desire in his black, soulless eyes. Many women have and probably still find him attractive, but to me, he is an evil fiend from the abyss of my never-ending childhood nightmares.
Chapter 40
Bethie Pope
Once again, just like before I was in treatment with Dr. Baxter, I lost time. It’s as if Richard stands in front of me one moment, and the next he is gone. Similar to how a magician disappears, but without the puff of smoke. Still seated in the chair in the theater, I look down and notice the handcuffs are gone. And so is my precious bracelet. It was my only physical memory of Tony, and the last item with a tracker in it. Who am I kidding? I don’t even know if anyone else is aware of the tracker in my bracelet besides Tony and me. But I have to have hope, to be strong for my daughter, and somehow get us out of this alive.
I’m free to walk
around on my own, so I check the whole place for exits, all locked. Here I am in solitary confinement not knowing what will happen to me. At least when Richard’s son Marcus kidnapped me, he told me what he would expect of me.
The movie screen is black now, the only light in the room comes from the table lamp next to Richard’s recliner. I walk toward it slowly at first then faster as I can see a laptop computer next to the lamp. My hopes are elevated like a hot air balloon rising into the sky. If I can connect to the internet, I can get in touch with the outside world. Maybe even Nico to tell him where I am. But of course, I have no idea where I am, except somewhere in Brazil. But I have to try.
When I open the laptop, the desktop screen has all different folders scattered across the page. I ignore those, then search for a browser or a possible network. No luck, I’m guessing this computer is only loaded with pedophilia files and connected to run the video. This is a screening room for Richard’s products. All those people on the so-called dark web that buy all his perverted wares are sick. Innocent children are being exploited. Humiliation seeps into me while I cringe at the reality of my image all over the internet for people to see.
I fall into the chair disheartened. When I take a big disappointed breath, it brings his scent into my nostrils, propelling me upward and away from the chair. It stinks like Richard and reminds me of when that was all I could breathe in after he’d rape me right before he’d collapse on top of me. Many times, I would bury my face into the pillows to stifle his odor.
I shake myself free of the memories and look around the space again. The wall to the left of the recliner has large built-in cabinets. There are no visible locks, so I attempt to open one and find hundreds of photos neatly stacked in individual sections. Each section seems to be organized by the subject in the picture. To my surprise, many of them have their clothes on, but it deteriorates as the pile continues. There’s camaraderie with each new subject I encounter. An eerie sense of solidarity rises up within me as all the photographs merge into a collage, artfully to blend so many lives into one. I have no way of telling the time as I remain in limbo in search of the young faces for recognition. My mother told me that Richard has not corrupted my little girl, but I want proof. The names on the stacks mean nothing to me because no one has told me what they named her. I don’t even know my own daughter’s name.
Then in the last section, there is a familiar face. I pick up the photograph and gaze into my own eyes at age five. This picture is sure to be me because the background is one I know so well. There’s a tightening in my chest when I realize there are no signs of fear or humiliation in my five-year-old face just like the rest. How did they make all of us so cooperative? As I get to the bottom of my stack, anger takes over. The images create a tense reaction in my muscles and joints that overwhelms me. I tear all the photographs into shreds violently throwing the pieces into the air. The puzzle pieces of these children’s lives fall to the floor like snowflakes. Only there’s no beauty here, like the little frozen works of art God sends down from the sky. No, here is only wicked, degrading filth. By the time the last one is destroyed, my chest heaves and tears cover my cheeks. A deep-seated, frustrated groan escapes my lungs when I finally give in to exhaustion. First, I fall to my knees and then sit propped against the cabinet. Sometime later in my fugue state, I fall into a deep sleep.
Chapter 41
Nico Pope
“Samantha, can you please get the door?” I ask my future wife.
“Sure, sweetie, on my way,” she answers as she opens the door and signs for something from a messenger.
“It’s for you, Nico, a small package,” her voice gets louder the closer she gets to me in the kitchen. I raise myself off the floor from my attempt to fix the stuck garbage disposal.
“Open it, beautiful! What is it?”
Samantha’s shock engulfs her whole face as she holds up the bracelet my cousin Elizabeth wore when she was kidnapped two weeks ago. I quickly check the package for any clues and find nothing.
“I’ll call Charlie and see if they know the tracker is no longer with Elizabeth.” I quickly dial the phone.
When I hang up, Sam waits to be updated.
“Charlie said they knew the tracker was on the move out of Brazil and in transit to the U.S. They already put together a team on standby to fly to Brazil. The team will search for Elizabeth at the coordinates the bracelet was last known to be. My call into him confirmed for them that without a doubt that the bracelet is not with her anymore.”
“I pray they get to her in time,” Sam replies.
I press my lips together to think about my intentions. Samantha and I are in the middle of a huge restoration of the building that Club Beta was previously housed in. Also, our wedding is planned with the stipulation that Elizabeth is safe and in attendance. But the smaller detail Samantha is still handling herself, her dress, would not need my input.
“Jaxson and I should go with them. I know we are in the middle of many different things here, but it’s important,” I plea.
“Elizabeth needs someone there who loves her unconditionally. She needs to feel that right now so she will fight. I can handle things here while you go get your cousin. It will all be fine once she’s back home with us. You and I will never let her feel alone again. No matter what happens, she always has family in us,” Sam sympathizes.
I wrap my arms around the love of my life and thank my lucky stars that I found her. She rests her head on my chest.
“How did I get so blessed to find you? Thank you for understanding.” I kiss the top of her head. Then I pack my duffle for a trip to Brazil.
Chapter 42
Bethie Pope
All the lights in the theater are turned on at once to wake me from my slumber. Large hands pick me up off the floor and swing me over a shoulder while I kick and punch flesh that’s solid as a rock. He takes me into the next room where there was a playground scene the last time I was here. Now it is stripped clean with a large blackboard behind one lone chair. On the board are numbers; they look like the ones in Vegas that report the odds and payouts. He flips me upright, spins me around, and still holds my wrists behind my back.
“You remember Black Crow, don’t you, Bethie?” the devil’s voice erupts from the darkness. A cold, damp shudder runs up my spine as Richard approaches me. His signature cologne engulfs me again as he steps so close.
“Black Crow has won the game. He has delivered you to me unharmed and as beautiful as ever.” He sticks his face close to mine, running his nose from my ear to my clavicle. I tilt my head as far away as possible then grimace once again at the memories his scent conjures up. “Now we must publicly declare him the winner on the website and pay him his reward. But first, we need to have some fun as we prove to the other players that I really do have you in my possession.” Using both hands, Richard rips open the buttons all the way down the shirtdress I have on to leave me in only my underwear. I spit in Richard’s face, and Black Crow tightens his hold. Black Crow is turned on, judging by the evidence nudging me in the ass.
“You’re scum, Richard, and someday karma will take its revenge on you!” I scream.
“Maybe my dear, but oh the fun I will have until then. Especially with you,” Richard threatens. He takes out his handkerchief and wipes his face, “Let’s get started.”
Black Crow drops me into the chair and ties my hands behind the back of the chair with a twist tie. The cold metal freezes my bare ass. Damn thong underwear. Bright lights blind me, and the red light on the camera tells me I’m on the internet in my underwear.
“You’ll pay for this, you bastard!” I scream as I struggle in the chair. Black Crow stuffs a rag in my mouth.
“Good job, Bethie, you’re still a great actress. All our viewers will get off on how badly you struggle, so have at it,” Richard yells. He stands there so smug with his arms crossed and feet wide apart. The red light on the camera beckons him as he walks back and forth in front of i
t. I recognize the exaggerated swagger he always had as he recites his monologue.
“The game has been successful and has now come to an end with Black Crow to cash in on the reward. Here’s the woman I requested you all to stalk and bring to me.” He grabs my hair in his fist and pulls my head back to the point of pain. My eyes water but a certain calmness comes over me. I make the decision then and there to give no more reactions. Why give him what he wants and make the perverts happy. No more. Be a chameleon.
Black Crow is then officially declared the winner of the game. He is given two million dollars for my ass. Wow, at least I’m worth a lot of money.
“What are you going to do with her now, boss?” the asshole Crow asks. “Can I have her when you’re done? This bitch caused me a lot of trouble, and I want to finally show her she’s not so high and mighty.”
He grabs his crotch to indicate his intentions while he raises his eyebrows. Richard walks over to him, and I find it funny to see the difference in the bulk of their bodies next to each other. It’s ironic how Black Crow is beefy and probably outweighs Richard by at least fifty pounds, but Richard is the one with all the power here.
“Get her out of your head, Crow. There’s no chance of you touching her, she’s mine,” Richard declares.
“But, boss, you’ve been fucking her mother all this time. You want the daughter, too?”
“I’ll have her mother, her, and her daughter before I’m finished. Three generations of my obsession finally coming together. It’s going to be epic! Take your money and get the fuck out of here now.”
I scream around the gag and unsuccessfully fight to get free at that revelation from the devil incarnate.
