Numinous

Twelve

Avery was about to head out of the door to meet up with Benj at the restaurant when she was stopped in her tracks by Allen, who stood on the first step leading down to the sidewalk. Fear cradled her heart as she froze, unsure of what to do next. She had just gotten back from the thrift store, where she looked for almost an entire hour to find a dress that fit her and looked good. She didn’t want to turn up at a fancy restaurant in jeans and a t-shirt.

Allen looked angry—angrier than usual, and she felt doom sitting in the pit of her stomach like a rock as he advanced toward her, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her back inside the apartment with him, closing the door and shoving her roughly to the floor. Avery fell, her eyes wide as she looked back up at him. She had known that he saw Benj pick her up last week. All week he had been colder to her than usual. She should have seen this coming, but she was too happy staying in her mind where everything was good and she got to have the things she wanted—namely Benj.

She should have known that it was too good to be true.

“Where the f**k do you think you’re going dressed like that?” Allen’s voice boomed, ricocheting off the wall inside of her brain, dizzying her and breaking her down into nothing. Nothing at all. Her confidence left her just as quickly as it had established itself within her. He leaned over her and snatched her up, holding her tightly by her arms.

“I—I have a-a date.” She answered him, trying to pry herself away from his grip, but he only tightened it. Allen laughed at her. He laughed right in her face, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath. “A date? You’ve got to be f*****g kidding me, Avery, who in their right mind would ever f*****g want you? You’re useless, you’re used up, you’re dirty, you’re stupid, you don’t ever f*****g listen, you never do what you’re told. What makes you think you’ll be able to be with a man?” Avery didn’t like the way his words made her feel. She felt tears trying to escape her eyes, but held them back by biting her cheeks.

“All you’re good for is a quick f**k, and it isn’t even worth it unless he can slap you around. Do you know how much I charge to f**k you? Twenty-five dollars. That’s it. Those men do whatever the f**k they want to, and it only costs them twenty-five dollars. And you actually f*****g think that someone wants to wine and dine you, get to know you, find out all that you do and all you’ve been with, and still be with you? Still think you’re worth anything at all?”

“Stop it! Stop, I get it, I f*****g get it already! Let me go!” She pulled against him, but he was too strong for her to fight against. “Let go of me, you fat bastard!” She shouted at him. He yanked her arm down so that she had no choice but to kneel before him, otherwise her arm would pop out of its socket. As soon as her knees hit the ground, he punched her. She let out a cry as she tasted blood in her mouth. “Please, just let me go, Allen, you don’t even care! You don’t care about me anymore, let me go!” She pleaded. “Please, I just wanted to feel important to someone.”

She didn’t know why she said this to him. She didn’t know why she even spoke to him. He only ever ignored her or hit her because of it. But still, the words fell from her lips, alarming herself and annoying Allen, who didn’t want to hear about how important Benj made her feel. He didn’t want her to feel important. He didn’t want her to meet some man who built her up. He didn’t want her to be happy.

He didn’t want her anymore, but he didn’t want to let her go, either. He had been grooming her for years—he didn’t want to give that up. He had once told her that she had been his first girl. His very first. She thought that it hadn’t mattered how she felt about him as long as he wanted her. He would keep her safe and by his side if he wanted her. No matter how much that made her want to hurl, she thought that it had meant something.

Apparently not.

She groaned in pain as he spun her around and brought her hands together behind her back. She struggled against him as he pulled a zip-tie cuff out of his back pocket and used it to tie her wrists together. Avery was no match when it came to Allen. She could put up a fight, but that would only lead him to hurting her further than he had originally planned to. He had shown time and time again that he got off on hurting her. That the things he used to say to her were all lies and that he never really cared about her. Perhaps she hadn’t been his first girl. Perhaps she was the tenth. Twentieth. He seemed to have a lot of experience in getting people to trust him and then letting them down in the worst way possible.

“Important? What, you actually think he f*****g wants you? You think he wants anything other than to f**k you and leave you behind like the little c*m-dumpster we all know you are?”

Avery didn’t answer. Wouldn’t answer; and that’s when he took her hair in his fist and forced her gaze onto his before bringing back another bloody fist and swinging it in her direction. She flinched as his fist connected with her face, letting out a cry, arms strained as she tried and failed to pull them from where they were tied behind her back. He kept hitting her, mostly in the face and abdomen and didn’t let up until she was a crumbled mess on the floor spitting up blood. He didn’t want anyone else looking at her as someone they could have. She knew why he did it. But it didn’t make it hurt any less. It didn’t make her want to die any less at this moment.

“Please,” She begged him. She looked down at her dress, wanting to cry even harder, but knowing she didn’t have the energy in her to do that. Her dress was bloody and ruined. She wouldn’t be able to see Benj, even if she did somehow get Allen to stop beating her. He had made sure to hit her hard enough that her face was cut up and bloody. She had spent so much money on her outfit just so she could look half-way decent for Benj, and now it was garbage. Just like everything else in her life.

Benj was probably wondering where she was. He was probably hurt. He probably thought she didn’t care about it, but that wasn’t the case at all. He was all that she cared about. He was the only thing on her mind, and even Allen couldn’t change that. Couldn’t beat the feelings out of her, or force her to see things from a different perspective. She had a thing—where she fell for kindness, for understanding, for praise and softness. She craved those things more than she craved oxygen in her lungs.

She remembered when she had first met Allen, and he had offered her these things as her vision faded to black.

The door opened and Avery felt fear enter her heart and tears clouded her vision as she heard two men’s voices. They sounded faint to her own ears, but she knew that was because of whatever they had given to her in that syringe a few minutes ago. The other girls had warned her when she first arrived that the syringe was coming. They told her it made it hard to move, to think, to speak.

The girls told her they did it so they couldn’t fight the men off. So that they got more enjoyment out of it, rather than wasting energy trying to hold them down. They told her they did it for money. That each and every man they encountered paid a very large price to come and torture them. The girls had also warned her not to try and fight the drugs. While they made her feel sick, they also took her away from this place, if only for a short amount of time. A long enough time to make it through her encounters with no memories.

Avery hadn’t wanted to believe it was true. That she had been snatched off the streets and brought to a place where she was forced to have intercourse with men. For someone else’s gain. It had been one thing, doing it on the streets for money to feed herself, but being forced into it with no certainty that she would eat, sleep, enjoy herself or build something of her life? She hadn’t wanted to believe that there were people out there who wanted to profit and make money off of hurting little girls—but she was soon corrected.

The world was a lot eviler than it was good.

She heard the shuffling of feet, and then the low, gravelly sound of a man’s voice. “This is Avery. She’s one of our newest girls—There is nothing like a fresh teenager, is there? I think they said she’s around fourteen.”

When she had first arrived in this place, they took her to a room and tied her legs to a chair and asked her a bunch of questions about herself, threatening her with violence if she didn’t respond. Told her they would track down her family and murder them if she didn’t cooperate. If they thought she was lying, they would hurt her until she gave them a satisfying answer. They used electric rods to zap her with, they starved her, they humiliated her, water-boarded her, left her in pitch black darkness for days on end to drive her mad was desperation. At one point, she began to realize that she needed to fix her priorities. She didn’t want to die trying to defy the very people who held her life in their hands. She had to think of how she would survive this all. She had to make a choice.

She chose to comply.

She chose to give in.

Hoping that she could think her way out of it—but she wasn’t the brightest. She knew that they would never hurt her physically, only physiologically, and she could take physical pain. She had begun to understand that she had a high pain threshold, but only one brain. Physiological abuse was different, however. Her father used to play mind games with her like they did, and she fell victim to it every time. It worked on her. The fear they were able to instill in her was infinite as long as they broke her down into a crumbling disaster from the inside out. 

They were under strict orders not to bruise her or break the skin. She hadn’t understood it then—but now she knew that they didn’t want to hurt her only because they had clients who wanted to hurt her themselves. She was merely merchandise to them. She had heard them having discussions about money when she was blindfolded in the van they put her in. Avery had heard money amounts she wasn’t aware even existed, and had been terrified that she was going to die. She was still terrified. The feeling never left her, and it chilled her to the bone.

“Perfect. Untie her from the bed, please.” Soon after she heard this, there were foreign and intrusive hands on her wrists and ankles, undoing the knots that held her limbs down to the mattress she lay on in only a white nightgown. Once that was done, she faintly heard “Leave us,” Before the door was shut again. Her vision was blurred and her eyes were having a hard time focusing on anything. She saw shapes and colors that ran together and made her brain feel like mush. She didn’t like what was in those syringes. They made her feel sick, and tired. Extremely tired.

She felt herself nodding off—she welcomed it. If she was sleeping, there was no way she could feel what was happening to her. She would sleep right through it and soon, it would be over and she would at least have lived through it without memory. It was better with no memories.

“Open your eyes,” She heard him say. She did so, only out of fear that he would hurt her if she disobeyed. The man was heavy set, with graying hair on his head and a beard to match. He had hard, dead black eyes, and he wore a crushed velvet jumpsuit with a white t-shirt underneath. He had golden rings on his fingers that looked heavy and expensive. He brought his hand down toward her face as he sat at the edge of the bed and Avery felt herself flinch away from his touch. He made a disapproving sound in the back of his throat and pressed his fingers underneath her chin to lift her gaze up to his.

She wanted nothing more than to look away from him.

“I’m not going to hurt you, child. Why don’t you sit up?” She couldn’t move, and she could barely focus on what he was saying to her, so her response was a tiny whisper “Can’t,”. That’s when he reached out and pulled her up gently, leaning her against the pillows and the wall. She hadn’t expected him to be so nice to her. She expected him to shout and hurt her, to mock her. But he didn’t. He helped her.

“You’re beautiful. I hate that they put this cheap ass makeup on your face.” He licked her thumb and took to wiping the eyeshadow from one of her eyelids. She wanted to stop him, but didn’t have the strength to do so. She had never been called beautiful before. Maybe pretty, maybe hot, maybe sexy, but never beautiful.

She couldn’t help the small smile that formed on her face after he said that. He reached down beneath the bed and into the bag she hadn’t known he brought with him. He produced a bag of make-up removing wipes and took to cleansing her face. The wipes smelled of honey nectar and lavender and Avery found herself enjoying the feel of the cool, wet wipe on her face.

He was gentle, although his hands were large and strong. After he finished with that, he smiled down at her and brought his hand up to caress her cheek. Avery didn’t flinch this time, and he gave her an encouraging smile. “Can I brush your hair?” Avery had frowned. Her hair was in two French braids down her back. One of the girls had done it weeks ago, and that was how it stayed.

She nodded once; she wasn’t going to tell him no. She didn’t want his kindness to go away. “Turn around.” He told her while pulling a brush from his bag. She did as she was told, although it made her dizzy. She felt his hands in her hair, working the braids out of her hair. He then started brushing it, end to root, and she felt herself calming as he did.

She hadn’t expected him not to hurt her, and it was a relief for her. “My name’s Allen. Is Avery your real name?” He asked her. She only nodded in response. “Do you like it here?” He asked her. She shook her head almost immediately, forgetting that she probably should have said yes. What if they beat her for saying no?

“What if someone took you far away from here? Where would you like to go?” He asked her. She shrugged her shoulders. Then she thought about it. She missed her mom more than anything in this world. She wanted her mother, no matter how mad at her she was for letting her father hurt her. Somehow now was worse than back then. She missed her mother’s cooking. She missed her voice. She missed hearing her through the thin walls as she spoke on the phone with her friends. She missed home fiercely, even though she knew it brought her no real comfort to long for it. Home didn’t exist anymore. The building still stood, but gone was her family. She had made sure of that.

“Home.” She whispered. “I wanna go home.” She didn’t notice she was crying until he turned her head to the side and wiped her tears from her cheek with his thumb. “I don’t wanna be here anymore, I’m scared.” She whispered to him, hoping he could somehow save her from this. There was no other way out, they were going to torture her until she died. She had seen it happen to the other girls. Girls she had become close with. One day they were there, the next they were gone. She had watched more people die than she ever wanted to, and she was going to watch herself die too. If she wasn’t already. “I’ll get you out of here. On one condition.” He whispered back.

“What is it?” She answered.

“You have to let me kiss you. Just on the lips.” Avery wanted to recoil away from him. She didn’t like kissing. She didn’t like being touched. Not by strange men. But he had just offered her a way out, and everything came at a price, right? This was no different from what she had been doing before she got taken. It was a quid pro quo, and one she was mighty familiar with. She nodded her head and let him pull her into his lap as he pressed his lips to hers.

Avery was awoken in a daze, shivering fiercely covered in ice cold water, feeling a chill down to her bones. She sat up, shrieking, hot tears streaming down her face. She was completely naked, and she wrapped her arms around herself as her eyes acclimated to the darkness and she was able to recognize her surroundings. She was at the diner. It was closed now, the lights were off and it was eerily quiet. It had to be after ten judging by the darkness, and she didn’t know how long she had been out for.

Her entire body ached, and there was a deep sharp pain in her side that intensified every time she took a breath. Her jaw hurt, her throat her, and she felt like she was struggling to breathe. It crossed her mind that she could be dead and this was hell, but she knew that wasn’t true. Hell didn’t exist, and it if did, God had a lot of f*****g explaining to do for letting it claim her early while she had clearly been alive.

She couldn’t see out of her left eye and could only imagine what her face looked like. She was probably a freak show. Even more than usual. She didn’t have much time to think about her looks, though. She felt a hand tangle in her hair like a vice grip and tug at it harshly. She didn’t have a chance to fight them off; she was being dragged wordlessly across the floor and into the kitchen. Avery reached out her arms and tried to grab the door, the corner of the wall, tried to kick out her feet and knock something over, but it was pointless. 

She only panicked once she knew what was coming.

“No, no, Allen, please don’t do this, Please! Don’t put me in there, I’m sorry, please!” He only grunted as he dragged her to the back of the kitchen and opened the door to the walk-in freezer. He let go of her hair and took hold of her arms, pulling her up to her feet before shoving her inside. She fell, wincing as she slid across the icy floor. The wind was knocked out of her and she felt like her ribs were broken as she struggled to regain her wits on the ice cold floor of the freezer. She sat up and gasped for air, her hand on her throat, wincing as she felt the abrasions in the shape of Allen’s hands on her neck.

She tried to stand up, but slipped on the floor and fell back onto her backside, her abdomen aching so badly that her arm went up to cradle herself like that would help with the sharp pain and building pressure she felt. She felt the sudden urge to puke and had done it before she could even move, looking down at the stomach bile she had thrown up, mixed with blood. She knew something was seriously wrong with her. She knew what it felt like to be close to death—it was nothing new. She wanted to panic, but knew that she needed her energy if she wanted a chance at surviving. She tried to control her breathing as Allen began to angrily speak to her at a scarily low volume.

“You belong to me. I see you’ve forgotten that. You can come back out when you learn to be grateful.” She turned around just as he slammed the door shut and she heard him lock it. She stood, wobbly on her feet and went to the door, banging on it. “Please don’t leave me here! Please! Please Allen! Come back! Come back, I’m sorry, Come back! I’ll do whatever you want, please!” The light went out in the freezer and she shrunk into herself in fear. He had shut the lights off. He had heard her begging and didn’t care.

She was going to die.