Taken Read online

  I look at the food in disgust and without thinking about it, I scoop some up on my plastic spoon and shove it in my mouth. It takes everything in me not to throw up. I finish it all and quickly chug down the water that we are given.

  For the next few hours, I spend my time getting to know the girls closest to me. I learn that Laura comes from Birmingham and, at 19 years old, she is one of the oldest girl here. Before she was taken, she was studying to become a care worker for young children who were abused.

  On my left is Susan, she's 17 years old and she was taken from her home in Bristol two months ago. I learn that all the girls here, ages ranging from 14 to 19, are from somewhere in the UK and have been here from as recent as two months ago and as far back as two years.

  From the time gap between when each girl was taken and where they are from, I notice a pattern forming of how the men are operating.

  They only take one girl every two months, taking six girls per year. They take from every city in the UK before circling back around. That's probably why I never saw much about kidnappings on the TV. They know how to cover their tracks; and from how many girls there are here and how many have been taken to this other place, they have been doing it for years.

  For the rest of the day, I silently watch everything that goes on. The guards walking around, checking on us. The girls, who throughout the day, either sleep, chat or, for some, exercise in their cell. I even watch as rats scramble through the holes in the wall and scurry around us.

  I say a silent prayer and hope that one day soon, someone comes and rescues us.

  I try to think why it was me who was taken. Of course, I wouldn’t have wanted this to happen to anyone else, but Damien was specifically following me, nobody else. What is it about me that made me the target?

  When night time rolls around, I don't sleep, I can't, so instead, I sit against the wall and quietly sing to myself. It’s the only way I can stay sane.

  CHAPTER 8

  I wake up early the next morning and have the strong urge to pee. I tried to hold it as long as I could but now I am about to burst. I look around the room for a minute, I somehow doubt that the guards would let us out for bathroom breaks.

  I lean over towards Laura, who is sitting on the floor of her cell, eyes closed and humming a lullaby to herself. I listen for a minute, I recognise it as the chorus of ‘You Are My Sunshine' by Johnny Cash.

  "Laura?" I whisper softly, "How do we go to the bathroom?" I ask.

  Without opening her eyes, she points towards the back of my cell, where I see a large bucket. A look of disgust forms on my face as I look back and forth between the bucket and Laura.

  "Tell me you're joking. I can’t possibly be expected to use that." I say. How could they be so inhumane.

  "That's the only way." Laura says and gets back to humming to herself.

  I stare at the large, blue bucket, as if I could magically change it into an actual toilet. I only last ten minutes before I'm almost bursting. I pull down my shorts and squat over the plastic. All the while, I see the guards staring at me and laughing. Bastards.

  "That was so embarrassing." I tell Laura, who's now sitting patiently, waiting to chat.

  "I know, but what else can we do." she replies with a shrug.

  I spend the next half hour talking to Laura about ways to pass the time. We decide to play a game the girls invented. Not anything special, they call it ‘throw stones at the guards'. I can't say I'm surprised.

  We grab as many stones that we find laying around the floor of our cells and take turns throwing them at the two guards who sit on chairs at a table in the middle of the room.

  With my arm just outside the bars, I carefully take my aim and toss my small stone. It hits the first guard on the shoulder. He barely looks up from the laptop he's working on.

  Next is Laura's turn. She aims and lightly throws her stone. It catches the second guard on the side of the head. We laugh quietly as he looks over at us and glares. Laura tells me that they do this a few times a week, that the guards just shrug it off. This goes on for a while. I admit it is kind of therapeutic to throw things at the people who are holding me captive.

  My next throw hits the bull’s eye. I flick my wrist slightly and my stone lands in the middle of the first guard’s forehead. I burst out laughing, which makes Laura laugh too, I only stop when my sides start to hurt. Some of the other girls laugh along with us as they watch our game.

  After a while, the first guard ends up getting mad. I suggested that we make him our target and soon, stone after stone hits him.

  "THAT'S IT!" he yells and stands up, "YOU GIRLS ARE GETTING ON MY LAST NERVE!" we watch as he storms over to our cells. First, he opens Laura's door, he then pulls something out of his pocket and powers it up. A taser, I realise.

  "NO!" I yell and scramble to the bars that connect our cells. He puts the charge against her stomach and she goes down, her body spasms and then she's still.

  He then opens the door to my cell and I scramble back against the wall. "No, please. I'm sorry." I beg him. He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet, he glares at me as I feel the electricity enter my body, paralysing my limbs. I let out a strangled groan as my body hits the ground. I stay lying on the ground for the rest of the afternoon.

  ✽✽✽

  When my body doesn't feel like it's sitting on a power line anymore, I slowly wiggle my fingers and toes until the feeling in them comes back and fight to get myself into an upright position. My head pounds and my vision is blurry. I shake away the fogginess and wait for my eyes to adjust to my surroundings.

  I look over at Laura's cell to find her sitting against the wall with her head in her hands.

  "Are you OK?" I ask her quietly.

  "I feel queasy." she tells me.

  "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have suggested we target him." I feel bad for her getting hit with the taser. I shouldn't have provoked him.

  "It's OK. We normally get some kind of punishment when they get mad but it has never been a taser before." she smiles weakly at me.

  While Laura sleeps, I quietly talk to Susan. I learn that she wanted to be nurse. She loves to help people and what better profession is there than that. She was halfway through her course at college, planning to start an internship at her local hospital, when she was taken. Like me, she was also on her way home late one evening when she was grabbed off the street and pushed into a van.

  I tell her I want to work in any field that focuses on the environment, like a conservation worker, a biologist or even an environmental engineer. Where she wants to help people, I want to help our planet.

  "Do you think you will still do that if we get out of here?" she asks me.

  "I do. It has been my passion ever since I was little. I used to sit at home and watch the discovery channel on TV and watch our universe and how humanity is slowly killing it." I tell her, "And we will get out of here." I squeeze her hand gently through the bars and smile.

  A little while later and it's lunch time, the guards go around and push a small bowl of something that looks kind of like oatmeal under the door. I cringe as I realise that I am slowly getting used to the taste and smell. I quickly eat every bit of food and drink the water. It could be worse I guess.

  Some time later, when we are all sitting quietly in our cells, a couple of the girls start singing the chorus of Survivor by Destiny’s Child. I smile as everyone joins in and soon all the girls are singing, including myself. There is something about singing a powerful song in a group that lifts your spirits.

  We pass the time by talking about every little detail of our lives back home. At night, we drift to sleep on the cold, hard floor with only the sounds of the guards chattering away to remind us where we are.

  CHAPTER 9

  The next day, I decide that I’m not going to wait around for something to happen. I am not someone who gives up so easily. I will not go down without a fight.

  Standing at the door of my cell, I start to scream as loud as I can and s
hake the bars, making them shake and rattle on their hinges. I know they won’t budge but I have to try. I must seem like a crazy person.

  I scream for them to let me go, I scream that they won’t get away with it. Mostly, I scream in general to annoy the hell out of them. I know I’m annoying the girls but surely they understand. They must have done something similar when they first got here. They didn’t just accept what had happened to them, right?

  For hours the guards ignore me. They sit in their chairs and go about their business and talking to one another. They act like they can’t hear me. I hope that I am at least giving them a headache.

  A few hours later and I notice the guards collecting their stuff and walking to the door, at the same time, another pair of guards come in and sit at the desk. I notice that it’s Damien and another man I haven’t seen before who take their place. Looks like they switch out so they can have a break from doing nothing important. I don’t mind, gives me two new guards to annoy.

  I continue screaming at them. I see Damien looking my way, looking at me oddly. He smirks and chuckles while shaking his head. The other guard, I notice, puts headphones on, he looks my way and frowns. I can’t help but feel happy that I am making him mad.

  I scream for another hour or so before my throat starts to hurt and I have to stop. My throat is so dry that I can barely talk. I try to generate some saliva but it doesn’t help. I feel an ache in my arms and rub them gently to try and soothe the feeling. I slide down onto the floor and throw my head back. How can I get out of here?

  After a few minutes, I glance around the room and my gaze settles on Damien. He is looking at me again. I frown, why does he keep staring at me?

  I try to soothe my throat but without water, I know nothing will help. I sit back and let my imagination take over. I would do anything to forget where I am.

  A few minutes later, I hear the screech of a chair getting moved and notice Damien walking out. Thank God.

  I am sitting on the floor of my cell trying to think of ways to escape, so far I have nothing, when I notice a white plastic cup getting pushed through the hole in the door. A look inside shows it’s filled with a clear liquid. Water. I look up and notice Damien walking away and back to his seat. Did he just…?

  Once he is seated, he looks at me again and raises a brow, as if challenging me to do anything but drink it. I don’t think, I grab the cup and swallow the liquid as fast as possible, the ache in my throat rests for now.

  A look back at the desk shows Damien getting quietly scolded by the other guard. Damien however, just shrugs and turns his focus onto whatever is on the desk.

  Why would he help me? He kidnaps me and ruins my life, and then offers a small, kind gesture? What does he gain? Was he just being nice? Somehow I doubt it, but then the question remains. Why?

  Soon, dinner is brought in, I ignore the food completely and open the water, drinking it all until the bottle is empty. Then reluctantly, I brace myself for the food. It doesn’t taste as bad as the other meals but it still makes me gag.

  ✽✽✽

  For the rest of the evening, I talk to Laura and Susan. We talk about useless things, like what music has come out recently, what movies have been released and what their favourite actors are up too. The girls who have been here for more than six months listen with interest. For them, hearing about anything from the outside world, no matter how trivial it is, is always a highlight.

  Occasionally, I see Damien looking my way, staring at me with a questioning gaze. It makes my skin crawl.

  Every now and again, I try to bring up the subject of escaping, but Laura stops me in my tracks every time. She says others have tried and failed to escape in the past and every time, Dante, the man who I learn is in charge, makes a show of punishing them.

  “I remember one time. A new girl was brought in, and as we made our way to the showers a few weeks later, she tried sneak off, she only made it around a few corners before some other guards spotted her. That night, Dante himself came in and took her from her cell. He pulled out a gun and shot her in the leg, twice, right in front of us.” she says, her words chills me. How many times have people tried to escape? Is it even possible?

  “Another time,” she continues and I don’t know if I want to listen, “a girl tried to escape by squeezing herself through the bars of the cell, they had bigger gaps back then, and she was skinny enough. The guards had fallen asleep by then. She eventually got out and made it out the door, she had tried to open our doors but the keys weren’t here, instead, she ran out the door. We thought she had escaped but the next morning Dante came in holding her by the arm. She was forced to strip and he whipped her, over and over again.” I feel like I’m about to be sick and I’m glad when she doesn’t tell another horrible story. “Dante makes sure he doesn’t do anything that would kill us, but the message is clear. He is in charge and we must obey. After the third attempt, he changed the rules around here. Guards switch out every few hours to have breaks so they can sleep, so they don’t fall asleep on watch. Our cells where changed for those with thicker bars with smaller gaps in between.”

  I admit, escaping seems impossible, but I refuse to give up. We just need to think of a good plan and pick the right time, maybe then we will have a good chance of succeeding. I try to think of something, but I come up with nothing.

  When it starts to get dark, I sleep, it's early still but I plan to get enough rest to think of a good plan. I talk quietly to Susan until my eyes start to drift close.

  I am just starting to drift off, when I feel a hand cover my mouth and I'm lifted off the ground. I am taken out of the room and up the stairs. I try to kick and scream, but the hands on me only tighten their hold.

  CHAPTER 10

  I'm taken down several corridors and into one of the other rooms. It looks like a sort of doctors’ office, with equipment and tools everywhere and one of those cots that doctors’ rooms have, a bright light forms a circle just over it, the rest of the room is dimmed slightly, giving it an almost eerie feeling.

  A woman comes into the room a few minutes later and goes over to the monitor that sits on a desk on the far wall. Without looking my way once, she tells me to strip. I stand there and stare at her, she looks to be in her mid 40s, with obviously dyed, blonde hair that is done up in a tight bun and two thick, dark eyebrows that almost join in the middle to become one. She is slim and tall, dressed in black trousers and a blue shirt with a white lab coat over the top. Does she know what goes on in this building? She must do. I glare at her back, wishing I could just go home.

  "I said strip." she says again. She has a thick Russian accent. Her face shows no emotion as she inspects a variety of tools. When she turns around and notices I still haven't done as she asks, she rolls her eyes and makes her way over to me. I step back as far as I can, wishing I could disappear into the wall and escape her outstretched hands.

  Without a word, she pulls off my shorts and underwear, my feet are already bare since our shoes and socks are taken from us. I slap at her hands and try and cover myself. Next, she lifts my arms and removes my t-shirt and bra. My face flushes with embarrassment.

  She tells me to lay down and, with no other choice, I do as I'm told, and then to my horror, she bounds my wrists with leather straps that are attached to the railing at the top of the cot. I struggle to get free but they don't give. Next, she spreads my legs and bounds my ankles to the corners at the other end of the cot. I can hardly move and panic starts to set in.

  "What are you going to do to me?" I ask with a shaky voice as she picks up a long tube. My eyes grow wide as she sits on a stool by my feet and positions the tube at the entrance between my legs.

  "NO! DON’T! PLEASE!" I scream trying to move away but I'm helpless. I feel the cold metal slide inside me and let out a cry, squeezing my eyes shut. It stays there while she goes back to her tools and picks up a needle and comes to stand next to my head.

  "Please, don't do this. What are you doing to me?" I whisper as tear
s fall across my cheeks. She ignores me as she plunges the needle and its contents into my arm, she doesn't care enough to be gentle. Next, she places some kind of device on my head and hooks it up to a computer screen. Some kind of brain scan, I notice. Time passes and she does all kinds of tests on my body.

  I let out another cry as the tube is pulled out of my body, leaving in its place a strong, painful ache. Next, she takes a quick swab of my inner walls and puts it in some sort of machine, and then the unthinkable happens. I scream and try to free my hands as she pulls out a small brand iron. She jerks my head to the side and pulls back my hair and presses the scorching metal onto the back of my neck, I quickly lose consciousness, faintly aware of the ear-splitting screams that I am making.

  ✽✽✽

  Later, my eyes flutter open and my head spins from the pain, my fingers slide across my neck until they find the burning sensation caused by being branded.

  I feel sick, I have never been so violated before. Fresh tears spring forward. I look around the room to find the nurse lady has disappeared. Unfortunately, in her place is Damien, I try to shield myself but find I am still bound to the cot.

  "What do you want?" I ask him with a hoarse voice. He slowly circles around the cot; his eyes never leave my body.

  "I want you." he tells me and I wish I could smack that smirk right off his face. I won't let him touch me if it's the last thing I do.

  “Leave me alone.” I spit at him.

  He stops at the foot of the cot and looks at me. I swallow the lump in my throat as his eyes travel down my body. I wish I could disappear.

  "You know, I saw your body earlier, when you were getting changed back on the boat.” He says, “You're so beautiful.” his eyes travel along my body again and I fight back the bile growing in my throat.