She waited for what seemed an eternity, but eventually gave in. Tears streamed down her face. Piece by piece, she stripped down to her panties and bra. But when that wasn’t enough, her mind blurred with the details of what followed as the men manhandled them off her. In the end, she stood before these men, naked and crying. They inspected her and took pictures, making her turn around for every humiliating angle. And they took pleasure in her misery. The more she cried, the more they took photos, the flashes of light blinding her.
In her mind, she screamed,
But it didn’t. Not for a very long time. And a part of her was deathly afraid that when it did stop, something far worse would replace it.
After her ordeal, her keepers hauled her naked and screaming down the main corridor and threw her into another room. She’d only seen a quick glimpse of the inside when they shoved her in. Once they shut the door and locked it, she fumbled in the dark, crawling on all fours, reaching for the mattress and blanket she had seen.
The room would have been pitch-black but for the sliver of light that seeped in from under the door. She was left alone there for what felt like hours, but even as exhausted as she was, she couldn’t sleep. She lay naked on a thin mattress shoved to a corner, using a shabby blanket to ward off the chill radiating from the concrete floor and brick walls.
And the tears had not stopped. The memory of her degradation played over and over in her head. A lifetime would not be enough for her to forget.
Shaking and unable to get warm, she clutched the blanket to her chest, her feet ice cold. But she kept her eyes on the light under the door, jumping at every noise, no matter how loud. Eventually she heard distant footsteps approaching echoing down the corridor outside her room. Nikki sat up and cowered in the corner, gripping the blanket tighter. She found herself praying they would walk past her door to prey on someone else.
But that wasn’t meant to be. When a shadow eclipsed the light under the door, she heard a key in the lock and knew.
They had come for her again.
CHAPTER 12
Like a painful out-of-body experience, Jessie watched the frail little girl she used to be feel her way through the musty dank basement. The dark chasm never ended in her nightmares. Even without light, she saw it happening again and could do nothing to stop it. The girl’s heartbeat and faint gasps for air matched her own as if they shared one body.
And as before, a deeply rooted futility made her feel listless and spent, nearly robbing her of hope.
In her dream, she headed for a dim stream of light coming from a small chink in the wall, a gap she had dug out with a piece of broken glass until it shattered and cut her fingers. Bright red blood was the only color of her recurring nightmare. Everything else washed to black and white with deepening shadows that threatened to swallow her. The crack to the outside had become her lifeline to a world that had forgotten her, her only source of fresh air—and something more.
Little Jessie peered through the hole from a safe distance. If she got too close to it, the light hurt her eyes, burned them like acid and made them water until she couldn’t see. She had been in the dark far too long.
She remembered another child had seen her. At least, she thought the kid had seen her finger poke through the hole. Had her brief encounter been real or only imagined? She remembered that she tried to call out but her voice came out raspy, from lack of water and not being used in a very long time.
But mostly she was afraid he would hear her. The man had ears that heard secret thoughts. And he had told her before that other little girls would be punished if he caught her being bad. She remembered the screams—heard them still in her dreams. They would start deep in her head and the ear-splitting noise would grip her heart with terror, but the silence that followed made her even more afraid.
Despite her fear, little Jessie risked poking a small finger through the hole she had made. And for a second she dared to smile. The cool air on her skin felt good. And maybe the little girl outside would see her for real this time.
“Oh, no.” She knew that sound…and the crack of the floor above her. She knew the weighty steps were his.
“Oh God, please,” she ventured a prayer no one would hear. Jessie pulled her finger from the hole and cowered into the darkest corner of the dank cellar, making herself small.
“Oh please…please…please.”
Her body trembled, violently. And she rocked at an erratic pace, chewing on her nails until they bled. The man was coming. He had found out her secret.
The little girl outside would never find her now.
Not now. Not ever.
The cold basement swept away, replaced by an inky black memory she never wanted to remember. She heard a little girl’s scream and realized it came from deep in her own throat. Her arms were sluggish and unable to move, as if she were drowning in quicksand. The more she fought, the harder it became for her to breathe at all. Going under for the last time—when her lungs were burning—she finally saw a glimmer of light and focused on it.
She opened her eyes, tearing at her bed sheets, which were drenched in sweat. Gasping for air, she sat up and stared into the dark, her mind still anchored in the past.
“No. Can’t be happening…make it stop.” She sucked air into her lungs and coughed, her throat parched.
When she finally knew where she was, the old terrifying basement morphed into her apartment bedroom. One just as dark as the other, but with her apartment, the old man wasn’t coming for her. He didn’t have his hands on her again. And the little girl who had seen her poke a finger through the hole—that little girl didn’t exactly save her back then, but had played a part in her recovery. Sam had been her friend from that horrible beginning, and she knew the ugliness Jess hid from others. And Sam carried her own memories of how their paths had crossed.
As a kid, Sam had seen her poke her finger out of the dark basement that day, but she didn’t mention it to her parents or anyone else. Later, Sam admitted it struck her as strange, but as a kid she had no idea the old man in that house could have done such a thing. The cops eventually rescued Jess, but not before weeks of abuse continued and another little girl had been taken. It took her a long while to understand why Sam hadn’t acted and done something. Eventually, she reasoned that innocent kids had a hard time fathoming adult sins. But Sam had held onto the guilt of not telling, and as easy as that, the old pervert claimed another victim.
Now, the resurgence of old childhood memories had stirred that damned recurring nightmare—a nasty dream Jess hadn’t had in quite a while. But as images of Sam as a child flashed through her mind, an ugly aspect of the dream remained.
The sound shocked her, holding her firm—mired in the horrific terrors of long ago.
“What the hell?”
Jess listened in the dark, for a repeat of the noise that made her heart lurch. After a second she heard the pounding again, followed by her doorbell.
She flung back the covers and got out of bed, then reached for the Colt Python stuck in her nightstand drawer. She didn’t bother to throw on a robe. Her plaid PJ bottoms and T-shirt would have to do. This didn’t sound like a social call. Gripping her weapon, she headed down the hallway to her door. With her back to a wall, she peeked out a side window to avoid looking through the peephole. If her caller was armed, she didn’t want to get shot through the door. When she got a good look at her early morning caller, she lowered her weapon.
The irony wasn’t missed on her when she saw Sam at her front door, bridging the gap in time from that horrific day so long ago to now. Jess slowed her heart and opened the door with as much composure as she could
