Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I push back the torment. There were so many torments, but that one seems the freshest. The very first violence inflicted on me.
I clear my throat. “I, uh, passed out. And when I woke, I was chained to a bed.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from far away. I must be leaving my body just to tell this story.
A strangled sound comes through the phone, and Flynn's breath rasps in, but he seems to hold back whatever he was going to say.
“There were other women. I don’t know how many.” Fourteen of us survived. That’s how many were left when Adrian freed us. They hit us and drugged us and sold our bodies many, many times.
“No.” Flynn’s voice is a broken whisper. I don’t want to give him this pain. It’s too much to give anyone. Too horrible to recount.
“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear this. It’s…not a good topic.”
Flynn says nothing, and I assume he agrees–that it was too much to lay on him. But then he says, “Tell me the rest.”
“The rest.” I draw in a sharp breath and let it out slowly. “They put us in a shipping container on a boat.”
The crew raped us every night, all night, as payment for our passage. I wanted to die. My days and nights were one long nightmare. Because they kept us drugged, I was confused and hazy and sick all the time.
“Fuck.”
“Somehow we ended up here in Chicago, in the basement of a sofa factory.”
“What?” Flynn sounds shocked.
“Yeah. Chained to cots again. With choke collars and leashes. Customers came in and used us there.” One customer came for me every night. The same horrible man. The one with the cigars.
Gospodi. I can’t tell him. The image of the fat man’s sneer flits before my eyes, and I hear the clang of metal in my ears.
To keep the panic at bay, I keep talking. “We never left. Never saw daylight. Didn’t know where we were, other than guessing America because the customers spoke English.”
Flynn says nothing. He just leaves a big space of silence for me to go on if I choose.
Faintly, in the distance, I still hear the clink of metal. The tightness in my chest that precedes a panic attack.
I push on, wanting to get to the end of the story without freaking out. Keep it short and get through the worst of it. “I lost all hope. I thought we’d never get free. Me and the others. But Adrian found us.”
“Thank fuck.”
“Da. He freed us all and burned the place down.”
When Flynn still leaves the space open, I give him the last shocking tidbit. “Kat's father was the leader of the sex traffickers, and Adrian kidnapped her as bait, so he could kill her dad.”
“Jesus,” Flynn mutters.
“But he fell in love and brought her home instead.”
I hear Flynn’s soft breath on the other side. He’s here with me. Listening.
“Her dad is awaiting trial in Europe, but Adrian got him to pay five million dollars for her before he went to jail, and the three of us split the money.”
“Wow.”
The story sounds unbelievable, even though I lived through it. I know it’s all true.
“So…That's why I am sort of broken.”
“You're not broken,” he says immediately as if it’s fact. “You’re definitely not broken. Far from it. Nadia, you're brave and bright and full of life. You're just coming out of your chrysalis. I already see your wings.”
“What is chrysalis? I don't know this word.”
“The cocoon a butterfly comes from.”
I smile against the phone. “Thank you. I like that. You make me forget what I am. Or maybe you make me remember who I used to be. Except we can never go back, can we? So it's not who I used to be, but who I will be.”
I’m rambling, but Flynn seems there for it.
“See? You're a chrysalis about to become a butterfly.” I hear the smile in Flynn's voice.
“Can we try again?”
When Flynn hesitates, my heart jumps into my throat and clogs my breath. I bunch the blankets in my fist and pull them up to my chin.
I did ruin things. Why would he want to try again with me? I made a total fool out of myself and got him punched in the face for his efforts.
“Everyone thinks I'm going to hurt you,” Flynn says after a few beats.
I still can't breathe. I force out a little shaky exhale, remembering how it works. “What do you think?”
“I want to do this with you.”
My heart resumes its beating.
“And I would never hurt you. At least not purposely.”
“But?” I ask because I still hear the hesitation in his voice.
“But I don't do relationships.”
I try to ignore the heat rushing to my face, the tears that want to fall again.
Is he saying no? Is this our breakup? Of course, we can't have a breakup because we never were an item to begin with. I latch on to that fact and offer it back to him. “I'm not asking for a boyfriend. I told you that. I'm in no shape for a relationship, anyway.”