One Among Us

by Paige Dearth

  Cali instructed Maggie on how to work the pole. She talked her through all the movements until the music stopped. The two girls looked at each other when it was over, both feeling victorious and sharing the exhilaration of achieving something in the face of John William’s skepticism.

  Witnessing their excitement, John William said, “That sucked, Maggie. You dance like you have a stick shoved up your ass. You better learn to dance, little girl, or I’ll tell Myles you can’t do it. Then you’ll be completely useless to him, and who knows what he’ll do to you.”

  At the thought of making Myles angry, Maggie’s blood starting pulsing faster through her body, and she felt like she was going to faint. She stared at the wall in front of her and remembered what she’d read in one of the meditation books that Dr. Barnes had brought for her. Block everything out and concentrate on breathing evenly. Empty your mind and don’t think about anything but your breath. Inhale, exhale. Within a couple of minutes, Maggie was able to slow her own heart rate and suppress her anxiety.

  Maggie scooped up her clothes and dressed quickly. She stood back against the wall as Shana walked up to the pole and began to dance. Before she grabbed the pole, she lifted her shirt with her thumbs, exposing her belly as she danced, and then finally removed it. She unbuttoned her jeans and slid them over her flat hips, exposing the tiny panties she was wearing, and then leaned back against the pole and started sliding down as she spread her legs apart.

  John William began to feel a sexual stirring. Shana was blitzed out of her mind, which contributed to her sleazy performance. She was sitting on the floor, leaning against the pole, with her legs spread wide. One hand was in her panties, and she rubbed her own breast with the other. She masturbated until she came. John William, hormones raging through his gargantuan, beastlike body, walked over to Shana and undid his pants. Cali and Maggie had no choice but to stand on the sidelines and watch him fulfill his sick lust for Shana. His movements were jerky as he rammed himself between her legs. He gritted his twisted, yellow-brown teeth, and his fleshy eyelids fluttered until he twitched and convulsed as if he was having a full-blown seizure. It was the most repulsive scene the two girls had ever witnessed.

  John William stood as Shana slowly got dressed, still groggy from the dope and the orgasm she’d given herself. She smiled at Cali and Maggie as she staggered over to them. “Who needs a fucking pole when I got a hole,” she chanted in a sickening voice.

  “Stop it!” Cali threatened, her teeth clenched.

  “Why? Why should I stop? If you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join ’em. I’m tired of getting my ass kicked all the time. At least I know how to fucking please a man,” she said, raising her voice.

  “Just because they are treating you like a whore, doesn’t mean you have to act like one,” Cali threw back at her.

  “Whatever, Cali. I really don’t give a shit what you think. All you ever worry about is little Miss Wonderful here,” she said, and gave Maggie a sternum poke.

  Instinctively, Maggie took a step backward and covered her chest. Her eyes dropped to the floor. She didn’t want to fight with Shana, who was clearly stoned. Maggie felt sorry for her. They were all unhappy with their circumstances, but inside, Shana was a simmering pot of oil just waiting to boil over.

  “Let’s go, maggots, back to your kennels,” John William ridiculed.

  That day marked a significant passage for Maggie. She had finished her first lesson in pole dancing and stripping. She didn’t know it then, but those lessons would someday save her life.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Did you find her?” Lorraine snapped, as she flung open the door after seeing Detective Harker through the peephole.

  “Lorraine, I have something that I want to show you,” Rae Harker explained.

  Harker reached into his pocket and removed a small plastic bag. Inside was a white, flat stud earring with a purple and green daisy painted on the surface. He handed the small bag to Lorraine.

  She looked at the bag closely. She focused on what was inside, allowing her eyes to adjust and take in the small object. A slow smile came to her lips as the realization of what she was seeing sank into her whole, physical being. Then her stomach squeezed into a tight knot, and her heart felt heavy. She didn’t know what he was going to say once she revealed what she knew.

  Lorraine looked up at Detective Harker with a perplexed look. “This earring belongs to Maggie. Where did you find it? She’s dead, right? You’re here to tell us she’s dead,” she accused.

  Harker knew the earring belonged to Maggie. He had seen the earrings a million times as he gazed at the picture of Maggie that was propped up on his desk.

  “No, Lorraine,” Harker said sternly, grabbing her arm to steady her. “We didn’t find her, and we don’t know that she is dead. The FBI sent local police to all of the abandoned prisons in the state to see if we could find anything. We checked out an abandoned prison close to here. It looks as though people were living in some of the cells. In one of those cells, our team found this earring.”

  “An abandoned prison?” Lorraine asked in disbelief. “What are you saying, Harker?”

  “I’m saying that if our theory is accurate, Maggie could have been one of the people who was living there. Remember that woman from the FBI I told you about? The one we found murdered?” Harker asked.

  Lorraine nodded.

  “Well, we think the cartel realized that she was an undercover agent. They probably killed her and moved their captives somewhere new,” Harker explained.

  Lorraine moved over to the sofa and plopped down on it. She ran her hand through her hair several times, thinking about what she just heard. “How…how many other cells were lived in?” she finally managed.

  “It looks like five of them,” Harker said.

  A gurgling sound escaped from Lorraine’s throat. “She isn’t alone. That means she’s not alone. I have gone to the brink of madness thinking about her with some maniac all by herself. But now I know she isn’t alone. There are others with her?” she asked desperately.

  “Lorraine, all this earring tells us is that there’s a strong possibility that Maggie was kept there. We still don’t know if she’s alive and if we will ever find her. We’ll keep searching, I promise you that. But I want you to understand that none of this means shit until we actually find her. OK?” Harker asked with heartfelt concern.

  Lorraine nodded and let her head rest on the back of the sofa. It finally registered with Lorraine that her beautiful, intelligent daughter was being sold for sex. Her child was a sex slave. Images of Maggie being fearful and alone played in her mind’s eye until she couldn’t stand it a moment longer.

  Then Lorraine shut her eyes and had a long, sorrow-filled cry.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Over the next several weeks, Cali, Shana, and Maggie took turns dancing for the clients. Cali was a superstar, although most of their clients wished she were younger. Shana was sloppy, but her overtly sexual moves kept her afloat. It was Maggie who drew the most attention. She was learning new moves from Cali. She was beginning to take control of her body as she got lost in the music. Her stunning beauty made up for her inexperience at dancing and her lack of athletic ability on the pole. Despite her awkwardness, it wasn’t long though before Maggie became the featured dancer.

  In his late teens, Max was beginning to show signs of becoming a man. His body had filled out, and he was sprouting facial hair. Both he and Cali were “outgrowing” their desirability to clients. Because of this, Max was often sold to men who liked to dominate. Max began to grow intolerant of being trafficked. His clients had become rougher with him, and it became more difficult for Max not to strike back.

  It was a Friday night, and the house was packed. Men were littered throughout the main living area, all of them drinking and smoking heavily. The cartel had brought in six other kids for the weekend. It was the beginning of spring, and the cartel had circulated word of a special weekend to its clie
ntele.

  Max was bought at auction for a measly two hundred dollars. The man who bought him for the evening stood six feet tall. He had a thick head of matted, white hair. His brown eyes were barely visible under his drooping eyelids, and his left eye rolled off to the right while the other eye looked Max over with hunger. The blubber of his neck swallowed his chin, and rolls of skin flapped over the top of his collarbone like a turtleneck sweater made out of flesh. He hoisted his massive body from the chair and followed Max and John William into one of the bedrooms.

  Max had been with some ruthless clients over the years. But this man, that the cartel called Marsh, had an insatiable appetite for young boys. Marsh was heartless. He was born without the ability to feel empathy or sympathy. He was the worst kind of predator. He never viewed any of the children as human beings; they were merely a way to satisfy his sexual needs.

  “Let’s go,” Marsh ordered. “Take those clothes off, rodent.”

  Max had a really bad feeling about Marsh. His teenage hormones, which had lain dormant for the last couple of years, began to awaken. The fight-or-flight instinct was building inside him. His muscles began to tighten as he battled against his own desire to indulge in combat with Marsh.

  Max forced himself to undress. His body stiffened as he looked at Marsh, who then ordered the teen to help him undress. When Max didn’t do what he was told, Marsh took a few steps toward him and slapped him across the face.

  “When I give you a command, I expect you to obey me, BOY!” Marsh yelled.

  When Max still didn’t move, Marsh reached into his coat pocket and took out a billy club. He placed the strap around his wrist and turned back to Max, who saw the club.

  Marsh raised the club and landed a blow on Max’s shoulder. The teen was knocked off balance and fell to the floor. Marsh dropped on top of him and began whacking him on the back with the club. Once Max was subdued, Marsh struggled out of his clothes, forced Max onto his knees, and made him lean over the bed. As he violently took Max, he hummed.

  “Now, time for a little rest,” Marsh said when he finished. “Then we go again. In fact, we’re gonna go all night, my little bitch boy,” he mocked.

  Less than an hour later, Marsh stood over Max, who was still lying on the floor. He bent down, and Max opened his eyes to look at the swine who had already hurt him badly with the billy club.

  “Come on, boy. Get up on your knees,” Marsh instructed.

  Max, intent on giving the man what he wanted so that he wouldn’t beat him again, complied. When Marsh told Max to perform oral sex, the teen hesitated. Max didn’t see the thick chain wrapped around Marsh’s hand. When the heavy chain hit the side of Max’s head, he was sure his skull was cracked open. Blood gushed from his hairline, and a steady stream ran down his arm.

  Marsh swiftly wrapped the chain around Max’s neck, blocking his airway. Believing he was going to die, Max landed the first punch in Marsh’s stomach. It winded him, and he lost his grip on the chain.

  Max pounced on him like a rabid animal. He punched Marsh until he was lying flat on the floor, then he stood and kicked him in the face several times. When that wasn’t enough, he picked up the billy club and smashed it down on Marsh’s head until he lost consciousness. Even then, Max kept pounding the club against Marsh’s skull.

  Max didn’t realize he was screaming as he pummeled the depraved troll. Then the door to the room flew open. “What the fuck have you done?” John William shouted.

  Max looked down at the pile of flesh on the floor in front of him. Marsh’s face and skull were mutilated. There was blood everywhere. His thoughts were hazy from his fit of rage.

  “He kept hitting me. He was choking me with that chain,” Max muttered, coming back to his senses.

  “Who the hell do you think you are? You’re a servant!” John William ranted.

  Two other men from the cartel appeared in the doorway.

  “Get this little asshole out of here. We’ll deal with him later,” he stated, looking at Max.

  The men took Max from the bedroom and locked him in another room across the hallway. John William turned his attention to Marsh. Yuk, he thought, what a fucking slob. He bent down and jammed two fingers into the fat around Marsh’s neck. No pulse. “Shit!” he yelled.

  John William closed the door behind him, leaving Marsh lying dead on the floor. He had to get rid of the body. Then he would deal with the boy.

  Chapter Thirty

  The two men took Max back down to the basement and shoved him inside his kennel. When Cali and Maggie returned, they found him walking in circles in his confined space.

  “What’s wrong, Max? What happened?” Cali asked once they were alone.

  “Oh man. I fucked up really bad. I was with this asshole tonight. Man, he was brutal. He kept hitting me with a club, and then he started strangling me with a chain. I…I don’t know what happened to me. I just fuckin’ lost it and started beating the shit out of the guy,” Max explained. “You know I’m gonna pay for this. Who knows what John William will do to me?”

  “Jesus, Max,” Maggie said. “Are you hurt? What happened to the man?”

  “I don’t know. Shit, I could’ve killed him for all I know. I just kept hitting him. I wanted him to die. I really did. When John William came into the room, the guy was lying on the floor. There was a lot of blood everywhere.”

  “I hope you did kill him,” Cali said.

  Max abruptly stopped walking in circles. “I hear ya, Cali. But it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive. I’m gonna be punished for this.”

  Cali and Maggie watched Max. He started mindlessly rubbing his own arms, as if to warm himself from the cold. He knew he would be facing the hardest time of his imprisonment. His mind betrayed him as he thought of the different ways they would torture him. Then, as if someone threw cold water on him, he realized that he had fought back for the first time. A small smile jumped onto his face.

  “What the hell are you smiling about?” Cali asked.

  “I was just thinking. I finally bit back. I mean, it felt so good. I wanted to bash that bastard’s brains in. For once in my life, I took a stand. I know I’m gonna pay, but once the punishment is all over, I’ll have tonight to hold on to. Maybe they’ll get the message that we aren’t going to keep taking this shit. We might just bust out of this shit hole. They need to worry about us. You guys hear me? They need to fuckin’ worry about us!”

  Max’s false bravado was snuffed out an hour later when John William came down to the basement carrying a baseball bat. Maggie and Cali immediately stood up in their kennels. Even Shana managed to move over to the door of her small prison. Seth crouched in the corner of his own kennel, fearful that John William was coming for him. Max began talking incoherently when he noticed how dead John William’s eyes were.

  “I’m sorry, John William. I don’t know what happened. One minute everything was fine, and the next, I just don’t know what happened. It won’t happen again. I’m sure it won’t happen again…” Max said with remorse.

  Without uttering a single word, John William unlocked the door to Max’s kennel, strode over to the boy, and began hitting him with the bat. “You killed the fucking guy,” he yelled, as he continued to hit him.

  Max covered his head with hands, letting his forearms shield his face. But when John William broke the boy’s right leg with the bat, Max fell to the floor and began to tremble. Irritated beyond belief, John William shoved the bat into Max’s ribs in hopes of breaking a couple. The bat slipped, hitting Max under his left ribs instead. Intense pain burned through Max’s side and shoulder. His piercing screams finally made John William retreat and leave the boy to think about what he had done to Marsh that evening.

  Max stayed on the floor of his kennel, screaming in pain. The others could see that his leg was broken, but Maggie was more worried about the way Max was holding his left side. She hoped that what she thought might have happened to him, hadn’t.

  Chapter Thirty-One


  Upstairs, John William remembered what Myles had told him to do to Max. “Break his fuckin’ leg and put a hurting on the no-good son of a bitch. I want him to learn from this. Then, I want you to contact some of our outside pimps and see who we can sell him to. Now that he fought back, we ain’t gonna be able to use him. He’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

  A short while later, John William appeared in the basement. He was carrying a box of medical supplies and two pieces of wood. “Maggie!” he snapped, opening her kennel. “Get your ass over there and bandage up that broken leg of his. Be quick about it, too.”

  Maggie practically ran from her kennel to Max’s. She knelt down beside him.

  “Max, I’m going to splint your leg. OK? It’s going to hurt, but I have to do it,” she explained.

  Max only looked at her with confusion. All of the color had drained from his face. Maggie worked quickly to put the splint on his leg. She had no idea if she’d done it correctly or if it would help the bones to heal properly. By then, John William had retreated to the kitchen to eat with some of the other guys in the cartel.

  “Max, it’s me, Maggie. Do you recognize me?” Maggie asked him.

  Instead of answering, Max fainted. When he came to, it was apparent that he was still confused.

  “Tell me where you have pain, Max,” Maggie stated more aggressively this time.

  “My shoulder,” Max managed. “And here.” He pointed to the ribs on his left side.

  “OK. How many fingers am I holding up?” Maggie persisted, holding up three fingers.

  Max looked at her hand, but the fingers were so blurred he couldn’t answer. Besides, he was in so much pain that he didn’t care how well his eyes were working.

  Maggie reached down and felt his belly. It was distended and hard as a rock. She suspected that it was filling with blood. She found a pulse on his wrist and counted the number of beats in what she estimated was a minute of time. She counted 160 beats.