One Among Us - One Among Us Part 4
Library

One Among Us Part 4

"I read it in one of the books that Dr. Barnes gave me. It's all about home remedies. The salt water will help so the cuts don't get infected and the baking-soda paste is supposed to help make it feel better and heal faster," Maggie explained.

"Wow. That's some crazy shit, Mags. You did real good tonight. I didn't know what to do to help her. I'm proud of you, baby," Cali said, running her hand down Maggie's arm.

"Cali? I feel like it's my fault that this happened to her. It looks like whoever she was with was really mean to her. Is there anything we can do to help her?" Maggie asked naively and with true concern.

"I'm not sure there's anything we can do right now, but I bet we can figure something out," Cali assured her.

Cali wanted to give Maggie hope that they would find a way to fight back. Cali knew deep in her heart that the odds of getting out or taking control were slim to none. But she wasn't willing to dampen Maggie's spirit or her belief that one day they would all be set free. She was pretty certain that day would never come for herself or for the others, but she had a feeling that Maggie's fate would be different. She just hoped it was for the better.

Chapter Nine.

Several months later, when the children were led to the room where clients looked them over so they could take their picks of the litter, an exotic woman named Sabrina was among the perverted freaks. She had been living with one of the cartel's regulars for over a year. Her boyfriend, Bernie, was a kinky bastard, and kids really turned him on. After Bernie and Sabrina had dated for a couple of weeks, they decided to move in together. Shortly after they started living together, he broached the subject of kiddy porn with her. Over time, she became more open to the conversation, but she remained standoffish.

Sabrina had no family, and since Bernie was a successful business owner who paid people to run his business for him, the two spent every minute of every day together. Bernie liked the fact that he was the only person who ever talked to Sabrina, and she seemed content with being cut off from the rest of the world. When he first told her about the group of children available to them, she was hesitant. Then, she began asking questions. How many were there? How old were they? Where were they kept? How much did they cost?

None of her questions were ever answered. Bernie explained that she couldn't know any of the details because that was the deal he'd made with the cartel that owned the children.

"You and I can go there so that you can see them. I'll let you pick whichever one you like. It'll be so fucking good, believe me," Bernie assured her.

Finally, Sabrina agreed to indulge Bernie's obsession with children, although she warned him that she didn't know what to expect or how she would react to it.

Bernie blindfolded Sabrina and drove to the abandoned prison. It was protocol to bring in newcomers that way until the cartel was certain the person could be trusted. Once inside the room, Bernie removed Sabrina's blindfold, and she watched as the children removed their clothes for the audience.

Sabrina's heart raced as she stared at the innocent little human beings standing before them. When Sabrina's eyes met Maggie's, the woman was mesmerized. It was as if she could feel Maggie's pain. Typically, clients never made eye contact, but an unspoken connection was made between the grown woman and the young child.

Sabrina leaned into Bernie. "That one," she whispered, pointing at Maggie. "I want that one."

Bernie turned to her and smiled. "You have very good taste, my dear. She is the most expensive of them all. She's also the youngest. I've had her before, and she is just delicious."

Sabrina gave him a dim smile. "OK. Can we go now?" she asked.

"No, darlin', the show isn't over yet. Just a few more minutes and we can go and purchase our goods," Bernie said with excitement.

Like soldiers, the children formed a line at the foot of the bed. The clients walked by them, and when Bernie got to Maggie, he put his mouth next to her ear. "My girlfriend has picked you. You are a very lucky little girl."

"Thank you, sir," Maggie responded, as she had been taught to say when she was given a compliment.

Maggie had lost all sense of ownership of her body. She nurtured her mind and turned her body over to the men who owned it. She didn't fight it any longer. She had learned over time that fighting didn't serve her well. Fighting them meant punishment, and her desire was to make it as easy on herself as possible. After all, she didn't want to end up like Shana, being sold to the cruelest of the cruel.

Thirty minutes later, Maggie was alone with the couple. Bernie took his clothes off and instructed his girlfriend and Maggie to do the same. He led Sabrina over to the bed and had her sit on the edge. Bernie instructed Maggie to stand in front of him. "OK, Maggie, I want you to give your uncle a blow job. Do it real slow so your aunt can see everything."

Maggie slowly got down on her knees, but before she could begin to give Bernie what he wanted, Sabrina stopped her. "Hold on now, Bernie. I thought little Maggie could just watch us. I mean, it would be a total turn-on to me to know that she's peeking. You know, pretend like we're her mom and dad and she is spying on us. Doesn't that sound good?"

Maggie waited with anticipation as Bernie thought about it. She'd never simply "watched" before.

"Yeah, I like that," Bernie stated. "But while we're getting it on, I want you to sit on the chair over there and play with yourself."

Maggie rushed over to the chair and sat down. As the two adults engaged in sex, she stayed on the chair and did exactly what Bernie wanted her to do. The child was numb to all of it. Bernie kept his eyes glued to Maggie while he pursued his girlfriend. Every so often, Maggie would catch Sabrina looking at her not with lust, but with raw sadness.

When it was all over, the three of them dressed while Bernie talked about what a great evening it had been. Sabrina grabbed her purse and dug through it until she found what she was looking for. "Here," she said to Maggie, "do you like candy? I thought you might like it."

It had been a long time since Maggie had a piece of candy. John William fed them oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, and boiled hot dogs with instant mashed potatoes for dinner. It was the same food day in and day out; it never varied.

Maggie looked at the candy bar with longing as her mouth watered. "We're not allowed to have treats like this. John William would never let me keep it. Thank you, anyway," she said with regret.

"Well, then John William doesn't have to know. Right, Bernie? We'll just sit here while you eat it," Sabrina said, sitting on the small chair in the corner.

Maggie took the candy bar from her and pulled the paper off as though it was Christmas morning. She bit into the candy and chewed as quickly as she could, as if someone would steal it from her. She gobbled the bar down in under a minute and looked at Sabrina.

"Thank you. That was so delicious," Maggie said.

Bernie had watched the young girl and his girlfriend while all of this transpired. He didn't care for the sentiment between Sabrina and the kid. In his mind, these kids were little sluts; he had never viewed them as human, and the exchange with Sabrina had ruined the image of Maggie in his mind's eye. He preferred Maggie to remain a "thing" and not a person. That was part of the lure.

"All right, enough of this shit," Bernie stated. "Let's get the hell out of here."

On their drive home, with Sabrina blindfolded again, Bernie lectured her about the candy bar incident.

"What's wrong with giving the little girl a candy bar?" Sabrina wanted to know.

"That's not the point, Sabrina. This is about sex; it ain't about kids and being nice to them. She's not your fucking daughter, OK? We go there for one thing. Once you start that sappy shit, you kill the whole mood. If you're going to do that shit, then I'll go by myself the next time," Bernie stated.

"OK, Bernie, OK. I won't do it again. I promise. I want to go back with you, honey. I had so much fun tonight," she sang sweetly.

For the rest of the ride, Sabrina thought about nothing but the beautiful little girl they had left to be consumed by demons.

Chapter Ten.

The next day, after showers, Maggie went to talk with Cali, who was sitting in Max's cell with him.

"Hi, guys. I wanted to tell you about that couple last night. The weirdest thing happened. After they...you know, well, the lady reaches into her purse and gives me a Nestle Crunch bar. Oh my God, it was so good! I forgot how much I love candy."

The two teens listened with a bit of envy. The kids never got any food other than what John William provided. Cali and Max remembered how wonderful it was to eat chocolate. They rarely allowed themselves to think about the amazing things that were no longer a part of their lives, but now they clung to this opportunity to live through Maggie.

"Was it as good as I remember it being?" Max asked.

Maggie nodded and smiled mischievously.

"Oh man, did you let it melt in your mouth so that it coated your tongue? I used to love doing that," Cali stated.

"No, I gobbled it down as fast as I could. I was afraid the woman was playing a joke on me and would take it back. Or John William would come in, and I would be in trouble for eating it," Maggie said, feeling gluttonous.

Maggie had thought it would be a good story to share with her friends, but when she saw the nostalgia on their faces, it made her sad to have reminded them of something they'd lost. It was the small things that each had taken for granted before their captures that they missed most-a hug from a loved one, toilets that flushed, or taking a shower in private.

Max noticed the sudden change in Maggie's demeanor. "Come here, Maggie," he said, giving her a squeeze. "We think it's great that you got to have a treat. You know how it works. We don't think about these things that much. But when one of us gets any bit of pleasure, I think it's important that we share it with each other. Fuck, there's nothing wrong with that. It beats thinking about being a prisoner all the time, right?"

"Sure. Sorry if I made you feel bad, though. If she comes to see me again and brings more candy, I'll try to save some and sneak it back to you guys," Maggie offered.

"No!" Cali snapped. "You won't sneak anything back. Maggie, if John William ever caught you doing that, there's no telling what he'd do to you. He looks for reasons to punish us. Promise us that you'll never try to do that."

Frightened by Cali's reaction and the thought of John William punishing her, Maggie agreed.

A short while later, Maggie left to talk to Shana and Seth. They were sitting in Seth's cell, and Shana was telling him a story about when she was a little girl and her parents took her on vacation to Disney World. Seth listened intently as she described having breakfast with Mickey Mouse. They looked up at Maggie as she walked in.

"What do you want?" Shana asked, annoyed that Maggie had interrupted her moment of sweet remembrance.

Maggie wanted so much for Shana to like her. "I just wanted to see what you guys were doing. You know, I went to Disney World, too. When I was eight years old, my parents-"

"Guess what?" Shana interjected, cutting Maggie off.

"What?" Maggie asked, hoping they were making a connection.

"I don't give a shit what you did when you were eight years old. It doesn't change the fact that you stole Myles from me, and I still hate you. I'll always hate you. So why don't you take your bony little ass out of here and find someone else to bother," Shana barked, turning back to Seth.

Maggie was stunned. She looked on for a few moments more, willing herself not to cry, and then she quietly turned and left them. Back in her own cell, she sat on the dirt floor next to her cot. She desperately wanted Shana to like her. Maggie had believed that by helping her when she had been beat up that Shana would suddenly like her. She never asked for Myles's attention and hadn't done anything to hurt Shana intentionally.

Maggie despised her own existence and the little whore she'd been reduced to just as much as Shana did.

Chapter Eleven.

Maggie had been missing for just under a year. Lorraine sat at her kitchen table, nursing a third cup of coffee. From the moment her daughter disappeared, she did not let a day go by without doing something to try to find her. However, Lorraine's relentless pursuit of Maggie left her son and husband feeling neglected. The tragedy had put an insufferable strain on the whole family.

Rob had made it a point to spend more time with Keith since his daughter disappeared. He did it because Lorraine was unable to concentrate on anything other than her deep, unrelenting, nagging loss. But Lorraine thought the reason Rob smothered Keith was because he no longer trusted her to watch over their son. She didn't blame him. She would feel the same about Rob if the tables were turned.

Immediately following Maggie's disappearance, the media swarmed the house day and night. Search parties sprang up out of nowhere. Volunteers came in from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Washington, DC, to help look for Maggie. Then, over time, when there was not a single trace of evidence that Maggie was still alive, slowly but surely, people went back to living their own lives. Except for one person, that is: Detective Rae Harker, the lead investigator assigned to Maggie's case.

Rae Harker was a tall, black man, a touch under six feet tall. His lean body and bulging biceps made him look a lot meaner than he was. The detective had warm brown eyes, a slender face, and strong jawbones beneath his dark skin. When Harker smiled, which wasn't often, he gave off an air of ruggedness that Lorraine found comforting and oddly sensual, given the circumstances of their relationship.

Based on the length of time Maggie had been missing and the lack of a ransom demand, Detective Harker suspected that she was dead. He kept explaining to Rob and Lorraine that there was a high probability that Maggie had been murdered. Lorraine refused to believe that without seeing proof. She vowed never to stop looking for Maggie until she was found, dead or alive.

Shortly after the first month had passed and there were still no leads, Lorraine and Detective Harker began to meet regularly at the Clarkes' home. Lorraine was constantly harping on Rae not to give up the search for her daughter. Finally, the detective felt that he had to come clean with Lorraine.

"I won't ever give up my search for Maggie," Detective Harker vowed.

"Sure, you say that now. But then the next big case will come along, and you'll give up, just like everyone else," Lorraine said accusingly. "Why should I believe you?"

"You're right. There will be other cases that will require my attention." Harker hesitated, but then decided to give Lorraine the information she needed to understand his loyalty to Maggie.

"Three years ago, I took my eight-year-old daughter to the Eagleville Fair. She was at the top of the Ferris wheel when one of my junior detectives rushed up to me completely freaking out because a guy was holding a gun to a woman's head at the cotton-candy booth. I looked at my daughter at the top of the Ferris wheel, and we waved to each other. The ride had been stopping every thirty seconds to load more people into the empty seats. The young detective pulled on my arm. I looked up at my daughter again and knew it would be at least five more minutes before she was off the ride. So, I decided to leave her and go check out what was going on with the man who had the gun. By the time I got to the cotton-candy booth, another detective had detained the gunman, and the area was flooded with police officers. Satisfied that things were under control, I rushed back to the Ferris wheel. I stood and watched as people unloaded from the carriages. I watched a second time to make sure I hadn't missed the carriage my baby had been sitting in. I had been gone less than five minutes, and my daughter had disappeared." Detective Harker seemed to be caught in a depressing trance of reminiscence.

"Oh dear God, Rae, I didn't know," Lorraine said sadly. She was at a loss for words.

"You wouldn't have known, Lorraine. What I'm trying to say is that you and I are the same. We are the same person, Lorraine. We both made one bad decision that cost us everything. That's why your case is so important to me. I know how you feel. I understand the ongoing regret and self-blame. I get it," Harker asserted.

Lorraine lowered her head. "It's the worst feeling any human being can endure."

"Yes, it is. I became obsessed with finding my daughter, just like you," Harker stated.

"Did you find her?" Lorraine asked cautiously.

Detective Harker nodded. "We found her fourteen months after she was taken. The police found her body in a broken-down wooden shack in the middle of the woods one hundred miles from our home. When they discovered her body, my wife and I were relieved and devastated at the same time. We were relieved because she had been found and because she was no longer suffering. Yet we were devastated because the hope that we'd held onto for so long was gone. It was hard to move away from that place of hope. It left us with nothing to look forward to. And knowing she was dead meant that the pain would never subside. It is the most unnatural and unsettling feeling anyone can imagine. The unknown, the constant wondering and inability to stop your imagination from getting the best of you...it's enough to drive anyone insane."

For some reason, Harker felt that if he could return Maggie to her parents, he could redeem himself for failing his own child. But he didn't dare tell that to Lorraine.

Lorraine knew then that she and Harker would be friends for the rest of their lives. She trusted him more now than she had thought possible.

"Harker, did you have a feeling that your daughter was dead?"

Harker nodded. "So did my wife."

If truth were told, Lorraine wasn't certain if Maggie was dead or alive. That fact, in itself, made her feel inadequate. She wondered where her motherly intuition was. Didn't she have any? Shouldn't she be able feel if Maggie was dead or alive? Of course, she was a complete failure, Lorraine told herself. If she had any motherly instincts at all, she would never have let her kid go off by herself in the mall.

Chapter Twelve.

Two weeks went by before Bernie and Sabrina came back to see Maggie again. Just like the first time, Maggie was instructed to sit on the chair naked and watch the adults engage in sex. When they were finished, the two adults got dressed.

"Maggie, let's get your clothes back on, and then we'll leave," Sabrina told her.