These Monstrous Deeds

by T. J. Hamel

  These Monstrous Deeds

  T.J. Hamel

  Copyright © 2021 T.J. Hamel

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a m/m dark romance novel with lines so blurry, you’ll feel like you’re reading through a kaleidoscope. It is related explicit and intended for mature audiences only (18+).

  Though a decent amount of the scenes between the main characters (though NOT ALL) are dubcon, some are very clearly non-consensual and classify as rape, even with the circumstances as complicated as they are.

  Due to the nature of the plot, this book contains scenes that some might find triggering and/or disturbing, as well as explicit sex scenes between the main characters. I’ve included the warnings I feel are the most important, but not all could be covered without giving away too much of the novel.

  Content Warnings: Rape/Sexual Assault, Sex Trafficking/Slavery, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Physical and Sexual Violence, Psychological Torture, Non-Consensual Sharing, Suicidal Thoughts/Ideations, Gangrape (not involving main characters), Referenced Underage Rape (not involving main characters), Depictions of Child Sex Trafficking (no scenes of child rape depicted)

  Read at your own risk, and please practice self-care when reading this book.

  *** This is book 1 in a 3 book series. This series DOES end in a HAPPY ENDING if you’re willing to stick around ***

  The National Human Trafficking Hotline is a national, toll-free hotline in the United States and is reached by calling 1-888-373-7888. Other options for help include e-mailing NHTRC@PolarisProject.org, &/or texting 'HELP' or 'INFO' to BeFree (233733). These methods help victims come in contact with a human trafficking task force, not law enforcement. If the danger is immediate, it is best to call 911.

  For Human Trafficking Hotlines in other countries, go to: ec.europa.eu/anti-trafficking/citizens-corner-national-hotlines/national-hotlines_en

  Resources are available for human trafficking victims - INCLUDING non-U.S. citizen victims without legal status - at dhs.gov/blue-campaign. Protection from immigration resources are also available here for non-U.S. citizen victims without legal states.

  The inspiration for the operation to dismantle a large sex trafficking system seen in this novel was Operation Underground Railroad. This was merely inspiration – a thought that sprung to mind when I first learned about the operation – and nothing more. This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, locations, events, and operations are of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Though there are dramatic differences between the operation in my novel and Operation Underground Railroad, this by no means lessens the incredibility of O.U.R. This organization is set out to permanently eradicate child sex trafficking. They not only use their own private teams – mostly employed by former CIA, Navy Seals, & Special Agents – to conduct undercover operations that rescue and recover victims, but they also provide education to the public, training, and aftercare to the survivors. This operation has saved over 4,000 survivors so far, and is working every day to save more.

  To learn more about O.U.R.:

  Visit: https://ourrescue.org/

  Watch: Operation Toussaint: Operation Underground Railroad & the Fight to End Modern Day Slavery (available for free on YouTube & Amazon Prime, and for rent/purchase on Amazon)

  “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

  -- Friedrich Nietzsche --

  Chapter One

  There was a post on Tumblr once. 10 Things To Do If You’re Ever Kidnapped. Carter had skimmed it before pressing the heart icon, saving it in his likes to read more thoroughly later. He never got around to it.

  He thinks there was something about kicking a headlight, but Carter isn’t in a trunk. He’s in a wooden crate like a package on a cargo ship. There’s no possibility of him kicking his way free in this scenario either, not with the way he’s bound. His body is curled up in a fetal position in order to fit in the crate, his head bent at an awkward angle. He’d never be able to kick a leg out hard enough to break anything.

  He thinks maybe there was something about zip-ties, but Carter’s not bound with those. Whoever captured Carter wound thick, scratchy rope around his body as a way to restrain him. His arms are bent and pressed together across the center of his back, his thighs bound without space between them, his calves tied to his thighs.

  He thinks he was supposed to memorize something, too. Or multiple things. If that’s the case, Carter is extra screwed. He’s pretty sure his kidnappers drugged him, if the fuzzy memory of something stinging his neck a moment before he lost consciousness is any indication. By the time Carter came to, tongue heavy and head full of cotton, he had already been stripped naked, blindfolded, and bound in the rope currently keeping him in his fetal position. He could have woken up on the same street that he was taken, or half a world away. There was no way to tell. There was no time to ask any questions, either. He had been picked up by his ropes like a package and shoved violently into his new home – the wooden crate.

  Carter has been kidnapped.

  And he has no fucking idea what to do.

  Thanks a lot Tumblr.

  The most concerning part of the entire situation is that his captors had known his name. Carter specifically remembers that. One minute, he was walking down the sidewalk, backpack hitched over his shoulder, mind turning as he mentally reviewed what he’d need to know for his upcoming political science exam. The next minute, someone was calling, “Hey, Carter!” and he turned to find two men behind him. That was when the sting happened in his neck.

  Considering Carter is an orphan with an older brother who is nothing but a soldier in the Army, this isn’t some sort of hostage situation. No one is going to be collecting a ransom. There’s a good chance that whoever took him is fully aware of his family and financial situation. If that’s the case, they’re planning on getting their money some other way.

  Carter isn’t an idiot. He knows how these things work. He’s seen enough made-for-TV movies and docuseries to know how his captors plan on making a profit off of him. Carter is going to be sold, either for physical labor or for sex. Considering his nakedness and the way his captors had enjoyed touching his cock and balls while he was bound and helpless, Carter has a feeling this is headed towards the sex route. Some sick fuck is going to purchase Carter to be their sex slave.

  Or worse – to rape him once and then dispose of him.

  On second thought, maybe that’d be the better option.

  Not that Carter is under the impression that he’ll be given any sort of option moving forward.

  The vehicle Carter’s crate is on comes to a sudden halt, his world lurching as the box skids across the inside of the truck. It slams into something that abruptly stops it. Carter’s body doesn’t get the memo, still moving for a second longer before it slams against the inside of the crate.

  Everything goes dark.

  ◆◆◆

  “Miami.”

  “A shitty little town in Georgia.”

  “Lawrence, Kansas.”

  “Ann Arbor, Michigan.”

  “Kentucky. Just outside of Louisville.”

  Silence.

  Eyes, hea
vy, itchy, demanding, all locked onto Carter.

  Carter curls his body tighter, almost missing his crate. He’s not sure how long he spent in the wooden box, but the fetal position has become second nature at this point. Especially when he’s particularly anxious.

  “Where you from?” a dark-skinned guy a few years older than Carter asks, as if he thinks Carter might not have been listening to the conversation. As if he thinks Carter doesn’t know it’s his turn. As if Carter hasn’t lost more and more hope with every location mentioned. Are they all idiots? Don’t they understand? They were all plucked from places nowhere near each other, which means only one of them might be near home, and even that chance is low. They’re probably not even in the United States anymore. That’s bad. That means it’s going to be difficult for the authorities to find them. Probably fucking impossible.

  When Carter waits too long to answer, they move on without him.

  “Denver.”

  “NYC. Was there for college.”

  “Yeah, me too. College, I mean. I’m actually from Mississippi.”

  Carter closes his eyes, leaning back against the cool cement wall. He plays a new game he made for himself. The point of the game is to create scenarios for after he’s been sold, anywhere ranging from a gorgeous, gentle man purchasing him, to some overweight, sweaty asshole who puts him in a brothel and injects him with so many drugs he forgets his own name. There’s never a scenario where he goes free. It’s not a game Carter can win. He knows that.

  He just wishes the others in the cell would figure it out too.

  ◆◆◆

  Carter’s been in the cell for a long time. There’s no light besides the dim bulb that hangs from the ceiling of the hallway outside their barred door, and they never turn it off. There aren’t any windows. Their meals aren’t at all regular. His only way of telling time is paying attention to his body. He knows he’s been in the cell long enough for his lips to be bleeding and his fingertips to be scratchy with dehydration. Long enough for his hunger sweats to turn to hunger shakes, sweat no longer coming from his pores. Long enough for him to forget what his test was on that he had been so focused on studying for.

  He’s been in the cell long enough for him to watch a myriad of boys and men come in and out, some returning, most not. Long enough to learn that the ones who are returned have been brought to a place the captors call the playroom, where they endure all sorts of things other than rape. Long enough for Carter to understand that there are worse things than being raped.

  Long enough for Carter to realize that for some reason, his captors aren’t going to ever bring him to the playroom.

  Long enough for Carter to decide he doesn’t want to find out why.

  ◆◆◆

  Carter’s claustrophobia is currently fighting with his need for warmth. He wants nothing more than to curl up in his safe little ball, but he’s freezing.

  He’s always freezing.

  The naked bodies around him are all he has for warmth these days. Any self-consciousness over lack of clothing disappeared a long time ago. Before his arrival to the cell even.

  There are 15 naked bodies in the cell right now. The smallest amount so far has been 12, and the most has been 17. There’s barely enough room for everyone to sit on the floor at the same time. They usually take turns, sleeping in shifts, and even then, everyone has to be curled up tight or sleep sitting up. The younger boys have the advantage of not taking up as much space as the adults. They can curl up on their side to sleep and only use as much floor as Carter would use sitting up in his tight ball.

  A guard starts to walk down the hallway, his boots heavy on the concrete floor. Carter feels his heart pound to the beat of the steps. Despite his effort to keep calm, he still startles when the guard’s baton hits the cell bars. The sound rings in the air around them, hauntingly familiar, a warning of danger to come. Carter makes sure not to get caught looking at the man, only glancing long enough to see which guard it is.

  Scarface.

  The worst of them all.

  There’s a single drain in the center of the cell for piss and vomit, and a bucket for everyone’s shit. The bucket is only taken out once it’s nearly overflowing, and the guards are never happy about it. Scarface is the guard who was in a particularly bad mood one day and decided to brighten it by tossing the contents of the bucket back into the cell, shit raining down on Carter and the others.

  Scarface is the guard who likes to give them the least amount of bread possible, forcing them to share to the point of each of them barely getting more than a bite or two. He’s the guard who makes sure his victims bleed when he brings them to the playroom. He’s the guard who aims at their crotches and faces when he brings in the power hose to clean them, enjoying the way they gasp and shriek as they bump into each other with the hope of escaping the ice-cold water coming at them through the thick metal bars. He’s the guard who likes to stay afterward with a grin on his face while they stand shivering and crying as they wait for all of the water to go down the single drain so they can rest their weary bodies on the ground again.

  Scarface is also the guard who makes sure no one takes Carter to the playroom. The others come back with stories of horrific medical examinations. Of sleep deprivation. Of being waterboarded. They’d come back with bloody whip marks along their skin. Bruises shaped like fingers and fists and boots. Sprained ankles and wrists.

  But never Carter. The one time a guard had reached for him, intending to take him to play, Scarface had taken Carter from the man and shoved him stumbling back into the cell.

  “Not that one, you dipshit,” he had growled. “That’s the Beckett whore.”

  Carter still doesn’t understand what that meant, but he knows it meant something to the guard. It meant enough to keep him safe.

  At least for now.

  ◆◆◆

  Carter is still in the cell with the slaves when he wakes up from a dream about freedom. For just a second, he can still smell the fresh air, the grass, and the flowers, but then the cell’s thick scent drowns the memories. Everything reeks of piss and shit and vomit here. There’s a little boy beside him. He’s new. He must have come while Carter was napping.

  The boy won’t stop crying.

  Minutes go by.

  What must be at least an hour goes by.

  Still, the boy is crying. He’ll make himself sick if he doesn’t calm down.

  “It’s okay,” Carter whispers to the boy. “Everything will be okay.”

  It’s a lie, of course. Carter might not know much about this situation they’re in, but he knows that at least. This boy can’t be more than 13 or 14 years old, though. Carter’s gut tells him he’s even younger. Maybe lying is the most humane thing to do.Maybe it’s not.

  Carter has no fucking idea.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he says again.

  The boy curls into Carter’s side, sobbing harder.

  “What’s your name?” Carter asks, trying to get the boy distracted.

  “E-Elliot.” The boy rubs at his face, trying to calm his breathing. “I jus’ wanna go home! I want my mom!”

  Carter can fucking relate. He’s 22 and he wants his mom so badly it hurts. He hasn’t ached with this kind of need for her since the days following her death.

  “I didn’t do anythin’ wrong,” Elliot whispers. He looks up at Carter with huge blue eyes full of tears. “Can you tell ‘em that? I told ‘em I’m a good boy, but they – they didn’t listen!”

  Carter doesn’t know what the fuck to say to that. Thankfully, another guy around Carter’s age sits on the other side of Elliot. The three of them have to squeeze in uncomfortably close to fit, but the boy doesn’t seem to mind being sandwiched between them.

  “These are the bad guys, little dude,” the new guy says. “And you know what happens to the bad guys, right?”

  “What?”

  “They lose in the end. They always fucking lose in the end. You just have to wait long enough.” />
  Elliot sniffles, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “You said a bad word.”

  The guy laughs softly, nodding. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. My mom isn’t here, so like… you don’t have to pay a quarter or nothin’.”

  The guy laughs again. Carter joins in this time. Even Elliot smiles.

  The three talk for a while. Long enough for Elliot to get sleepy. He rests his head on Carter’s shoulder at some point, starting to doze. It’s not long after that when the guy on the boy’s other side looks over Elliot’s head at Carter and says, “I’m Casey.”

  “Carter.”

  “You’re new, hey?”

  “I don’t know.” Carter shrugs. “I don’t feel new. Feels like I’ve been here forever.”

  Casey nods. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

  Carter studies the boy, vaguely recognizing him from other moments when he accidentally paid too much attention to the horrors around him. He’s thin, despite his large frame. Carter could picture him as some sort of athlete in his former life. Football player, maybe. Or hockey. Now, he just looks like a ghost of those things. “How long have you been here?”

  Casey shakes his head, looking away. Someone is taking a shit in the bucket that’s set over in the corner. He has a sick stomach. It’s not a very pleasant thing to be witness to.

  Casey never answers Carter’s question. He doesn’t have to. It’s in the weight of his eyes. The set of his mouth. The way he sighs when he looks away. The answer is evident. Too long.

  “He won’t stay more than a night or two,” Casey says after a few minutes have passed. The sick guy is trying to decide if he should waste his half-slice of bread for the day to wipe his ass free of the liquid shit lingering between his cheeks.