numerous committees and oversight panels. I’ve campaigned based on any number of social and economic and political issues. I still stand by all those things. But this? This is personal. This isn’t about my career as a senator. I’m not using this to get votes, or to get into the Oval Office. This is purely about stopping this evil from occurring any longer. It’s about making sure that what happened to…to Lisa—” his voice broke, and he paused for a long minute, breathing hard and blinking, before he could continue, “—that what happened to Lisa doesn’t happen to anyone else. It’s about helping those who have been through it and survived. Lisa was hospitalized for two months when we got her back. She went through dozens of rounds of surgeries to repair the damage done inside her. She’ll never have children. And psychologically? I can’t touch her. She freaks out if I try to hug her. My own—my own daughter, and I can’t even comfort her when she’s upset. It’s been more than two years, and she’s been in therapy twice a week ever since. The medical bills from all this are staggering. For someone less economically secure than I, the bills would be ruinous.
“To this end, I’m proud to announce the formation of the International Abolition Coalition. This is a multi- government cooperative. It spans forty countries all around the world, with more signing on every day. It encompasses police forces and national military forces, investigative agencies, aid relief organizations, the Red Cross, hospitals, halfway-houses, insurance agencies…the list goes on. The singular goal of the IAC is to halt human trafficking in its steps, to prosecute on an international level anyone found engaging in this vile practice, and to provide free, professional aid to victims of trafficking and sexual slavery.
“Miss Wren Morgan was absolutely instrumental in getting this Coalition off the ground. Her passion, her willingness to use her story, her personal engagement and tireless working has made this possible. She’s been one of the few people outside of my wife Annette and I that Lisa has opened up to.
“And as for Lieutenant Pressfield? I’ve already thanked him in person. He received a Silver Star for his part in rescuing my daughter, which he and his men accomplished at great personal cost. Four men died saving her. But a mere thank you, even a military medal…it’s not anywhere near enough.” Senator Johnson met Stone’s eyes, and the message Stone saw there was clear.
After a moment, the senator continued. “Ladies, gentlemen. Don’t just write a check and go about your lives. This affects us all. I know for a fact that there is a person in this room whose teenaged daughter is a victim of domestic human trafficking. This person…I won’t name them or provide any identifying information, but…this person’s daughter suffered from depression. She turned to drugs, and through a tragic concatenation of events, she ended up on the streets of Los Angeles, homeless and addicted to heroin, starving to death. She was forced into sexual slavery in return for food and drugs. This was in suburban
“Don’t ignore this. Don’t bury your heads and go back to your lives and your iPhones and Facebook updates. Make a difference. Every dollar donated, every second spent volunteering at any one of the IAC shelters that will be opening all across the nation in the coming months…it all helps.”
Senator Johnson stepped away, and the gathered crowd clapped and cheered. They quieted when Wren re-took the stage.
“Next up is a young woman named Irena Bulova. She’s originally from Russia, but she came to the US five years ago to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer. She was forced into prostitution, and only recently escaped. It’s her story to tell, and I’ll let her tell it, her way.”
Irena was a beautiful, petite woman of twenty-five or so with brown hair hanging in thick dreadlocks to her mid-back, a ring through the center of her lower lip and thin white scars criss-crossing her wrists and forearms. Two men took the podium away and another set a microphone and stand in front of a chair. Irene sat down in the chair, settled a battered, shiny black guitar on her crossed legs, and set about strumming and adjusting the tuning of her guitar.
“Hello. I met Wren three months ago, on the street of Washington D.C.” Irena had a soft voice touched by a Russian accent. “She seemed to see something in me, a thing she recognized, perhaps. It is in our eyes, what we have been through. She got me to tell her my story, and she convinced me to come here, and do this thing.” Irena breathed deeply, and then began strumming her guitar in a simple rhythm. “Out of hunger and desperation, I was made to be a prostitute. I nearly starved to my death before this happened, and from desperation and fear I continued to sell myself, not for money or for drugs, but for bread, and water. Often, this was moldy bread and dirty water. And I had to do much, turn many johns to get it. Only through the kindness of a police officer named Daniel Harris was I able to escape this and learn to become something else. During my time as a prostitute, my knee was broken. It was so that I could not run away. It was done on purpose. I will never dance, now. But I have fingers to play this guitar, which Daniel taught me to play. And I have a voice, with which I can sing.”
She picked a melody on the higher strings, eyes closed, and sang.
“Only one breath, and then another,
Only one day, and then the another.
I cannot hope, I can only breathe.
I am here, and I cannot leave.
The streets are empty in the dawn, and cold.
Buildings around me are gray, and old.
A sparrow hops from square to square just beyond me,
Brown and small, and free.
My arms have scars,
My window has bars,
A knife to free me made the scars,
A man who owns me made the bars.
The sparrow flies away, and I return.
Someone is waiting for me, watching,
And inside I burn.
My soul is dying, weeping without stopping.
And then one day, in the cold and swirling snow,
I meet a man, with a heart that is kind, and eyes that glow.
He heard me, listened to the pleading in my silent eyes.
Ignored the ‘I am fine’ lies.
Now, my window has no bars,
But always will I have the scars.”
Irena let the last note hang, quavering. She glanced off to the side, and a man in a policeman’s dress uniform watched her, his loving expression telling as much of a story as her song. Irena bowed over her guitar as the crowd cheered. She strummed her guitar once more, and then began playing again, but Stone’s attention was drawn away by the sight of Wren, hand clapped over her mouth, fleeing the room.
Stone followed, and found her in a darkened office, sitting in a visitor’s chair, slumped over and weeping. He knelt in front of her, and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck. He didn’t need to say anything as he held her.
“I’m fine for days, weeks,” she said. “I don’t have nightmares as much anymore, or flashbacks. And then, suddenly, it all hits me, out of nowhere. That song. Lisa’s story. I was fine through it all. But then the way Irena looked at Daniel. It made me remember us, in Manila, and right afterward. How you saved me. And I just…I lost it.”
Stone kissed the top of her head. “You did something amazing today, sweetheart.”
“Not just today. This is what I’m going to do with my life. I didn’t know before. I was just going to college, figuring I’d end up doing…whatever. Teaching, maybe. That was the idea, I guess. I don’t really even remember a lot about who I was before, what I liked, what I wanted. This…organizing these events, getting people to tell their stories. Helping people who have been through what I went through, and so much worse…it’s who I am now.”
Stone nodded, then took a deep breath. “I spoke to Senator Johnson the other day. In all the craziness of
