Twelve people-eight men and four women-entered the room. They stood and stared at the children, a few of them smiling as if they were looking at their Thanksgiving dinner.

Suddenly, music began to play. At a nod from the creepy masked man, Cali and Max moved around to the side of the bed and got on top. They began to kiss while Maggie and Shana stood at the side of the bed and watched. Maggie's eyes bulged out of their sockets when she saw how Max was touching Cali. He was putting his hands on her boobs and rubbing between her legs. Then Cali pushed Max down on the bed and put his penis into her mouth. Maggie was repulsed at the sight of what Cali was doing to Max.

After several minutes, Cali and Max stopped what they were doing. Getting off the bed, they led Maggie and Shana to the foot of the bed, where they stood in a line again. The strangers walked by them, looking them over, getting a better look at their faces. Each of them paused to take in the beauty that Maggie had to offer, and a few of them leaned in to sniff her hair. After the strangers left the room, the kids dressed, and John William led them back to their cells.

Chapter One.

Maggie spent the next twenty-four hours alone in her cell, which was part of the break-in period. This was when the abductors used isolation, fear, humiliation, and physical punishment to make their victims submissive. Alone with nothing but her own thoughts, Maggie contemplated what was to come next. How could she get away? Would her parents ever find her? What else would John William make her do? Remorse crushed in on her as she recalled the events at the mall that led to her capture. As the hours of loneliness wore on, she tried to remember happy times with her family, but her mind always drifted back to her new reality.

The next night, John William took the children upstairs one at a time. Maggie sat on the edge of her cot. Hours passed as she waited for John William to come and get her. When she heard the door of her cell unlock, she had to fight back the scream of terror that was lodged in her chest.

John William took Maggie to a different room this time. When she stepped inside, there was a single bed shoved against the wall. She was told to sit on the bed. A few minutes later, a tall man walked into the room. He wore pleated, brown pants; a white, button-down shirt; and suspenders. He walked over to the side of the bed and smiled down at Maggie. "Hi, sweetie. Daddy's home. Now, be a good little girl and take your clothes off. Do it nice and slow, the way Daddy likes it."

Maggie's limbs when limp, but she remembered what Cali had told her about getting beaten. Tears dribbled down her cheeks as she removed all of her clothes very slowly. He had her lie on the bed while he stood and looked at her for a while. Then he asked, "Were you a good girl today?"

Maggie nodded at him vigorously.

"I asked, were you a good girl today. When Daddy asks you a question, he expects to hear an answer," he said, becoming odder by the moment.

"Yes, I was a good girl today." Maggie's voice cracked.

"Well, Mommy said you were very naughty. She said that you kicked the neighbor's dog and, as much as I hate to do it, you know that Daddy has to punish you for it. Right?"

Maggie pleaded, "Please don't punish me. I swear I won't be bad again. Please."

"It's too late for that, sweetheart. If you do something bad, then there have to be consequences. Now, go ahead and lie on your belly."

Maggie turned over on the small bed, putting her head to the side so she could watch the odd man. Her jaw went limp, and her muscles tensed as the man took all of his clothes off. He picked up his belt.

"OK, now this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you," the man said calmly, as he slashed the belt across her bare ass. He whipped the belt across her flesh two more times before he told her to turn onto her back again.

The man stood over Maggie naked, with an erect penis. Her head was buzzing, and her own heartbeat hammered against her eardrums. She didn't know what would happen next and feared that he was about to kill her. She began yelling, "No!" over and over again.

Less than a minute later, John William came into the room. He strode over to the bed and bent down close to her ear.

"Listen, you little bitch. This guy ain't just anybody. He owns that virgin pussy of yours and has every right to have it. Now stop yelling before I crack your fucking head open."

After John William left the room, the man approached the bed again. "Now, where were we?" he asked with a sickeningly sweet smile. "Oh yes, you were about to show me how sorry you were for being a bad girl today."

Then the man slid on top of Maggie and began to kiss her. Maggie wiggled under his weight as she struggled to breathe. The man seemed not to notice as he stuck his large tongue into her small mouth. She was confused and petrified. Maggie was utterly helpless to fight back. After an extended period of touching and kissing her, the man entered her swiftly. She felt as though he had rammed a burning stick between her legs. Maggie's shrill scream shattered the silence of the room, and this made the man even more eager to proceed. Then, after about a minute, Maggie faded into a state of shock. The darkness, which she had feared just the night before, swaddled her and provided an escape from her misery.

Maggie lay motionless as the stranger took her virginity in a dirty, depressing room on the second floor of an abandoned prison.

Chapter Two.

A twenty-minute drive from where Maggie was forcefully losing her virginity, her parents, Rob and Lorraine Clarke stood in their living room, talking with the police. In the first moments when Lorraine couldn't find Maggie at the mall, she felt as if her heart had come to a screeching halt. She had fought for every breath. Her body ice cold, she frantically hunted through the food court like a wild animal. Shoppers looked on as Lorraine's self-control vanished and she became increasingly hysterical. Her guttural sobs made everyone around her feel the throbbing sorrow wedged in her heart. Feeling Lorraine's anguish and deep loss, shoppers pulled their own children closer to them, silently thankful that they weren't suffering such heartbreak.

Even after the police and Rob arrived, Lorraine felt frozen in time. She wanted to turn the clock back to undo the decision she'd made about Maggie. Lorraine yearned for the past so she could make the right decision and go with her daughter to buy a slice of pizza.

As each event unfolded-the arrival of the police, the crowd of onlookers gathering, and then Rob's arrival-Lorraine held to the belief that Maggie would reappear and they could go on with their lives. But after hours passed without any sign of Maggie, thoughts of her daughter being molested and murdered played through Lorraine's mind. Rob tried to soothe her, but there was nothing he could say to keep the dark thoughts from seeping into her mind or his own, sending the couple further into the murky stickiness of their reality.

Lorraine had become frenzied and refused to leave the mall without Maggie. She lingered until the mall closed. She had to be certain that Maggie wasn't just lost in the sea of people. The police practically had to force her to go home. She agreed only after they promised to patrol the parking lot throughout the night.

Lorraine blamed herself for all that was happening to them. She never should have allowed Maggie to go off alone. She knew better than to let the children out of her sight. Even in the first hours of pure chaos, Lorraine believed that her husband would hate her as much as she hated herself for the life-altering decision she'd made.

Lorraine wanted the police to find her daughter immediately, and after many hours of telling her story to them, she grew tired. She had explained it at least a dozen times while standing in the food court, but they kept coming back to her with the same question: why did Maggie go off by herself? Lorraine explained through anguished sobs that her daughter had begged to be allowed to buy a slice of pizza by herself, and Lorraine had finally given in. One single moment of poor judgment would cause a lifetime of regret.

Now Lorraine sat on her sofa remembering every detail of her daughter. She could see the silky, jet-black hair and the soulful, ocean-blue eyes. Maggie had been a precious gift from the moment she was born. Her sweet demeanor and later, her insatiable appetite for learning, made her the teacher's pet as each new school year rolled around. Of course, Lorraine loved the attention Maggie received from her teachers, but it made it difficult for Maggie to make friends. The other girls in Maggie's class thought she was a geek and envied all of the attention she received from the teachers.

Maggie had a sharp sense of humor and would often verbally spar with her father while Lorraine was cooking dinner. Maggie teased her father about being an old man, even though he was only forty. She mocked the clothes he wore and often told him that he smelled bad, although he never did. Rob would pretend to be offended, and they would banter back and forth, laughing until their stomachs ached.

Lorraine and Rob were a down-to-earth, well-liked couple. The two had met during college and were married in their early twenties. A few years after they married, they bought a two-story home on a half-acre lot in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. Lorraine was an eighth-grade teacher, and Rob was a computer analyst at a large engineering firm. They waited until they were in their late twenties before they had Maggie, and they'd planned to have just one child. To their surprise, seven years later, Lorraine became pregnant with Keith.

Of the two, Maggie was the rock star. As a toddler, adults would stop and listen to what she had to say. She was charming and charismatic, which made her easy to engage. As she got older, Maggie's love of reading accelerated her ability to be clever with words. She was her parent's pride and joy. They loved Keith just as much as they loved their daughter, but being the firstborn, she secretly held a special place in their hearts.

Before Maggie was stolen, Lorraine and Rob would lie in bed at night and talk about their children. They agreed that Maggie would be something very special when she grew up. Rob was confident that she would become a doctor and find the cure for cancer. Since kindergarten, they'd told Maggie that she could be anything she wanted to because she was capable of learning. This encouragement gave Maggie the motivation to go above and beyond in everything she decided to do. She was a very special child.

But now, with Maggie missing, Lorraine and Rob sat silently on the sofa together. Each of them prayed she would be returned to them soon. They had no idea what had become of their little girl. As the minutes of waiting turned into hours, their agony grew to higher levels. The emptiness engulfed them, making them feel as though they were completely hollow inside-rightly so, because while they didn't know it at the time, their daughter had been forced into human sex trafficking.

Chapter Three.

Myles Cabello, the "owner" of Maggie and the sex-trafficking cartel, left her lying on the bed. He had raped her three times that evening before getting dressed. He was in a hurry to catch a plane back to his hometown in New York, where his wife and three kids waited. As Myles left the bedroom, he told John William, "Don't let anything happen to that one. I'll be back to visit her. I don't want to find one mark on her. You understand?"

Myles reviewed photos of all the new children who were brought into his concealed locations in the Northeast corridor. When he saw the pictures of Maggie, her beautiful, innocent eyes had caused a stir in his groin. He'd made a special trip to Pennsylvania to be the first to have the lovely child.

After John William returned Maggie to her cell that night, Cali went to her, carrying a bowl of warm water and an old T-shirt. She bathed the young girl as best she could in an attempt to remove all the reminders of Myles from her small body. The teen could see bruises that indicated that Maggie had been badly hurt. She told John William that Maggie would need a glass of whiskey to ease some of her pain so she could recover. Cali managed to get Maggie to drink most of the whiskey, and a short time later, the child slipped into sleep.

The next day, Seth ran into Maggie's cell while she was still sleeping and threw himself across her body. As she woke slowly, memories of where she was and what Myles had done to her flooded back. Cali and Max walked into her cell just as the reality of what happened sank in. The teenagers sat on the edge of the cot. Maggie immediately wailed, "Cali, a man did horrible things to me last night. I think that he did something really bad to my insides. He hurt me so much."

Cali's throat filled with bitter bile, and she looked to Max for support as she began to console the child. "I know, Maggie. I know what he did to you. The first time always hurts the most. It'll get better," she said, trying to reassure her.

"No, it won't get better! I'm never letting anyone do that to me again!" Maggie shouted.

Seth stared at Maggie with a confused expression, wondering why she was so upset. Maggie stood to use the toilet, but her small, thin legs gave out. Max jumped up to help his little friend over to the toilet.

"Maggie, we are all in this rattrap together," Max said. "When you are with these scum-sucking pigs, you are alone in your own sadness, and nobody is there to care, but when we are together, you aren't alone anymore. Get it in your head that we look after each other even though no one else seems to give a fuck about us. When it gets as bad as it did last night, you have to believe that someday, things will get better, and until that day comes, all us kids are family."

Maggie wanted to hold onto Max and never let him go, but she was too weak even to respond. She wanted him to grow big, hard muscles so that he could beat up John William and get them all out of there.

Having lost all modesty, Maggie sat on the toilet to pee. She groaned when her urine passed through her like liquid fire.

She had just finished when John William walked into the cell. "Let's go. Breakfast."

Maggie looked over at the man who had stolen her from a life she adored, and anger welled up inside of her, giving her a small boost of energy. John William had made her leave the loving family she'd known and put her into this new life, one of fear and pain.

Maggie scowled at him. "I'm not hungry."

"I don't give a shit if you're hungry or not," John William said without compassion. "Get your ass out here. Everyone eats when I say they eat."

Maggie's newfound courage quickly dissolved when John William took a few steps toward her. She stood from the toilet and obediently followed Cali and Max into the hallway. Seth tagged along behind, his small hand firmly holding onto hers.

At breakfast, Shana watched Maggie closely. Finally, after John William had left them to eat, she said, "So who were you with last night? Huh? You were with Myles, right?"

Maggie looked up from her flavorless oatmeal. "Who's Myles?"

"Myles owns us, you pea brain. He usually comes for me. But you've ruined all of that. I hate you!" Shana spat.

"Shana, stop it!" Cali cut in. "She didn't do anything. She can't help it that Myles wanted her. I'm sure this doesn't change anything for you. He'll keep you safe, just like he always has."

Shana looked over at Maggie again. "Yeah, well, Cali better be right. Otherwise, I'll kill you."

Maggie looked to Max, who quickly shifted his gaze back to the bowl in front of him. Then he swallowed hard and spoke. "Shana, you've been here long enough to know how this works. It's not like they gave her a fucking choice. Lighten up on her and try to remember back to your first time with Myles. Just because he protects you doesn't make it any easier."

"Whatever, Max. Fuck you, too! All I know is that Myles better come back for me, or I'm gonna fuck her up," Shana argued, her bark way bigger than her bite.

What is Shana talking about? Maggie wondered. She didn't do anything, and she never met anyone named Myles. She would ask Cali after breakfast. The last thing she wanted was for one of the kids not to like her. Worse yet, what if Shana really beat her up or even killed her? She didn't want to die in this terrifying place. She wanted to go home to her family. Besides, being left out at school was one thing, but here, not being accepted would push her deeper into hell.

Chapter Four.

"Who's Myles?" Maggie asked Cali as soon as they were alone.

"Myles is the big boss. He runs all of the places where they keep the kids," she answered.

"What do you mean all of the places?" Maggie wanted to know.

"Well, just like here, there are lots of different places where they kidnap kids and sell them for sex. Sometimes they move us around. I've been to three other states since they took me. But don't worry; if Myles likes you, they will keep you here," Cali explained, trying not to alarm her.

"Is that why Shana is mad at me? Is she afraid they will move her somewhere else?"

Cali considered how to answer without worrying Maggie. "That's part of it. The other part is that if Myles likes you, he'll come back to see you. Before you came here, he came to see Shana. I know you don't understand all of this, but some of the clients can be mean. Sometimes they do things to us that hurt more than Myles hurt you last night."

Maggie hung her head, unable to believe something could hurt more than what Myles had done to her. "So, are you saying that someone is going to hurt Shana?"

"It's possible. Now that he wants you, it means that John William can give her to anybody. It's the way things work. But you have to remember that you didn't do anything to make it happen. Shana is just scared now. Myles has kept her safe for the past year," Cali explained.

Maggie let the new information sink in before she asked her next question. "Does that mean that only Myles will have sex with me?"

"No, baby. It just means that they won't let you be with anyone who does things that are extra mean," Cali explained, feeling the younger girl's fear.

"Extra mean how? Like, what do they do?" Maggie persisted.

Cali let out a loud sigh. It made her sick to have to explain these horrible things to the younger kids. But when she was taken as a young teen, one of the older boys that the cartel was trafficking at the time sat her down and explained everything to her. Knowing the truth didn't make it easier on the kids, but it did take some of the mystery out of what would happen to them. It gave them a little advantage with some of the clients so they could manipulate which acts they would be required to perform. It also let the kids know that they weren't alone in their intolerable situations.

"Well, some of the clients like to get rough. They hit and bite you. But..."

The prolonged pause made Maggie's anxiety soar.

"Sometimes they do really bad stuff, like burn you or put things inside of you that they shouldn't," Cali finally said.

The information bounced around in Maggie's head, making her woozy. "So, then, until my parents come for me, it's good that Myles likes me?"

"Yes, Maggie, it is. But don't forget that Myles is the person who started all of this shit. So, he's still a dangerous man, and you can't trust him. Just do what he wants you to, and you'll be OK," Cali advised.

"Aggie, why are you scared?" Seth asked, instinctively knowing that something was wrong with her.

Maggie scooped Seth up into her arms. "I'm just worried about how we're going to get home. That's all. But guess what? I'm going to stay with you until you can go home to your mommy and daddy," she assured him.

"But I want my mommy now. I'm scared too," he whimpered.

"I know you are, and that's why whenever John William lets us, I'll be right here with you," she told him, kissing his forehead.

Then she looked at Cali. "We're gonna get out of here. We have to. Right, Cali?"

"Sure, baby. We'll get out of here. Just remember that until that happens, we need to take care of each other. That's all we got. Can you remember that for me?" Cali asked.

"Yeah, I'll remember. Oh, Cali, John William calls me a little whore. What's that?" Maggie asked, not having been exposed to such names.

"Maggie, John William is a jerk. Don't pay any attention to what he calls you. He's the worst kind of person alive. We all have to listen to him because we're here. Someday, all of the horrible things he's done and said will come back on him. Just ignore him when he calls you names," she instructed.

When Cali went back to her cell, Maggie sat and replayed their conversation. She was thinking that if she was really sweet to Myles, he might let her go home. Then her thoughts drifted to Shana, who was upset that Maggie was Myles's favorite now. It was just like school, where the kids hated her because all the teachers loved her. She pulled Seth closer to her and vowed to do everything she could to keep the two of them safe. She didn't know then the price she'd have to pay to keep them safe.