Page 109 of Wild Thing

“You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not comfortable.”

I think it over. “It’s okay, really. You know—”

I’ve thought about what happened there many times. My perspective changed over the years, after I started sleeping with men and seeing shit happening with other women.

“I was young and reckless,” I say. “Doing stupid stuff in Bangkok, because my dad was always at work, and my babysitter didn’t care. And, honestly, I had the best time of my life. The best friends. I delivered drugs, you know, when I was a teen. My friend, the lady-boy, Jonshu, talked me into it. I was making cash. Pennies, really, considering how much they paid actual runners for it. But for me, at fourteen, and for the next two years, it was huge. I was a rebel, so proud of myself.”

I snort. Being an adult and realizing the danger and consequences of what I did back then makes my toes curl. We only laugh about a notorious past when we didn’t get caught or punished.

“I wanted to be like those bad-ass agents, like my dad and uncle, the guys with guns in bulletproof vests who saved the good people and put the bad guys in jail. Except I started on the wrong side of the law.”

I pause, smiling at how naive I was, only several years ago, yet an eternity between then and now.

“My dad took me to plenty of undercover operations when my babysitters weren’t available. I used to sit in hotel rooms with the special op guys and eat ice cream when they brought in sex workers, “pussy dancers,” and snitches. It was all like a movie to me. Except no movies show the pretty wild stuff I saw in Thailand. My dad tried to shield me from a lot of it, but he also wanted to make sure I knew some serious things. I felt I could do something too, you know. So when one of the special ops, dressed like a street hawker, talked to me one day on the street, I thought it would be cool to help. ‘Don’t tell your dad,’ he said. I didn’t. I felt like a spy.”

“That’s wrong,” Archer says.

“Yeah, I would punch that guy in the face right now if he did that to another teen. But hell, what did I know back then? So they took me to one of their locations. They gave me a script. I thought I was being freaking cool, you know. Sixteen. Undercover. I was sent out with four girls to a dirty convenience store to meet the guys the agents were tracking. The whole thing was already setup with one of the girls, a recruiter. The targets took us in a van to some dingy club, into a basement. Sex trafficking was a dangerous word. Not that I really knew what it meant.Reallyunderstood it, you know.” I pause, remembering. “And then they told us to strip naked…”

Only now do I look at Archer. His gaze on me is unblinking. His jaw is clenched. I know him so well by now that I can tell he’s tense.

“So we stripped down to nothing. In front of the four tatted guys, one of whom I knew from running the drugs.”

Archer flinches.

“I was never shy about my body. Not even when I was sixteen. I think I was feeling on a mission or something. But it felt disturbing doing it in a room with four men, and the whole time I kept thinking, ‘It wasn’t supposed to go this way.’”

I chuckle, but there’s no humor in Archer’s eyes, his lips pressed tightly together. I look away, studying the peaceful ocean. It feels like a relief to tell this story while surrounded by nature.

“One of the guys walked up to me and started undoing his belt.”

Archer inhales sharply through his nose.

“He said, ‘If you can handle all four of us, you can stay in Bangkok and work the streets. If not, you are off to Cambodia.’ And Cambodia, I found out later, meant that you were kept in some room, drugged, half-conscious, serving anyone who came in.”

Silence is heavy around us. I didn’t mean to make this day so dark. But Archer asked. And I want him to know this part of my past.

I feel suddenly vulnerable. More than that very night when Dad stormed into the op quarters and broke the captain’s face, then punched someone else, then took out a gun and threatened the entire team until they calmed him. My eyes burn with tears from the emotions that suddenly wash over me.

“The words that the thug said that night—they acquired their true meaning only later, years later, after the Change, after witnessing how easily humans can turn into beasts. When Kai finally told me what happened to Olivia—the short version, and I don’t want to know the long one—I thought about that night in Thailand, and I knew… I fucking knew…”

I hold my breath, fighting back tears.

“Something really terribledidn’thappen that night.” I let out an exhale. “But knowing what was about to happen, what humans are capable of, being older and somewhat wiser now, I know what my dad felt all those years since we left Thailand. Why he still freezes when I bring it up. I think that’s the worst part of PTSD—reliving the past, over and over, reconstructing it, creating multiple outcomes, some better, others much worse, spinning the horrible possibilities in your mind, the fucked-up fractal art of your past memories.”

Archer shifts, steps behind me, and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me tight against him. I bite my lip, trying to suppress a sob and take a deep breath.

“I knowwhatwould’ve happened a minute later if the team didn’t break in the door and snatch me and the other girls away. They wrapped me in blanket, just like the other girls.” I inhale and exhale deeply. “You know what I said, Arch?”

I swallow. It’s the stupidest and most naive thing anyone could ever say.

“I asked them if we got the bad guys.”

Tears burn my eyes, but I’m not a bit embarrassed about my feelings. Years after that night, I finally realized that I could’ve been broken forever.

Silence sinks around us as Archer holds me in his arms and presses his cheek to mine. Right now, I feel safe, though even the sunshine doesn’t reach the nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach at the memories.

“I was so stupid, wasn’t I?” I whisper through tears that finally run down my cheeks.

---