Except for us.
I’m in one of seven metal cages suspended from the ceiling. They’re big enough to hold us if we cower on bended knees, but that’s how they prefer us anyway. Smashed-up souls mean easy-to-manipulate bodies.
I can't remember the last time I wore clothes. They were torn from me days ago, and I stink of abuse and neglect. I wish I felt shame, but I don't feel much of anything anymore. My face tilts forward, defeated; my hair is plastered to my shoulders with dirt and dejection; my eyes are unseeing to the night unfolding all around me. I’m trying hard to cover my naked chest, but my arm keeps slipping.
All the caged girls are in the same pathetic state. I don’t know their names, but we’re all united in our horror and humiliation.
Sexual abuse triggers the worst kind of memories.
I can't remember happiness.
I can't remember fun.
I can’t even remember why they took me in the first place, but the effects of what they’ve done are stamped all over my brain.
I smell their cocktails and canapés as they mill about underneath our cages. The auction will begin soon, and then I’ll be sold into a fresh hell.
I’m exhausted. I can’t keep my eyes open, but a fist keeps banging loudly on the bottom of my cage. Sleeping is against the rules. Crying is against the rules. Dying is against the rules.
I’m vaguely aware of someone staring at me. Nothing new there—I’m standing naked in a cage, exposed and shamed—but I don't feel the same anger and revulsion that I usually do. I blink and scan, and then my stomach lurches. I see a man I once knew—a man I once craved. A man who held me spellbound on a sidewalk in Miami. He’s standing at the back of the room with the devil himself, his icy gray-blue oceans offering me a tidal surge of hope.
Are they here to rescue me?
I can’t breathe. I don’t dare.
The beats of anticipation stretch on and on… And then they strike.
The force of the first blast blows the windows clean out, rocking the foundations, swinging my cage violently and sending everyone else crashing to the floor. Three more blasts follow outside, causing devastation and confusion everywhere I look.
When the guns start firing, I crouch down as low as I can, flinching as stray bullets ricochet off my metal bars. Men dressed in black army gear rappel from the roof and into the gaping holes where the glass panes used to be.
I sift through the chaos, my eyes never leaving him once I find him, watching as he cuts down three men in his path like a warrior in a storybook. Like a white prince riding a black horse with bloody scars and torn colors. Another tries to knife him in the neck, but the guy’s head evaporates into a crimson void.
I can’t stand it any longer. Freedom is too close a friend for him to betray me now.
“Get me out of here!” I scream, kicking desperately at the locked door. It’s not shifting and panic overwhelms me. The last thing I want is to die in this cage.
I hear him yelling at me to stand back, but there’s nowhere for me to go. He aims his gun at the lock mechanism and fires anyway. The metal flies apart and I find myself tumbling into his warmth; my senses swathed in the strongest, safest scent. I can't let him go. I can’t. So I snake my body around him, legs linked around his waist, my nakedness pressed up against his clothes.
“Thank you so much.” I’m sobbing with relief as he carries me through the raging battlefield. He finds a side room, some kind of an office, and kicks the door shut. It’s a temporary shelter from the crying and the screaming, the bullet shells and the acrid tang of death in the air.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He settles me down on the top of a desk like I’m precious and fragile, but doesn't he know? There are no more parts of me left to crack. “You’ll be safe here. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Don’t leave me!” My hands won’t untie from his neck. Only his strength is keeping me breathing when everything else wants to lie down and die.
“I need to help the other girls, Anna,” he says, but I feel his reluctance.
Horror filters through me. There are six others out there, bleeding and frantic.
“Oh my God, yes. Go!” My arms slither free, and I swipe my fingers across my face to catch my tears.
But he doesn’t leave right away. There’s a pregnant beat as he stands there, looking down at me, securing me in a new cage with his chilly gaze.
Who is this illogicality? He’s a killer and a savior. A soldier to another, and a betrayer to all the evil I assumed he was.
I haven’t felt shame in so long, but I can feel her creeping over my face again. I’m naked and filthy and—
“Here.” He shrugs out of his black jacket and hangs it around my shoulders. More strength. More warmth. Keep on breathing, Anna.
“Thank you,” I croak, pulling it tighter around my body.
“Are you hurt?” He leans down to touch my shoulder and I flinch away. I’m hurt in ways I can’t even calculate yet. He frowns. “I’m coming back for you, okay?”
“How did you find me?”
“Let’s get out of here first.”
I watch him close the door behind him, and then suddenly he’s re-appearing again. It’s the first time I’ll experience dissociative amnesia as a coping mechanism.
A few days later, I won’t remember anything about this night or this conversation, until the same man who saved me heals me whole again.
“Can you walk?” He crouches down to assess my injuries. My cuts and bruises weave a tale of abuse, but the dried blood on the inside of my thighs tells of a much darker story. I meet his eyes and an unspoken tragedy passes between us.
“I–I’m not so sure,” I stutter.
“I need to shoot. I can't do that with you in my arms.”
I nod again, slow and hesitant. I can't seem to take anything in. My brain is shaking as hard as the rest of me, making everything loose and unreal.
“Stay close to me,” he says, cupping my cheeks with his hands, absorbing my flinch; refusing to let me go anyway. “I won’t let them touch you again.”
“Are you my moon?” The words fly from my mouth in a tangle of hope and desperation. Is he the one to guide me home?
There’s a pause. “No, sweetheart. You’re your own moon.”
“But I can't find her! I can’t find her!” My voice rises hysterically. “My sky is all black. I don’t know how to fix me!”
“One day at a time, sweetheart.” His grip tightens on my face. “You and I are goddamn survivors, Anna. You hear me?”
“I can't do it on my own. Find me, Joseph Grayson,” I beg him. “When all of this is over… Help me put the pieces back together again.”
“I will find you again, Anna. I will protect you until you’re strong enough to protect yourself.”
“How will I know?” I say, crying softly, needing his reassurance like air and water. “How will I know you’ll keep your word?”
There’s a pause. “Because I will hang my promise around my neck for all to see, my Luna girl. I will hang it there to remind you of just how fucking committed I am to it. And when you see it, and you want to take it, I’ll be here waiting for you to fucking claim it.”