Page 20 of Her Mercenary
I read an article once about children who faced mental and/or physical abuse before their brains were fully developed enough to compartmentalize the experience. The effects went far beyond emotional, to actually changing the brain’s physiological makeup. As a result of the abuse, the children live in a constant state of fight or flight, never being taught how to rationalize, calm themselves, and deal with such anxieties. Therefore, complex personalities are developed, curating abnormal—or incorrect—responses to stimuli.
To put it plainly, this is the recipe for severe personality disorders. Serial killers, rapists, and kids who shoot up schools often suffer personality disorders created by early childhood circumstance.
What would this experience do to the children? To their fragile little minds? How would this mold them? It’s unfair, and in most cases preventable.
Except I didn’t prevent it. I didn’t do a damn thing to help those children but close my eyes and selfishly praying to escape.
The brunette stirred in her cage, something startling her awake. Our eyes met just as I registered what she’d heard—footsteps outside the basement door.
I lifted my finger to my lips, reminding her to be quiet and stay still. She nodded.
The door opened and a flood of guards piled in, a sense of urgency in their step, hyperawareness in their beady black eyes.
I recognized most of the men, but noted a few new faces as well.
We were told to stay quiet and to do exactly as they said, or they would kill us.
The doors of our cages were opened. We were pulled to our feet, our hands cuffed at our stomachs. We were told to keep our eyes shut and heads down, and then, with guns in our faces, we were shuffled out of the room. It was the first time I’d been allowed out of the basement since being taken.
We were marched single file into a dark hallway that smelled of coffee, cigarettes, pot, and the musty scent of an old window air-conditioning unit. The cool air stunned my heated skin, instantly cooling the blue housedress I’d been given, and that’s when I realized the fabric was moist with sweat. I felt a rush of embarrassment, of shame at how I must look and smell.
The stained linoleum felt cool against my bare feet, and I wiggled my toes, trying to rid them of the sweat and dirt that was surely between them.
The guards spoke quickly, and there were more of them than usual in the house, I could tell. Something big was definitely happening.
I wondered if the King had anything to do with this sudden change of routine. It only made sense that he did.
Keeping my head down, I peeked under my lashes, searching for any sign of the children. No luck.
I took in every detail of our prison, mentally cataloging every item, color, and sound, in case I needed to relay the information to the police at some point. In case I ever got out—no—when I got out.
The flooring was old, the rooms furnished with only the necessities. It appeared to be a regular low-income house. By the lack of decor, I deduced that this was no family home. This building served a purpose. This house existed solely to hold slaves.
I could hear cars passing by and horns tapping in the distance. I realized that we were being held somewhere in town, somewhere in civilization—not in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere, like most abduction movies depict.
The house was in the middle of a freaking neighborhood, and this absolutely stupefied me.
How could this kind of thing happen in the open?
How many homes in this neighborhood held prisoners?
How many of your neighbors harbor deadly secrets?
How close are you to being able to save someone?
Would you know the signs of human trafficking if you saw it?
With each step, memories of the day I was taken began to form, broken moments here and there, murky flashbacks of being dragged across this same linoleum.
Had I screamed? Had a neighbor heard and simply shrugged it off?
The thought sickened me.
We were led outside into a hot, sticky night. I sucked in the briny ocean air, imagining it cleansing my lungs of the stink of the basement.
It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. The brunette jerked out of the men’s hold and sprinted at the first scent of freedom.
She was shot three times in the back, the silenced bullets thudding into her body.