One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

  Cali raced back to where John William was standing and stood before him. The other children watched as John William put his hand on her ass, pulled her to him forcefully, and kissed her with an open mouth. Shana and Max had both lowered their heads, but Maggie watched, unable to rip her eyes away. She was mortified at what he was doing to her. It was easy to see that Cali was scared of him, and as he groped the teenager, he looked over at Maggie, licked his lips, and pointed at her.

  Maggie peed herself as fright rocked her to the core. John William looked at her wet pants and started to laugh. He loved the power and control he had over the little rodents. It made him feel important. “You’re pathetic, girl!” he said, pushing Cali to the side.

  He walked over to Maggie, pulled Seth from her arms, and pounded him down on the bench next to her. “Stand up and take those pissed jeans off,” he said angrily.

  Maggie hesitated for a moment. John William grabbed her arm and picked her up off the bench. “Do it!”

  Maggie quickly took her jeans off. He smiled. “Underwear too.”

  Maggie stood naked from the waist down with all of the other children watching her. “Now, I want you to clean this mess up. You’ll have to stay like that until your clothes dry. Look everyone, look at the baby who pissed her pants,” John William chanted.

  The other kids looked on, just as they were told to do. They had all been there. They all knew what she was going through. They had surrendered themselves completely in order to survive. It was humiliating, but it was necessary.

  After Maggie cleaned up the urine with her jeans, she sat down on the bench. The cold metal against her skin made her squirm. The others watched her as John William and Cali left the room. Max wished he could do something to protect all of them. He was small and thin for fifteen, no match for John William. He leaned toward the center of the table so Maggie could hear him whisper. “Look, Maggie. It’ll be all right. You can’t let that rotten motherfucker get to you. He’s going to try to wear you down. All he wants is for you to be afraid of him. It makes him feel dominant. But remember that he’s just a big asshole. You need to make him think you’re afraid of him. That way, he won’t bust your shoes as much. If he thinks you ain’t scared, he’ll fuck with you until he knows you are scared. You get it?”

  Maggie nodded. She didn’t have to pretend to be afraid of John William; she was petrified of him already. She looked at Cali, her eyes pleading. “I don’t wanna be here. I wanna go home. Maybe if we all stick together, we can find a way out of here.”

  “None of us want to be here, Maggie. Maybe you’re right. Maybe someday we’ll find a way out,” Max lied in an attempt to comfort her.

  At that moment, Cali and John William came back carrying a large pot of oatmeal. Cali served the oatmeal, and John William gave each of them a small glass of water. “Eat up,” he told the children. “Then it’s time for showers.”

  The children ate their breakfast in silence. Maggie was too hungry to realize that the lumpy, lukewarm oatmeal was tasteless. As she mindlessly ate the slop in front of her, Maggie prayed that her parents would come that day and put an end to her nightmare.

  The shower room was completely open, providing no privacy. Moldy shower heads on one wall spit out small streams of water. Maggie followed the older kids, keeping her eyes glued to the floor. She helped Seth get undressed and washed his hair for him. The others were like soldiers. To them, it was just a way of life. They had been doing it for so long that it didn’t matter anymore. They seemed not to notice that their circumstances were hopeless.

  After the children showered, John William took them back to their cells. This time, he left all of their doors open. It was now Cali’s job to talk to each of them and get them ready for their clients. Shana and Max knew what to expect, but when it came to satisfying the clients, each of them still needed some coaxing. She wanted them back in one piece, and she had assured John William that Maggie would be ready.

  Cali walked into Maggie’s cell, where she was lying on her cot with Seth. “Hey, Maggie, I want to talk to you about tonight.”

  “Why? What’s tonight?” Maggie asked, already dreading the answer.

  “They’re going to bring us all upstairs, and people are going to look at us. The thing is, we’ll all be naked. There’s nothing to worry about, though. No one is going to hurt you. The clients just look at us.”

  Maggie felt like she had swallowed a golf ball as terror moved from her stomach into her chest and settled in her throat. She knew there was nothing she could do to fight back. She threw herself into Cali’s arms and started to cry. Her chest heaved as she pleaded with the teenager to tell John William that she couldn’t do what he wanted her to do. Cali stroked Maggie’s hair. “That isn’t an option, baby. This is what you have to do if you don’t want them to beat you and do awful things to you.”

  “What about Seth?” Maggie asked, hoping she could stay in her cell and babysit him while the others went upstairs.

  “Seth will stay down here while we are upstairs,” Cali told her matter-of-factly.

  “But he’s, he’s just a baby,” Maggie argued.

  “I’m not a baby,” Seth grunted. “I go to the bafroom in the potty.”

  Maggie and Cali ignored his protests.

  “Just be ready, Maggie. Please. It will be easier for you if you’re ready to do whatever they want. We’ll all be together. That has to mean something, right?” Cali asked, trying to make the best out of a dreadful situation.

  Maggie nodded and lay down on the cot, pulling Seth snugly against her body. She thought about her mother and father. They were probably going crazy looking for her. She was sure her little brother, Keith, missed her. He was the same age as Seth and always wanted Maggie to play with him. The two of them loved spending time together. Thinking about Keith made her feel better. She wondered who would read to him until she got home. Then Maggie leaned into Seth’s ear and whispered, “The two of us are going to be OK. Don’t worry. I’ll find a way to get us out of here. We just have to be brave.”

  If only Maggie felt brave.

  Later that evening, all of the children except Seth were taken upstairs to a darkened room. There was a four-poster bed in the middle of the room. The bed looked ominous with black sheets and large, overstuffed, dreary-gray pillows. John William led the children to a corner and told them to undress. After Maggie removed her clothes, she stood nervously, wanting nothing more than to vanish. Another man in a leather mask and tight black underwear walked into the room. He ordered all of them to stand in front of the bed. Like little androids, they lined up, oldest to youngest. The man in the leather mask walked over to the door and opened it.

  Twelve people—eight men and four women—entered the room. They stood and stared at the children, a few of them smiling as if they were looking at their Thanksgiving dinner.

  Suddenly, music began to play. At a nod from the creepy masked man, Cali and Max moved around to the side of the bed and got on top. They began to kiss while Maggie and Shana stood at the side of the bed and watched. Maggie’s eyes bulged out of their sockets when she saw how Max was touching Cali. He was putting his hands on her boobs and rubbing between her legs. Then Cali pushed Max down on the bed and put his penis into her mouth. Maggie was repulsed at the sight of what Cali was doing to Max.

  After several minutes, Cali and Max stopped what they were doing. Getting off the bed, they led Maggie and Shana to the foot of the bed, where they stood in a line again. The strangers walked by them, looking them over, getting a better look at their faces. Each of them paused to take in the beauty that Maggie had to offer, and a few of them leaned in to sniff her hair. After the strangers left the room, the kids dressed, and John William led them back to their cells.

  Chapter One

  Maggie spent the next twenty-four hours alone in her cell, which was part of the break-in period. This was when the abductors used isolation, fear, humiliation, and physical punishment to make their victims submissive. Alo
ne with nothing but her own thoughts, Maggie contemplated what was to come next. How could she get away? Would her parents ever find her? What else would John William make her do? Remorse crushed in on her as she recalled the events at the mall that led to her capture. As the hours of loneliness wore on, she tried to remember happy times with her family, but her mind always drifted back to her new reality.

  The next night, John William took the children upstairs one at a time. Maggie sat on the edge of her cot. Hours passed as she waited for John William to come and get her. When she heard the door of her cell unlock, she had to fight back the scream of terror that was lodged in her chest.

  John William took Maggie to a different room this time. When she stepped inside, there was a single bed shoved against the wall. She was told to sit on the bed. A few minutes later, a tall man walked into the room. He wore pleated, brown pants; a white, button-down shirt; and suspenders. He walked over to the side of the bed and smiled down at Maggie. “Hi, sweetie. Daddy’s home. Now, be a good little girl and take your clothes off. Do it nice and slow, the way Daddy likes it.”

  Maggie’s limbs when limp, but she remembered what Cali had told her about getting beaten. Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she removed all of her clothes very slowly. He had her lie on the bed while he stood and looked at her for a while. Then he asked, “Were you a good girl today?”

  Maggie nodded at him vigorously.

  “I asked, were you a good girl today. When Daddy asks you a question, he expects to hear an answer,” he said, becoming odder by the moment.

  “Yes, I was a good girl today.” Maggie’s voice cracked.

  “Well, Mommy said you were very naughty. She said that you kicked the neighbor’s dog and, as much as I hate to do it, you know that Daddy has to punish you for it. Right?”

  Maggie pleaded, “Please don’t punish me. I swear I won’t be bad again. Please.”

  “It’s too late for that, sweetheart. If you do something bad, then there have to be consequences. Now, go ahead and lie on your belly.”

  Maggie turned over on the small bed, putting her head to the side so she could watch the odd man. Her jaw went limp, and her muscles tensed as the man took all of his clothes off. He picked up his belt.

  “OK, now this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you,” the man said calmly, as he slashed the belt across her bare ass. He whipped the belt across her flesh two more times before he told her to turn onto her back again.

  The man stood over Maggie naked, with an erect penis. Her head was buzzing, and her own heartbeat hammered against her eardrums. She didn’t know what would happen next and feared that he was about to kill her. She began yelling, “No!” over and over again.

  Less than a minute later, John William came into the room. He strode over to the bed and bent down close to her ear.

  “Listen, you little bitch. This guy ain’t just anybody. He owns that virgin pussy of yours and has every right to have it. Now stop yelling before I crack your fucking head open.”

  After John William left the room, the man approached the bed again. “Now, where were we?” he asked with a sickeningly sweet smile. “Oh yes, you were about to show me how sorry you were for being a bad girl today.”

  Then the man slid on top of Maggie and began to kiss her. Maggie wiggled under his weight as she struggled to breathe. The man seemed not to notice as he stuck his large tongue into her small mouth. She was confused and petrified. Maggie was utterly helpless to fight back. After an extended period of touching and kissing her, the man entered her swiftly. She felt as though he had rammed a burning stick between her legs. Maggie’s shrill scream shattered the silence of the room, and this made the man even more eager to proceed. Then, after about a minute, Maggie faded into a state of shock. The darkness, which she had feared just the night before, swaddled her and provided an escape from her misery.

  Maggie lay motionless as the stranger took her virginity in a dirty, depressing room on the second floor of an abandoned prison.

  Chapter Two

  A twenty-minute drive from where Maggie was forcefully losing her virginity, her parents, Rob and Lorraine Clarke stood in their living room, talking with the police. In the first moments when Lorraine couldn’t find Maggie at the mall, she felt as if her heart had come to a screeching halt. She had fought for every breath. Her body ice cold, she frantically hunted through the food court like a wild animal. Shoppers looked on as Lorraine’s self-control vanished and she became increasingly hysterical. Her guttural sobs made everyone around her feel the throbbing sorrow wedged in her heart. Feeling Lorraine’s anguish and deep loss, shoppers pulled their own children closer to them, silently thankful that they weren’t suffering such heartbreak.

  Even after the police and Rob arrived, Lorraine felt frozen in time. She wanted to turn the clock back to undo the decision she’d made about Maggie. Lorraine yearned for the past so she could make the right decision and go with her daughter to buy a slice of pizza.

  As each event unfolded—the arrival of the police, the crowd of onlookers gathering, and then Rob’s arrival—Lorraine held to the belief that Maggie would reappear and they could go on with their lives. But after hours passed without any sign of Maggie, thoughts of her daughter being molested and murdered played through Lorraine’s mind. Rob tried to soothe her, but there was nothing he could say to keep the dark thoughts from seeping into her mind or his own, sending the couple further into the murky stickiness of their reality.

  Lorraine had become frenzied and refused to leave the mall without Maggie. She lingered until the mall closed. She had to be certain that Maggie wasn’t just lost in the sea of people. The police practically had to force her to go home. She agreed only after they promised to patrol the parking lot throughout the night.

  Lorraine blamed herself for all that was happening to them. She never should have allowed Maggie to go off alone. She knew better than to let the children out of her sight. Even in the first hours of pure chaos, Lorraine believed that her husband would hate her as much as she hated herself for the life-altering decision she’d made.

  Lorraine wanted the police to find her daughter immediately, and after many hours of telling her story to them, she grew tired. She had explained it at least a dozen times while standing in the food court, but they kept coming back to her with the same question: why did Maggie go off by herself? Lorraine explained through anguished sobs that her daughter had begged to be allowed to buy a slice of pizza by herself, and Lorraine had finally given in. One single moment of poor judgment would cause a lifetime of regret.

  Now Lorraine sat on her sofa remembering every detail of her daughter. She could see the silky, jet-black hair and the soulful, ocean-blue eyes. Maggie had been a precious gift from the moment she was born. Her sweet demeanor and later, her insatiable appetite for learning, made her the teacher’s pet as each new school year rolled around. Of course, Lorraine loved the attention Maggie received from her teachers, but it made it difficult for Maggie to make friends. The other girls in Maggie’s class thought she was a geek and envied all of the attention she received from the teachers.

  Maggie had a sharp sense of humor and would often verbally spar with her father while Lorraine was cooking dinner. Maggie teased her father about being an old man, even though he was only forty. She mocked the clothes he wore and often told him that he smelled bad, although he never did. Rob would pretend to be offended, and they would banter back and forth, laughing until their stomachs ached.

  Lorraine and Rob were a down-to-earth, well-liked couple. The two had met during college and were married in their early twenties. A few years after they married, they bought a two-story home on a half-acre lot in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Lorraine was an eighth-grade teacher, and Rob was a computer analyst at a large engineering firm. They waited until they were in their late twenties before they had Maggie, and they’d planned to have just one child. To their surprise, seven years later, Lorraine became pregnant with Keith.

  O
f the two, Maggie was the rock star. As a toddler, adults would stop and listen to what she had to say. She was charming and charismatic, which made her easy to engage. As she got older, Maggie’s love of reading accelerated her ability to be clever with words. She was her parent’s pride and joy. They loved Keith just as much as they loved their daughter, but being the firstborn, she secretly held a special place in their hearts.

  Before Maggie was stolen, Lorraine and Rob would lie in bed at night and talk about their children. They agreed that Maggie would be something very special when she grew up. Rob was confident that she would become a doctor and find the cure for cancer. Since kindergarten, they’d told Maggie that she could be anything she wanted to because she was capable of learning. This encouragement gave Maggie the motivation to go above and beyond in everything she decided to do. She was a very special child.

  But now, with Maggie missing, Lorraine and Rob sat silently on the sofa together. Each of them prayed she would be returned to them soon. They had no idea what had become of their little girl. As the minutes of waiting turned into hours, their agony grew to higher levels. The emptiness engulfed them, making them feel as though they were completely hollow inside—rightly so, because while they didn’t know it at the time, their daughter had been forced into human sex trafficking.

  Chapter Three

  Myles Cabello, the “owner” of Maggie and the sex-trafficking cartel, left her lying on the bed. He had raped her three times that evening before getting dressed. He was in a hurry to catch a plane back to his hometown in New York, where his wife and three kids waited. As Myles left the bedroom, he told John William, “Don’t let anything happen to that one. I’ll be back to visit her. I don’t want to find one mark on her. You understand?”