Page 13 of Acts of Contrition

I don’t stand near her tonight. Look at me, being so altruistic.

After fifteen minutes, I check my crappy watch and wonder if I would be better off going to one of the hidden brothels. I don’t like to share my earnings, but it would be faster.

And then a familiar white BMW pulls up, automatic windows rolling down to reveal the man behind the wheel. The handsome one who keeps trying to “save” us working girls. He has shown up four times in the past two weeks. If he starts his spiel tonight, I am gonna knee him in the balls. He’s alone though. Usually he’s with one or two others when he heads down here.

“Lily.” Hearing my street name from his lips surprises me. Green eyes pierce me even from a couple yards away. If I was a respectable young woman, I’d have considered dating him. But men like him won’t sully themselves with my ilk. No, they have their Stepford Wives-in-waiting.

Girls like me are the ones they fuck behind the wives’ backs.

I step forward, leaning into the window out of habit. He doesn’t even glance at my tits, just like last time, and this time they’re literally right in his face.

“How can I help you, Pastor?” I ask.

“In-training,” he corrects with a charming smile, like every time. The locks click open. “You can get in.”

I resist the urge to smirk at him. I knew he was just another red-blooded perverted man, religion be damned. I should have made a bet with the others. Oh well, at least now I get to brag about being right.

Opening the door, I slide in, feeling the heated seat below me, the leather soft as butter. Christian rock plays on the radio, and it smells like aftershave, but not overpowering. Indeed, his blond goatee looks neatly and newly trimmed. He drives about half a mile before turning into an abandoned alley. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he turns to face me.

“You realize you don’t get free favors just because you’re a man of God,” I quip.

He nods. “Nothing free is worth having, Diana.”

I go to reply when my body seizes up, hearing a name he never should have known. No one knew it aside from Rick and those who bothered to check my name on my mailbox in the building.

“What did you call me?” I ask, trying to keep my voice level.

“The name your mother gave you, baptized you with,” he replies, his voice still soft and even.

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, sweet, sinful girl, I know everything about you. And I’m going to save you.”

He reaches across me to the glove compartment and I barely move, too shocked. When he pulls out a hypodermic needle, I rush to unbuckle my seatbelt, but he’s too fast; he’s done this before or practiced to get every movement precise.

The needle pierces my neck and he depresses the plunger even as I try to fight him off. For being a slim man, he certainly is strong.

The drug must be a sedative, and injected in my carotid, it begins to hit me in maybe two minutes, as I feel my strength flagging and my head growing woozy.

He gently pries me off him and fixes my seatbelt. “We don’t want you getting hurt if I make a sudden stop.”

“I’ll … fuckin’ kill you,” I rasp out, eyes drooping.

He looks at me and smiles. “Sleep, Diana.”

And I do.

Chapter Eight

Diana

MY ASSHOLE GUARDIAN did a lot of shit to me, but he never drugged me. In fact, I never even smoked pot, let alone took “downers”. My mouth is like a desert, and my eyes take forever to properly open. Even as I open them, the meager light shining in here hurts so bad, I squeeze them shut again. I’m pretty sure my head weighs more than the rest of my body.

Okay, Di. You need to figure out where you are, and to do that, you need to sit up and open your eyes.

I decide maybe sitting up with my eyes closed is the best option, so I do, feeling something thin under me, like a cot cushion. I scoot myself back, hitting something metal.

I was right, though. Sitting up, then opening my eyes quells some of the dizziness I feel. It’s what I see that I’m not prepared for.

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