He chanced a glance in their direction and instantly recognized the pitiful pleading expression on the woman’s face. Kitten would look at him like that when she was terrified of what he’d do next. In some ways, he imagined that look had softened. As he kept staring at the woman, Javier’s wife, something inside him twisted and he had to look away. It was a good thing he had decided to come alone. It was also a good thing Javier’s wife and child were at home with him. They were the reason Javier would live after tonight. He would never kill a man in front of his child, but Jair and the rest would do so with too much pleasure.

Caleb walked toward a coffee table and picked up a short pencil and a pad of paper resting near a phone. Kitten had used that phone, today. She had touched all these things, but there was no sign of her now. He thought of her smell, still embedded in the pillow on his bed, some of her hair too. At the time he had felt anger, now….

He dropped the pencil and pad next to Javier. “Direcciones. ¡Ahora!” Directions. Now. Javier sputtered and wept, bloody drool dripping from his quivering lip as he forced himself to write. Caleb looked on dispassionately. Ransomed. If they were holding her for ransom, if they didn’t care about the law, about getting back to the U.S., then what else could they be doing to her at this very moment? Rage ripped through him and he fought the strong urge to kick Javier. Emotions were only useful to control, survive and succeed. He was apparently re-learning that lesson he thought he’d mastered.

Caleb collected the piece of bloody paper. The biker’s weren’t too far away, but he also knew he couldn’t go in alone. He would have to return to the house and gather Jair and a few more men along with weapons. The bikers were armed. To his shock, it wasn’t his own safety he was concerned with. That girl, that damn stupid girl. He had to get her back.

Caleb couldn’t wait until he saw the bikers.

I got up and ran to the bathroom to throw up. I heard their laughter in the background and Kid saying they were ass**les. My arms wrapped around the top of the toilet, and probably touched piss, but with no food in my stomach and getting high off the heavy pot fumes, I couldn’t really do too much about it.

They laughed at me. Assholes. I should never have let my guard down. I should never have trusted anyone. I should have run away from Tiny, and I definitely should not have fallen asleep in the bathroom. But the gagging and dry heaving had worn me out further and I was exhausted. And high.

It started out simply at first, my skin felt warmer and that was nice. Little tingles spread throughout my body and I stretched out. My thoughts felt liquid and surreal, like nothing was what it was, like I was falling, but it was okay to fall, and so I did. I felt enveloped. Then the softness became rougher and the warmth hot and uncomfortable. I jerked, my body confused. My buzzing head. My eyes began to flutter, but I couldn’t open them all the way and suddenly I had the odd sensation my ni**les were being tugged through my dress by something blunt but firm.

Instinctively, I pushed at the pressure, of hands. When I realized it was someone, I pushed with my sluggish and weak arms and then I attempted to protest, scream bloody murder but my head felt huge and my tongue felt dead in my mouth. When I felt a mouth on my breast, sucking harder, a yelp escaped my lips. I finally broke through the haze. And I woke up.

“Shhh, you don’t want to wake everybody up.” The voice was feminine – Nancy’s. What the…fuck…was going on? I tried to scream and a hand covered my mouth. Too heavy and large to belong to Nancy. I tried to scream louder, beyond the hand. And still, I heard another voice. Three. But who? It was too dark to tell.

“Hurry up man, she’s wakin’ up.” I swung my arms wildly, surprised when feminine hands grabbed them and held them down. Fabric ripped and my chest was suddenly bare. The man on top of me wasted no time in sucking my breast into his mouth, scratching me with the stubble of his beard. With his free hand he pulled at my dress, trying to raise it up. I kicked wildly, but he forced his way between my legs and his naked chest lay on mine.

“Don’t be shy baby, I know what you are. You’re a whore aren’t you?” And then he let out the shrill laughter that finally gave away his identity – Joker.

“Flip her over,” said the other man.

“I can’t man, if I move my hand she’s gonna start screaming.”

“Don’t be such a f**king pu**y dude, I’ll let you go first, pass her here.”

Eyes wide and somewhat adjusted to the dark, I watched in horror as Joker grabbed his shirt that was lying nearby and shoved it into my mouth as Abe pushed me forward onto Joker’s chest, so that I straddled him. My arms, posing no seeming struggle were pinned high on my back. I cried and screamed pitifully, my cries falling on uncaring ears.

“Why are you letting them do this?” I screamed at Nancy who despite the shirt in my mouth could probably understand me. She looked panicked, but it seemed to stem from anger or excitement. Her eyes were wild, frenzied. She was enjoying this as much as the men.

Joker lay back onto the floor and held my arms as I was bent into an impossibly uncomfortable position. My mind sober, flashed with horrific scenarios which did nothing to formulate a way out of the situation. Behind me Abe pulled down his pants and pressed his penis against me, searching for any way in.

“Oh my god you feel good baby.” I pulled as far away from him as I could and strained my arms so that they almost came out of their sockets. My struggle only served to bend me more impossibly.

Finally, I worked the cloth out of my mouth and in one quick movement bit into Joker’s shoulder so hard his blood seemed to squirt into my mouth. He howled and it rocked my head. The next moment I flew through the air, my ribs landing across the toilet.

“What the f**k? What the f**k? What the f**k?” Abe yelled over and over as Joker continued to scream and curse.

“You f**king bitch!” Joker yelled. He grabbed my hair and I heard the awful crunch of his fist connecting with my face. I choked on both my blood and his.

“Oh my god man, what the hell are you doing!” Nancy finally yelled.

But she could do nothing to stop her associate from kicking me repeatedly in the ribs. My breath protested and all I heard was Crack. Crack. Crack.

The yells and screams coming from the bathroom must have scared everyone in the house, because the door burst open.

“Oh my god!” Kid yelled.

“You f**king idiot, what did you do!” hollered Tiny. Then I remember nothing because my body was shaking, and I was drifting away.

TWELVE

Blood. Lots of it. It mixed with the fine dust of the ground and created a mixture inside the boy’s mouth. He cried. He’d never been hit so hard. Above him the strange man was yelling again, but he didn’t understand. The words were too fast for him to piece together and even if they weren’t, he’d never heard those kinds of words before. He wanted to go home.

He closed his eyes and for a moment, he was there. He was drawn up in his mother’s arms and she was kissing his neck, making him giggle. He was her ‘Handsome Little Man’. His small legs flailed as he squealed with laughter, but his mother held him tight, she wouldn’t let him fall. Tears burned his eyes. Everything burned.

“Sukat!” said the man. The boy knew that word, it was what the man always said when he cried or screamed. The boy forced his mouth shut, trying to breathe through his nose and swallowing all the blood that drained into the back of his throat because of it. He was no longer hungry. His belly was full of blood now.

His hunger had led to this. Every morning Narweh placed a scarce amount of unleavened bread and water on a small table in the room, eyeing the boys wickedly as he left. There were six of them in all; two English boys, one Spaniard, two Arabs, and the boy.

At first they shared it in equal measure, but as the days wore on and hunger set in, it became a battle that ended in a full belly for one or two, and a bloody nose for those that challenged. The boy was often the victor in such battles, but on more than one occasion the collective strength of the others was used to rob him of his spoils. Such had been the case that day.

When he’d smelled the food, he hadn’t been able to help it. It had been two days since his last won meal. The water had been hot and the bread cold, but he’d savored it all too quickly. Not enough. The plate on the table had lots of things, he thought he smelled chicken. He was still young enough that all meat was ‘chicken’ to him. He sat at the small table and picked up the meat. It burned his mouth, but he didn’t care, the tingling tickle infusing his lips, tongue and throat wasn’t enough to overpower the deliciousness of his stolen meal.

The boy hadn’t seen the blow coming. One moment his mouth was filled with delicious chicken and the next, blood and dirt. He didn’t even know what he’d been hit with. He didn’t really know why he’d deserve it, just that he wouldn’t do it again.

“Ghabi! Kéleb!”

Something hot and wet collided with the side of his face. His eyes were really on fire now. His small hands rubbed at his eyes but it only made matters worse. He screamed, gurgling sounds bubbling out of his blood filled throat. Still, in the grips of his agony, he could taste the savory food sliding into his mouth. He swallowed. Eyes tightly shut against the burning pain of the spices he dragged the food out of his hair and across his face into his mouth. It burned twice as much as before because there were open cuts in his mouth. But he was, apparently, still too hungry to care.