Page 101 of Riot's Thorn
“Over here,” the one with the scar says. I try to contort my body to see what’s ahead, but the guard’s shoulders are too wide.
After weaving through a never-ending maze of shipping containers that all look the same, we stop, and the guard tosses me to the ground. I make the mistake of trying to break my fall with my hands but with my hands still bound, I pay the price when my left wrist bends at an awkward angle. Pain shoots up my arm. It barely masks the bruising pain of landing on my hip or the pain in my ribs from being kicked.
My cries are barely heard because of the nasty rag in my mouth. I try to tell myself pain is just a bodily response. It’s not real, it’s in my head. But I’m almost beyond any rationale. How can this be my life? Why hasn’t Riot found me yet?
Scarface pushes up on the locking bar and pulls the cargo door open. My eyes widen, and I hyperventilate at what I see. Four girls, all terrified and nervous. With each pounding heartbeat, my throat constricts and my chest tightens. I’m having a heart attack. Oh, god. I think I’m dying. I hope I’m dying because that’s better than what’s in front of me.
“Get in,” the bloody guard says, yanking me to my feet.
“No. No. No.” The word is muffled from around the rag, but I scream it anyway.
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” He shoves me, sticking a black grocery bag, the kind every gas station seems to have, into my arms and then quickly shutting the door.
Darkness surrounds me, the kind where you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face. I can’t see them either, but I know they’re there. Four girls. All young. At least two of them are juveniles. They’re huddled at the far end of the container between boxes stacked as high as the roof. It smells like piss,shit, and body odor. The stench is so overwhelming, I have to breathe through my mouth.
“Hi, I’m Parker,” I say through my sobs because I was never taught the etiquette of meeting fellow captives being sent to another country in a shipping container.
“I’m Louisa,” a small voice replies. “There’s also Rosa, Anne, and Thea.”
“How old are you?” I ask, wiping my nose with the back of my arm. Crying will get me nowhere, and I’m probably scaring the younger girls.
“I’m nineteen. Rosa, my sister, is fourteen. Anne is seventeen, and Thea is thirteen,” Louisa says.
“Shit. Where are you from?” I start the painful process of twisting and pulling my wrists apart to loosen the duct tape. My wrist is either broken or severely sprained. Either way, I have to clench my teeth with each pull.
For the next five minutes, I gather as much information as I can from the girls, who are all from Reno. Rosa and Louisa’s parents are addicts and houseless. The two girls had been digging through trash cans, looking for food, when they were taken.
Anne and Thea are from Vegas. Anne is a runaway who was prostituting when she was grabbed, but Thea is the daughter of a congresswoman. She was walking home when she was lured into a blacked-out sedan by men who said her mom had been in an accident.
“What happened after you were taken, Louisa?” I ask.
Her voice breaks. “We were sold to a man. There was a party, and we had to do some really bad stuff.”
I don’t need her to expand. “Anne? Thea?”
“The same,” Anne says. “The four of us have been together through all of it. There were three parties before we were brought here.”
“How long have you been here?” I finally loosen the tape enough to start working one hand free.
“We don’t know. Maybe two days?” I recognize Louisa’s voice.
Once my hand is free, I pat around for the black bag the guard tossed in with me. “Were you given food or water?”
“Twelve bottles of water and a box of protein bars. I think there are fifteen in there,” Anne says.
“That’s it?” Rage bubbles inside me, wondering how anyone could treat these girls so poorly.
“We’ve been rationing because we don’t know how long we’ll be in here,” she replies.
“Well, it feels like they gave me three of those really big bottles of water and another box of protein bars. That’s good because apparently, we’re going to Canada, and if I were to guess, it’ll take a week or two on a cargo ship.”
“Canada?” Thea cries.
“Shh. It’s okay. We’ll figure out how to escape once we get there,” Anne soothes.
“She’s right. My boyfriend’s a badass biker. He’s also a little crazy, and I know he’s looking for me right now. He won’t stop until he finds me.”
“Will he save us too?” Thea asks.
