One Among Us.

By Paige Dearth.

Dedication.

For my daughter, who holds in her heart all that matters most to me.

Love, Mom.

Acknowledgments.

Love and gratitude to my husband for his tireless efforts to help me find my way.

My sincere thanks to all of you who read and share my stories. Through you, a way will be found.

To my buddy, Barb, at www.disantoart.com: the future holds great things...including picnic baskets.

Much appreciation to Alex, who spent many hours breathing life into my new website. Check her out at: www.pumpkinhour.com.

Happy 80th birthday, Aunt Barbara...your continuous support and love is priceless.

Big E: I'll love you 'til the end!.

Hope Matters.

The young woman trolls streets littered with trash and seedy people, scanning for a buyer. You watch intently as she bends down to talk to a man who pulled his car up to the curb where she's waiting. You wonder how she got there and how she can do what she does. Suddenly, she notices you watching her. All she wants is to be like you because she's long since forgotten who she is.

She barely resembles a real person. She's convinced that there is no way out and that she faces a bleak future. She can't imagine anyone wanting to help her, and she's too confused and ashamed to help herself. She is, after all, a prostitute. Just look beyond the skimpy, tattered clothes and worn-out, high-heeled shoes, and you'll recognize a person no different than you are. She was taken from her family and forced to sell her body.

Now do you view her differently? You know you should help her because underneath all the makeup and shabby clothing, there is an unwilling participant who is just looking for someone to give her a small sign of hope.

Do something, because hope matters.

~Paige Dearth.

The First Twelve Hours of Captivity.

Eleven-year-old Maggie threw up when the man behind the camera demanded that she remove her jeans. "What the fuck," Vic, the photographer, mumbled as he walked over and pushed her down on the bed in the makeshift studio. Then he ripped her jeans off with so much force that it felt as though a layer of her skin came off with the denim. Vic threw a towel at her. "Now wipe up that slop and take your fucking shirt off," he ordered.

Maggie was sobbing; she was stricken with an overwhelming sensation she'd never felt before, a feeling that she was going to die. She had no control over her emotions as she tried not to piss off the man with the camera any more than she already had. She removed her T-shirt slowly. "Good," Vic huffed. "Now lie down on the bed and take your underwear off."

Maggie shook her head. "I don't want to do that. Please don't make me do that, mister." Her small voice quivered.

"That's it," Vic screamed. "John William, get the fuck over here and handle this. I don't have all day for one kid. We have a fuckin' business to run, here."

John William thudded over to the bed where Maggie sat huddled, trying to cover her body, and he backhanded her across the face. Blood dribbled down her split lip and into her mouth, its coppery taste threatening to excite her gag reflex again. Before she could regain her senses, he pulled her panties off. Maggie pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms tightly around her legs as she sat naked on the bed with the two strange men watching her.

She was alone and terrified. All of her senses were heightened by the evil surrounding her. She didn't know what they were going to do to her. Her parents had warned that no one should ever touch her private parts. But here, in this crumbling cement room, she had no choice. Maggie had an overwhelming feeling that the two men were going to do things to her that they shouldn't, and this intensified the vulnerable feeling that gnawed at her gut, jeopardizing her ability to follow their instructions.

Vic looked at Maggie, his face devoid of any kindness. "I'm going to tell you this one time and one time only. I want you to spread your legs apart so I can take some pictures. Just drop your knees to your sides. Do you understand?"

Maggie nodded, not wanting to be hit again. Once Vic was back behind the camera, he looked over at her. "OK, spread your legs like I told you to."

Maggie dropped her knees to the sides, and he began to snap pictures. "Now, I want you to reach down and touch yourself."

Maggie froze, not knowing what to do. John William stepped in, grabbed her hand, and placed it roughly between her legs. "That's it. Put your fingers inside," Vic coaxed her.

Inside where? Maggie wondered, feeling filthy and ruined. Not knowing what she was supposed to do, she remained motionless. Vic strode over briskly, grabbed her hand, and shoved her fingers inside of her. Fear mixed with adrenaline coursed through her body-she thought they had broken her. She had no idea there was a hole between her legs before that moment. They had just started sex education at school, but nothing could have prepared her for the horrible acts she would be expected to perform to her body.

Vic turned to John William. "The next time you bring a new kid in here, make sure they're ready for me. You understand?" he demanded.

John William nodded and glared heartlessly at Maggie. The look was so demonic that it was almost blinding. She shrank away from him, and a deeper level of fear ran uncontrollably through her body, seizing her muscles, paralyzing her.

After Vic took several more pictures, he told her to put on her clothes and leave. As Maggie quickly dressed, she wondered if they had gotten what they wanted and would take her back to the mall now. She was certain that her mother was still at the mall, searching for her. Maggie decided that when the two men let her go home, she would never tell anyone about the pictures they'd taken. Maggie feared that she would be in trouble if her parents found out what she had done.

However, ten minutes later, John William pulled Maggie into her cell and pushed her toward a cot. When he reached the doorway, he turned. "You have a lot to learn. I suggest you pay attention and do what we tell you to do. I'm going to cut you a break since it's your first night, but if you ever embarrass me like that again, I'll bash your brains in."

Maggie's hope of going home quickly vanished as his words bounced inside her head. Since it's your first night. She instantly understood that they weren't finished with her yet. Her heart beat faster as she tried desperately to hang on to the hope that they would let her go.

He raised his voice. "You are to obey everything that you are told to do! If you weren't worth so much money, I'd fuck the shit out of you right now."

Maggie was shaking. She didn't know exactly what he was talking about, but she knew enough to understand that John William wanted to do bad things to her, dirty things. She clung to the cold block wall of the cell, unable to wrap her mind around what was happening to her.

"Take off all of your clothes," John William instructed.

Maggie did as she was told quickly this time.

He looked at her with lust. "Now bring me your clothes."

She quickly scooped them up and carried them to him. John William grabbed them from her arms.

"For causing such a scene tonight, you can sleep naked. So you can get used to it, you little whore," John William taunted.

After John William left her and locked the heavy door behind him, Maggie sat on the dirty cot. She wept from the very depth of her soul. The unrelenting fear was suffocating and inescapable. This had been the hardest day of her young life. She had only been missing for twelve hours, but it felt like a year to eleven-year-old Maggie.

She cried herself to sleep that night, thinking of her family, and when she woke the next day, her nightmare continued.

One Day Prior: The Capture.

Maggie was only thirty feet from the line of people at the pizza counter in the food court inside the Plymouth Meeting Mall. As she walked by the large glass doors that opened to the parking lot, she saw two teenage girls standing just outside the entrance. They were talking to a man with a puppy. She watched as the girls took turns holding the dog. Then, as they passed Maggie on their way into the mall, she heard them talking about how adorable the puppy was. "Wasn't that man nice?" one of the girls said. "I wish my dad felt that way about dogs and would let me get a puppy."

Maggie looked out the glass doors at the man holding the puppy; he turned the dog in her direction and lifted a paw, as if to wave at Maggie. She stood glued to the glass door, smiling at the tiny pile of fur in the man's arms. She opened the glass door just a couple of inches. "He's so cute. What's his name?" Maggie asked.

"I just got him today, and I haven't named him yet. I'm taking ideas, though. What do you think I should call him?" John William asked sweetly.

"I don't know," Maggie said shyly, not able to take her eyes off the fluffy mound of fur.

"Would you like to hold him?" John William offered.

"I would, but I really shouldn't. I can't leave the mall," she explained.

"You're not leaving the mall. I'm standing five feet away from the door. What's the difference whether you're standing five feet inside or outside of the door? Besides, I'm not allowed to bring him inside," John William said.

Just then, the puppy gave a small bark at Maggie.

"See, he likes you. I think he wants you to hold him," John William told her.

Maggie looked around and then over her shoulder across the food court at McDonald's. She saw her mother and brother in a long line waiting to place their order. Deciding they'd be quite a while, she agreed.

"OK, but just for a minute. If my mom finds out I went outside, she'll ground me for sure," Maggie explained.

She stood next to John William, and he handed her the puppy. It immediately started to lick her face.

"See, he loves you already. What's your name?" he asked.

"Maggie. He's the cutest puppy ever." She kissed the top of the dog's head and handed him back to John William. "I have to go back in. Thanks for letting me hold him," she said.

John William took the puppy from her and set him on the ground. To his delight, the dog did exactly what he'd hoped. It ran off toward the parking lot.

"Oh my God," John William exclaimed, pretending to be worried. "He's gonna get killed by a car. Please help me catch him!" he yelled to Maggie as he ran in the direction of the dog.

Without thinking it through, Maggie darted off to help rescue the puppy. She was running behind John William when he turned. "You run down that lane, and I'll meet you at the far end. That way, he can't get away," he rasped.

Maggie ran between two cars and down the lane to the very end, where she stood behind a red van. When John William met her, he was carrying the puppy. "Thanks for your help. He could have been killed," he said and handed the puppy to her.

She took him into her arms again. "Pup, you could've been killed. You have to be more careful," she cooed.

"This is my van," John William told her as he opened the back door.

Maggie looked inside and saw a small dog crate.

"Why don't you put him in the crate for me, and I'll get his bowl from the front seat. I want to give him some water. He must be thirsty from all that running around," he said with a smile.

Maggie watched as John William started toward the front of his van. Only then did she climb in to put the puppy in the crate, but before she made it that far, she was wrapped in an overpowering embrace. She panicked; the desire to flee surged through her body.

John William shoved her toward the crate, and she quickly scurried to find her footing. He was right next to her when he yanked a rag doused in chloroform from a small bucket on the floor of the van. He grabbed her around the waist and put the rag over her mouth and nose. She was unconscious in seconds.

When Maggie woke up, she was lying in the back of the van, hog-tied and gagged. Her head was pounding and the motion of the van churned the nausea that swirled in her belly. As her vision began to clear, she saw a young boy lying next to her, bound and gagged in the same way. The boy was much younger than she was-five or six, she guessed. He lay lifelessly, and she hoped he wasn't dead.

Maggie started to weep. She thought about how stupid she was to follow the man outside. Her mother had warned specifically about adults using pets to lure children in so they could steal them.

Then she thought about her mother. Why had she insisted that she was old enough to get pizza by herself? Her mom had said no at first, but Maggie had begged, "Come on, Mom. I'm not a baby. I'm eleven years old. I can walk to the other side of the food court by myself."

Lorraine, Maggie's mother, wanted to show her daughter that she trusted her and finally agreed. When Maggie headed to the pizza line, her mother took her younger brother, Keith, to McDonald's for a happy meal.

Maggie wanted the other kids at the food court to think she was cool. The fifth-grade girls from her class, who always left Maggie out, were celebrating a birthday with a pizza party at the food court. She wanted to show them that she had independence and was too good to join their stupid little group.

Still, in the back of the van with a man she didn't know, she tried to keep herself calm. The little boy lying next to her finally woke up. He looked at her pleadingly, but there was nothing she could do to help. She tried to keep her eyes from revealing her own fear, but it was a wasted effort.

Suddenly, the van came to a stop, and the back doors opened. John William reached in and clamped his large hand on one of Maggie's ankles. Then he reached down with a knife and cut the thick rope that kept her legs and arms tied together. He pulled her out of the van and into a field, putting one of her arms behind her back. She felt the handcuffs fasten on her right wrist and then her left. The cold steel of the cuff cut into her flesh, and she looked at John William for mercy.

Ignoring her, John William did the same to the small boy, who was crying and squirming in an attempt to escape. John William slapped the boy, and after the child fell to the ground, he put his dirty white sneaker on the child's back while he handcuffed him.

Maggie looked around frantically for someone who could help them. Since it was dark outside, she knew they had been in the van for a long time. John William took each of them by the arm and dragged them down a dirt path with high grass on either side. Maggie could see a stark, stone building ahead. The building was as frightening as the man who had taken her from the mall. It stood like an abandoned castle against the moonlit night sky.

Maggie's New Home.

John William led the children through a heavy steel door and down a hall with jail cells on either side. It was obvious that no one else was there. "Where are we?" Maggie squeaked through the gag that was tied at the back of her head.

"Silence," John William demanded.

Her mind raced as they walked through the decrepit prison. Oh my God, how will I find my way home? After he took them through a block of cells, he stopped to grab a flashlight from a stool next to a small steel door. John William pulled the two children along, down two long flights of rusted metal stairs, deeper into the bowels of the building.

Finally, they were walking down a dark, narrow hall. The flashlight threw off a spooky yellow haze, and Maggie knew that her abductor had delivered them to hell. On either side of them were tiny cells. Mounds of dirt poured into the hallway from some of the cells, where the building's foundation had given way to the force of the earth pressing in from the outside.

Unlike the cells two floors above them, these cells had solid steel doors with small, rectangular openings in the middle. John William stopped midway down the hall and took them both into one of the cells. He made the little boy lie down on the cot. Then he removed his gag and handcuffs. "Don't you move," he ordered.

Shutting the door behind them, he led Maggie to the cell directly across the hall. After her gag and handcuffs were removed, he abruptly left. Maggie began to pray that whatever was happening to them would end quickly. That someone would come and rescue them.