by Terry Towers
Trust
By
Terry Towers
Trust
Copyright 2014 by Terry Towers
Cover by: Erin Dameron-Hill @ edhgraphics.blogspot.ca
All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotes used for critical reviews and articles no part of this book may be used or reproduced without the written permission of the author Terry Towers. Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Terry Towers can be contacted via her website at www.elixaeverett.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors imagination and used fictitiously.
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Prologue
Gwen
When I close my eyes and am able to block out the horrors going on around me and ignore the aches in virtually every inch of my abused body, I can still hear the cheers of the audience as I’m lifted into the air by the other cheerleaders. The cheers feel so good to imagine that a smile briefly spreads across my chapped and cut lips.
The Fort Louis Cheer Squad is one of the top cheer squads in New England; we were going to take the national championship. I knew it in all my heart, maybe they still will, but I suspect it will be without me. I spend more time than maybe I should wondering who will take my place as captain of the squad; Becky Peters, I bet. She’s petite, popular, everyone loves Becky. Yeah, she would be taking my spot.
When I really concentrate I can remember the feelings of freedom as I let myself go and fall from the top of the pyramid, into the waiting arms of my teammates. I trust my teammates will catch me and they always do. For those few brief moments as I topple I feel like I’m flying, I’m free and nothing can hurt me.
But I was wrong...
How long would it take before they stopped missing me; stopped looking; before I was forgotten about completely? A month? Six months? A year?
Until now, I lived a life of privilege. I was popular, cute, was the girlfriend of the captain of the lacrosse team and had a family who loved me dearly. But that’s gone now and I’ve been thrown into a living hell. I was optimistic when I was first taken that I’d somehow be free again, someone would save me, but now I’m starting to think differently.
I’m no longer a person. I’m a commodity. Gwen Anderson is dead and slave number 342 has taken her place.
Lance
People’s ignorance of the evils that surround them each day amuses me; even people you feel you can and should trust can have a darkness lurking inside, waiting for the moment to bloom into the monster they were born to be. At the grocery store, teaching at the local schools, taking positions in the government (although I doubt anyone would argue with me on that one) and even the people who swore to protect you – law enforcement. They all have a price and with that price can be manipulated into doing anything we need.
I have a plan, years in the making. It’s perfect – foolproof. All I need is to keep myself focused on the big picture – my ultimate goal. I swore that I wouldn’t get emotionally involved with the slaves. The slaves were at the compound because they were special and unique and unfortunate enough to get noticed – not my concern or my problem. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, it’s the way of life. They’re nothing more than collateral damage.
Things were all falling into place.
But then she arrived…
She tests my patience and my will. She angers and frustrates me, making the darkness within scream to be released. I want to ignore her, but I can’t. I need to let her go, but can’t seem to allow her to be sent away.
Damn her, she’s going to ruin everything…
Chapter 1
Gwen
“Oh come on Gwen, don’t be like that.” My boyfriend, Brandon Phillips, gave me a hurt look, his hazel eyes pleading with me to reconsider. His pants were undone and his shaft was exposed and rubbing against my inner thigh, as he waited for my approval to take things further and give him the one thing he’d been wanting from me for over a year.
It hurt me to upset him; his expression tore at my heart and nearly swayed me. But my conviction held strong. “We agreed to wait until graduation, so it can be special, Brandon.” Pushing at his chest I struggled to sit up, pulling my sports bra in our school colours – blue and white – and cheerleader sweater down over my exposed chest.
Truth was, I wasn’t quite sure Brandon was the one I wanted to give my virginity to. I loved him, but I was starting to think I wasn’t in love with him anymore, if I ever was to begin with. He was a good guy from a good upper-class family and my parents loved him. And we fit together perfectly, our high school’s power couple – the envy of all our peers.
It should have been perfect, but, it wasn’t… for me anyhow. A voice in the back of my head told me he wasn’t the one and I was having a hard time ignoring it. Most of my friends had had sex and told me to stop being such a prude and give it to him already; they said sex is incredible. I didn’t doubt that, I was sure it was – with the right person. I was no stranger to orgasms, masturbating more times than I could count, but never to the image of Brandon and I thought that was a sign. Correction, I knew that was a sign.
“Besides,” I said as I pulled down my plaid skirt and attempted to keep my eyes from his bobbing member as he sat up and tucked himself away, “I’m on my period.”
I wasn’t. My period was my standby excuse for not wanting to “do it,” and it tended to be effective. Just not this time.
“You were on your period two weeks ago Gwen,” he snapped and I saw anger flash in his eyes. He rarely got angry with me, but it had been becoming less rare lately.
“And. Your point.” I matched his anger and squirmed away from him and off of his bed. “You calling me a liar? Want to check and find out for sure?” I was bluffing and prayed he didn’t call me on it otherwise I’d be busted.
His face blanched and he shook his head, getting off of the bed to stand before me, his 6’1 frame towering a foot above mine. “Forget it. You might as well go home, it’s getting late.”
“I can give you a hand job,” I purred, reaching for the front of his pants. It was the best I could offer. I’d sucked him off lots of times, but he’d pissed me off and I had no interest in doing that for him tonight. I didn’t appreciate the look he’d given me or the tone his voice had taken. He was lucky I was offering a handy at this point.
“No, forget it. I’m losing wood anyhow.” He walked past me and motioned for me to follow. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
I should have been upset, I was being dismissed, but I wasn’t. I was relieved.
“No. I wanna walk home.” I followed him into the foyer and slipped on my white canvas running shoes.
“It’s almost midnight Gwen, you shouldn’t be walking alone this time of night.”
I snorted at him, grabbed my backpack from the floor and flung it over my shoulder. “Oh please, Brandon. I live twenty minutes away and nothing bad happens in our neighbourhood.”
“Gwen.” He gave me a no-nonsense stare, but stopped putting o
n his second sneaker. “I think I should take you home.”
“I’m fine. Jesus, stop sounding like my parents. I’m eighteen for God’s sakes.” I pushed past him and grabbed the door handle. Turning back to him I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Text me later, ’kay? Love you.”
Liar, my conscience screamed at me.
“Love you too,” he grumbled, giving in and kicking his sneaker back off. “Don’t forget to text when you get home so I don’t worry.”
Opening the front door, I was greeted by a gush of cool spring night air. Closing my eyes I inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled. It felt good, freedom. Turning back I shot him the brightest smile I could muster and nodded. “Sure will. Night.”
Not waiting for a reply, I closed the door behind me. He’d be pissed and pout for a day or two, but then he’d remember graduation was only two months away and get over it. It felt like we’d been through this exact scenario a million times already.
Dismissing the thoughts of Brandon and the pressure to have sex from my mind I leisurely made my way down the street toward my house. It was such a beautiful night, the stars appeared to shine extra bright as if in competition with the full moon ahead of me. The streets were deserted and it was so quiet I could hear crickets chirping on the lawns of the houses I walked past. I loved the soft chirps of crickets; there was nothing more relaxing than sitting out on the back patio at night, reclining back in a chair with a novel – normally a crime story of some sort – and having the crickets chirping in the background.
I smiled as I continued my walk. I had a good life. A very good one. I wasn’t one of those teenagers who would bitch and whine about petty things. I appreciated everything my parents did for me. I had everything that mattered, most importantly loving parents who pressured me – some might say maybe a little too much – to overachieve, but that got me an acceptance to Stanford for the fall semester so I was thankful to them. So far in my eighteen years, I had no regrets and only anticipation for what the future held for me.
A third of the way home, my tranquil state gave way to one of alarm. An uneasy feeling came over me and I increased the pace of my steps. Looking around me nothing appeared out of the ordinary; there were no cars following behind me and no lone strangers walking ahead or behind me. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling.
Continuing to quicken my pace as the feeling of foreboding increased, by the time I hit the halfway mark to home I was jogging. I was about to dismiss the feeling in my gut when a vehicle came up behind me at a speed too fast for this neighbourhood, although I didn’t think it mattered too much to the driver. Speeding would be the least of the crimes for the passengers of this vehicle tonight.
I spun around, my shoulder-length, golden hair whipping into my face and as I brushed it back, the side door of the van slid open and two masked men leaped out. I was so shocked, I found myself rooted in the spot for a second, unable to even scream for my life. But suddenly my inner terror and survival instincts took over and I kicked into flight mode. I turned back around intent on sprinting to the next house, to the first person who could save me from whatever it was that was about to happen, but I only got two steps before one of the men was on me. His arm wrapped around my waist and another hand holding a white rag covered my mouth, muffling my screams. I kicked and lashed out, my fingernails clawing at the hand covering my mouth, and I was pulled backwards.
My last conscious thought was that I should have let Brandon drive me home or maybe even put out. Despite the faults in our relationship he was always there for me. Would it have killed me to have given him my virginity?
Maybe I’d never know the answer to that question...
~*~*~*~
My head hurt and my mouth and lips were craving any type of liquid. I swiped my tongue across my lower lip, but it was only a temporary relief, making the dryness worse rather than better. While my head was feeling hazy, I knew I wasn’t home in my soft, warm bed. I was on a bed of some sort, hard and lumpy. I imagined it was what a prison cot would feel like. When I slowly opened my eyes all I saw was darkness; it took me a moment to realize I was blindfolded.
Lying completely still, scared any movement would gain the attention of whomever it was who took me, I concentrated on the sounds around me. My head was hurting so damned bad, a continuous thump against my temples making it hard to concentrate on anything but the pain. Forcing myself to focus beyond the pain I heard soft whimpers coming from the left of me and a couple of female voices. They were speaking too low for me to make out what was being said.
After an unknown amount of time, I finally felt assured whoever it was who took me was not in the room so I struggled to sit up on the cot and realized my hands were free. I immediately ripped the blindfold from my eyes and blinked several times, my eyes adjusting to the dim light of the room.
“OhmyGod…” I hardly believed my eyes as I scanned the room, which was actually a dungeon, with 6x8 cells of women lining the walls.
The murmurs of whoever was speaking a moment ago stopped and every set of eyes – all young women who I guessed to be between the ages of 15 and 25 – in the room focused on me. Slowly I slid from the cot and tested my legs on the concrete floor; they seemed to hold me so I rose up to my feet and walked to the front of the cell.
I counted the women in the room. There were twenty cages and twelve had women in them, a mixture of blonde and brunette, Caucasian, African-America, and Asian. All beautiful and slender and naked. I looked down at my cheerleader uniform and wondered why I was allowed my clothing when the others weren’t.
“Where are we?” I looked from one face to the next, but none offered up an explanation. They simply stared.
“Please. Tell me. What’s going on?”
“Shhhh. Lower your voice or they’ll come.” My head whipped to the cell to my immediate left to see a tall, black woman with long, mussed-up black curls motion for me to come closer.
Hoping for some sort of answer I walked over to her and leaned in closer. “What’s going on?”
“You’re for sale now, honey.”
“What?” Even though I asked the question the situation became perfectly clear. I was a hardcore book junkie and I loved true stories and documentaries, especially ones involving women who’d been taken for various reasons. A class I planned on taking for my fall courses was on the human slave trade – the irony that I may just be part of what I planned to study wasn’t lost on me. Never had I considered I’d be one of them. I had a very good idea of the scenarios that could play out for me; the knowledge was both a blessing and a curse.
“We stay here until we’re ready for sale. They take us out once in a while for training and to be put on display or to auction us and then throw us back here until they’re ready for us.”
“How long have you been here?”
The woman shrugged. Upon looking closer at her I saw her body was littered with long red gashes, especially on her backside and lower back. Her lip was cut and slightly swollen. I didn’t even want to imagine what she’d endured and the scary thing was she appeared to be one of the women in the best condition.
I looked around the room once again. There were no windows so there was no telling what time of day it was. One string of dim fluorescent lights running from one end of the room to the other hung above us, lighting the room, and there was only one steel door in and out. Looking behind me I saw my cell contained three things, a cot, a bucket and a roll of toilet paper.
So kind of them to supply ass wipe.
Seeing the bucket made me realize one more thing; it fucking stunk in there, a combination of piss, shit, puke and blood. It was nasty, but despite the smell it seemed to be as clean as a dungeon could be.
“So what happens now?”
We heard footsteps outside of the door and a key working the lock. The black woman’s eyes widened and she stepped away from the bars and rushed to her cot, sitting down and lowering her eyes to the floor. The other women followed suit, scurrying to the
ir cots and keeping their eyes glued to the floor.
“Sit and pray they’re not coming for you. Now shut up and get in position,” my neighbour hissed under her breath.
I crinkled my nose up at her, get in position? Despite her warning I couldn’t. I walked to the front of my cell and prepared to meet my captors. I swallowed down a lump of fear threatening to overtake me. I needed to stay calm, focused, if I wanted to get out of this alive. Losing myself in my fear wasn’t going to help. I needed to plan, strategize, wait for the best moment to try and gain my freedom – until then I would go along with whatever they wanted me to. I’d be the star captive, until they let their guard down. Then I’d take my chance at freedom.
Gwen Anderson is nobody’s slave.
The lock disengaged and the door flung open.
Chapter 2
Lance
I watched from the second floor of the housing quarters of the compound as Tanner pulled the unconscious cheerleader from the side of the van and slung her over his shoulder. Her golden hair veiled her face from my view, but I didn’t need to see it; every delicate feature from her heart-shaped face to her large, sapphire blue eyes, and pouty lips was engraved in my brain.
Followed by his two men – Jazz and Connor – Tanner proceeded across the driveway and into the building, using the main entrance directly below me. I’d been here for well over two years, closer to three, I think. Usually I kept my distance from the slaves. I had other daunting duties and obligations to the organization; the last thing I had any interest in was the emotional and mental anguish that came with kidnapping and selling young women. Human trafficking was a practice I didn’t agree with, but then again considering what I did for the organization, who was I to judge?
Flipping open the file folder I browsed through the dozen pictures of her that had been taken over the past couple of weeks of surveillance. Her boyfriend looked like a douche to me, one of those uptight prep boys who had everything handed to him on a silver platter – I immediately disliked him. There were a couple of pictures of her with her family; her mother Louise, father Harry who happened to be the mayor of the little town she came from, and younger sister Tanya. They were the perfect little family.
