by Chloe Walsh
Everything from the night I was rescued was still a blur and I felt numb.
Numb on the outside and dead on the inside.
The doctors explained that I was free now. The police officers told me that Master was dead. They said Master’s real name was Emanuel Topanga, and that he was the one in charge of grooming the girls before they were sent to work in the nest. I was his reward …
Master wasn’t the boss – no, he wasn’t even close. He was just one small fish in a vast sea of corruption and illegal activity.
Detective Burke told me the nest was destroyed and the men involved were arrested. They found thirteen girls in the nest.
All locked in cages.
All close to death.
Hannah was one of those girls. She had been treated in hospital for dehydration, chlamydia and a pelvic infection, but she was okay now. She reunited with her family three weeks ago.
But I was still here.
Detective Burke said I shouldn’t be afraid anymore, because I was safe. But I didn’t feel safe and I didn’t feel relieved. I felt nothing, because their words changed nothing. Death, pain, sex and violence – that’s what my life had been about for the past three years.
The doctors still wouldn’t let me see Cade. He was the only one that I wanted to see. The one thing I had asked for and they were still denying me. To be fair to Anna, she was on my side. She believed Cade would be good for me, but her superiors were afraid Cade would be a trigger.
According to the psychiatric team treating me ‘it was abnormal to visualize your best friend making love to you whilst being raped’. According to me, the abnormal part was being raped …
“How have you been doing, Mackenzie?” Anna asked me. She patted her head and smiled. “What do you think – too much?”
Anna had her hair done; her usual bleached-blonde mane was more luminous than usual.
“Ten years younger,” I told her even though I hated it. She shouldn’t want to have blonde hair. She should be on her hands and knees thanking her God that she was born a redhead.
She smiled in contentment, and I leaned back in my chair with one hand on the arm rest and the other on my lap. “How was your last group therapy session?”
Awful. Terrible. I hate it. Fucking despise myself and everything I’ve done, and I really can’t stand being analyzed day in, day out by social workers and psychiatrists who think they know me, but have no fucking clue. How can you know me? How can you understand the pain I carry? You can’t. No one can. No one ever will.
“Good.”
“And Emanuel Topanga?” she asked. “Do you understand that he groomed you – that none of this was your choice?”
I didn’t hate Master and apparently that wasn’t acceptable. He was evil. He was a monster. I knew this. I did. But what my doctors failed to understand was Master was the one who protected me from the others. He kept me out of the holding cells. He kept me clean and healthy, not like the other girls. Their masters didn’t care about their health …
“I understand.”
“And your father – how have you and Mitch been getting on in your family sessions?”
Dad couldn’t look me in the eye. He knew what those men did to me. He knew that I allowed them to do it.
“We’re getting there.”
“And your mood swings?” she continued. “How have you been feeling since our last session?”
“Great,” I said with a smile. “Couldn’t be better.”
“So you’re feeling positive?” she pushed.
I’d be a lot more fucking positive if you signed me out of this fucking entrapment. I spent the past three years of my life chained to a goddamn bedpost, only to be freed and signed into a psychiatric facility.
“Much more positive.”
“Then I have some good news for you,” she said. “I’m clearing you for discharge. Your dad can take you home tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Three months. Anna thought that three months of therapy had fixed me – had wiped away my memories and erased the pain. It just went to show what little she knew.
****
Cade
February 6th, 2006
She was coming home tonight.
The best friend I’d ever had – the one who I thought I had lost forever – was coming back to me.
“I don’t like this, Cade,” I heard Emily say, and my body stiffened. “How convenient it is that Mackenzie’s coming home the same month I’m due to visit my dad out of state.”
“Wow,” I muttered sarcastically. “I bet the doctors at the hospital planned Kenzie’s discharge around your parents’ custody schedule.” I was standing in our back garden struggling to keep a lid on my temper, but the more Emily spoke, the more my anger built. “Come on, don’t be ridiculous, Ems.”
“I wasn’t blind back then, you know,” she sniped. “I remember how you felt about her …”
“Mackenzie is coming home, Ems,” I growled into the phone, shoving a hand roughly through my hair. “Goddamn it, my best friend is finally back – alive – and you’re going to play the jealous girlfriend – for real?”
“Your stepsister,” Emily amended in a snarky tone. “Mackenzie is your stepsister now, Cade.”
“Exactly,” I hissed. “So stop being so goddamn paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia when the girl my boyfriend has spent over three years mourning suddenly reappears and moves in with him.”
“So, what are you saying here, Ems?” I demanded. “You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust her,” Emily whined. “You know what her mom did …”
“I’m not having this conversation again, Emily. Mackenzie is not Dee.” I pressed ‘End Call’ before Emily had a chance to respond and slid my phone back in my pocket.
Stalking up the staircase I didn’t stop until I was in the bathroom with the door slammed shut and my forehead resting against the timber frame.
“Fuck,” I hissed, clenching my hands into fists.
Everything was so fucked-up. This should have been a happy time. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty about wanting Mackenzie home. I shouldn’t be feeling guilty that I was so fucking glad she made it out of that hellhole in one piece.
Mom told me all about it: about how Mackenzie had been kept in a whorehouse in Mexico and sold to every Tom, Dick and Harry.
They caged those girls.
Fucking caged them like dogs.
I wished I didn’t know, but Mom said I needed to understand what Mackenzie had been through in order to support her.
Mom also told me that Mackenzie’s doctor was worried she wasn’t coping as well as the other girls. Mackenzie was younger than most of the other victims and the doctor thought Kenz may have been more susceptible to the brainwashing techniques those bastards used on her because she was only fifteen ...
I overheard Mitch crying on the phone to his brother in Tampa the other day. He told his brother Sam that when the police found Mackenzie, she had a collar and leash attached to her neck and was being … assaulted by three men.
Jesus, even thinking about it made me fucking sick to my stomach.
Who was she going to be now?
Those men had three years to warp her – distort her mind and fuck up her sense of reality.
I’m going to help her heal, I vowed to myself. I couldn’t protect her back then, but I could now. I would do whatever it took to put the old Kenzie back together. I was going to be there for Kenzie – as a friend. Yeah, I needed to remember that.
Pulling my shirt over my head, I inhaled a steadying breath before turning around.
My breath caught in my throat the minute my eyes landed on her, and I knew I was fucked from the get-go.
****
Mackenzie
February 6th, 2006
“Who owns the motorcycle in our driveway?”
This was the first time I had spoken since my father picked me up from the hospital.
&
nbsp; “That’s Cade’s bike, sweetheart,” Dad replied in a husky tone of voice.
I watched from the passenger seat as my father’s knuckles whitened and tightened on the steering wheel. I felt something stir inside of me. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Excitement …
“Cade’s here?” My voice sounded dead and flat, but for the first time in over three years I felt elevated and excited. “He knows I’m back?”
Dad pulled his very mundane Rover into the driveway and killed the engine.
“Mickey, sweetheart, there are a few things I haven’t told you,” he whispered, staring straight ahead at our house. I wondered if he stared at the house because he was nervous or because he couldn’t bear to look at me anymore. I was a whore after all.
But Dad had called me Mickey – his pet name for me when I was a child.
“Cade lives with us now,” Dad finally said, and his tone was apologetic. “Sharon and I … well, we got married the year before last, sweetheart.”
“Congratulations on your marriage,” I offered, unfastening my seatbelt and climbing out of the car. I was sure my father was waiting for me to throw a fit. I was sure that was what I was supposed to be doing, but I didn’t – because I couldn’t. I didn’t care enough to feel anything.
I just wanted to see Cade.
That’s all I wanted.
The urge to see him was clawing at my insides.
My Dad walked up the lawn beside me and I knew he was contemplating whether or not he should put his arm around me.
He shouldn’t and thankfully he didn’t.
I wasn’t a little girl that he needed to protect. I had seen about all that could shock a human being and besides, he couldn’t go back in time and protect the girl I was back then. Life moved forward, there were no second chances. Just bitter regrets that left sour tastes.
Besides, I wasn’t sure of how to talk to my father anymore. I wasn’t his daughter – not the one he remembered at least. I was Master’s whore and no amount of counseling or industrial soap could change that.
The front door swung inwards and a pair of blue eyes greeted me. “Mackenzie,” Cade’s mother wept before lurching towards me.
I immediately stepped back and out of her reach. I wasn’t afraid of her touch. I just didn’t feel like being touched and now I had a choice – free will.
Something I hadn’t had in a very long time.
“Hello, Sharon,” I rasped. My voice sounded raw and torn, and I could tell that Sharon noticed the change because her eyebrows furrowed in concern. I could also tell that she was trying not to think of how I had ruined my vocal chords. “Where’s Cade?”
“Are you hungry?” she asked brightly, ignoring my question. “Thirsty?”
“I could use a shower,” I replied quietly.
I didn’t need food or company, and I didn’t need a pity party.
I just needed the water on my skin.
And Cade.
Water was the one thing I had craved since the police found me. I couldn’t get enough of the water cleansing me. I could stand under a showerhead all day, every day, for the rest of my life and not get enough.
“Well, head on up, Mickey,” my father said. “Take as long as you want – there’s plenty of hot water in the tank.”
I nodded once before turning towards the staircase and making my way upstairs. Reaching the bathroom, I felt relief when I realized it was in the same place it had always been. I opened the door and let myself inside.
Immediately I began to strip off my clothes. It still felt strange to wear so many layers, having spent three years practically naked. Standing naked in the bathroom, I took a glance in the mirror and looked at what all the fuss had been about.
I was not a tall person, 5’5” barefoot, but apparently I had sex appeal.
That was what Master used to tell me.
“Pretty sunshine …”
My hair was blonde and long, curling passed my breasts and bellybutton. I had green eyes and pink swollen lips. My breasts were firm and ripe, and my legs were long and lean.
I was marked with a tattoo – their mark. It distinguished me from all the others. It was a barcode, showing my value. I was worth a lot apparently.
The freckles on my nose were a permanent reminder of the blistering heat in the nest.
The sand beneath my fingernails …
The blood between my legs …
Shaking off those memories, I reached one hand into the shower and switched it on.
It took a few minutes to heat up – just as I remembered.
When the water was scalding – as hot as my body could possibly bear – only then did I get in.
Tilting my head back, I allowed the water to cascade down my body and for the first time since I left the hospital I felt steadier. It was a little fucked-up how much water could affect me, but I didn’t think too much about it. I didn’t think too much about anything anymore.
That was both my downfall and my saving grace.
The bathroom door opened and slammed shut loudly.
“Fuck,” a male voice roared, and I froze for a moment before automatically dropping to my knees, placing my hands palms out against the shower wall, and bowing my head.
No one came for me, and then I remembered: I wasn’t there anymore.
Raising my chin, I turned my head to one side and my breath caught in my throat.
Cade.
He was standing in front of the door, resting his forehead against the frame. His head was bowed and his shoulders were slumped.
I knelt, mesmerized, staring at the man in the bathroom. Three years had passed since I saw Cade and those three years had made drastic changes to his body. He wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a man. A beautiful man …
Broken or not, I could see that he was beautiful.
Cade let out a heavy sigh and I watched through hooded eyes as he removed his shirt, revealing his hard, flat stomach. I silently studied the five words Cade had tattooed on the right side of his ribcage in black ink.
“Nár lagaí Dia do lámh.”
The smell of him flooded my senses. Fresh air, the forest, deodorant, man, soap … My breath caught in my throat.
When he turned around, he froze.
His eyes were locked on my face.
He looked like he had just seen a ghost.
I felt like I’d seen an angel.
“Holy shit, Kenz,” he managed to croak out and his voice caused something inside of me to flutter and clench. His voice was deeper than I remembered. Huskier too. He sounded like a man now. “It’s really you.” He staggered towards me before dropping to his knees. “You’re back.”
Something inside of my body cracked open at the sight of Cade – something warm and ticklish and it spread through my stomach.
Pulling the shower curtain back the rest of the way, I knelt facing the boy whose face and heart had kept me alive for the past few years.
“Cade.” I tested his name on my lips. It felt good. Cade’s blue eyes seared me. “Cade.”
He looked so hard at me I was sure he could see inside of my head – inside of my rotten soul.
“I’m so sorry, Kenzie,” he said and his voice was a broken whisper. “What happened to you—” he paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should have protected you. I should have saved you – stopped those guys.”
“We were children, Cade,” I croaked out, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. “You couldn’t fight off ten fully-grown men.” Had he blamed himself all these years? He had to know it wasn’t his fault …
Shaking his head furiously, Cade staggered into the shower before pulling me into his arms. “Three-and-a-half years, Kenzie,” Cade groaned. “They took you away from me for three-and-a-half goddamn years.”
At first I stiffened, but my body slowly relaxed and when I rested my cheek against the warm skin of his bare chest, I allowed my eyelids to flutter shut.
“I missed you,” I whi
spered, allowing myself to feel this: enjoy being in his arms again.
“I thought about you every damn day,” he told me, before dropping a kiss to my drenched hair. “Not a day went by when I didn’t pray for you – or dream about you.”
Water was cascading down on both of us and I felt better than I had in years. “I missed you so bad, Cade,” I choked out as tears filled my eyes. “So bad … I needed you …”
Suddenly Cade jerked away from me, staggering backwards and out of the shower. His eyes were wide as if he had just figured something out. “Jesus, what the hell am I doing – you’re naked!”
So that was what he had just figured out.
“You shouldn’t feel embarrassed,” I told him, climbing to my feet. “A thousand others have seen this …”
Cade was afraid of scaring me, but the only thing that I was frightened of was never feeling Cade’s touch again.
“What the hell is that?” Cade pointed at my bare hipbone. “Kenzie.” His tone was gruff, angry even, as he stepped closer. He trailed his fingertips over my hipbone. “How did you get this?”
“That’s my mark,” I explained, not taking my eyes off his face. For some reason, he looked upset and, for an even sicker reason, I felt happy because of this.
“My barcode.”
His face paled. “Your barcode?”
“Yes. In the nest our masters assigned each of us with a mark. We all had an individual marks. It proved our value – and our ownership.”
Cade groaned and rubbed his face with his hand as if in pain.
In two long strides he was back in the shower and pulling me into his arms. It was like he couldn’t decide what to do with me.
“What did those men do to you,” he whispered.
They taught me how to fuck, Cade. And they taught me to say yes to anything physical no matter how degrading or emotionally devastating it was to me. “Whatever they wanted to do.”
