THE PORT

Some people don't deserve mercy, my love.

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WARNING: Descriptions of r*pe and sexual assault. Read with caution.

CHAPTER LXIV

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WE CONTINUED TRAVELLING quietly for a few days, but I had lost track of how many - not that I ever knew anyway. All I knew was that many stops were made during those long days and girls were picked up and dropped off like parcels. It disgusted me, but what could I do about it?

They fed us occasionally. Not often, but I couldn't find it in me to complain because I knew that it was only going to get worse in the days to come.

At some point, the truck had pulled up and the men put sac bags over all of our heads before herding us out of it like sheep and leading us away. One man stood at the top of the line, pulling the girl at the front along by the arm so we would follow him. Another man stood at the end, making sure that the person at the back didn't lag behind or move too quickly.

The third man, the one that recognised me, stayed around the middle and ran back and forth to make sure that we all stayed in check. The surprising thing about it was that I could sense that the men were having quarrels with each other.

I didn't think it was anything important, but I was hoping that maybe it was something that we could use against them.

They put us all in cages like animals - eight girls to a cage before transporting us into a large cargo container.

The smell was foul and the air felt stuffy and hard to breathe. Once they had pulled the sack bag off, I realised why it was.

There were many more people in there with us. Mostly women but there was the occasional man too - either very young boys or strong looking men that weren't white. We were all caged in like animals to make room for whatever else they were going to put inside the container - probably illicit drugs.

My heart raced in my chest as I scanned my eyes over my surroundings. It made things so much more real - made me realise just how daunting everything was.

There were some people that lay on the floor, that looked like they weren't going to be moving for a very long time. Others were just skin and bones. In the far distance, a rat sniffing around a dead corpse, but nobody called it out or looked even the slightest bit upset.

Maybe they had all gotten used to it. Maybe thus was their normal.

"You," a loud voice boomed, calling for the attention of one of the girls in a cage with me. She was dark-skinned like me, but her complexion was much lighter and her brown hair was pin straight, only reaching her shoulders. She looked at him and he gestured for her to come out. "Come out here."

Reluctantly, the brunette crawled out of the open cage door. She made to stand up but the man pushed down on her shoulder and ripped the tape of her lips. I watched, confused at the interaction until his hands went to his zip and I realised what he was going to do.

"No. Wait. What are you doing? Stop," the girl whispered, almost as if she was silenced with the disbelief of the situation. The man chuckled and grabbed her head, making her squeeze her eyes shut as he voice got louder. "Please, don't. Please, no."

He whipped out his gun and aimed it between her eyes, making her instantly shut her mouth and as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I don't remember asking you to speak," he said, making her cry harder and squeeze her brown lips together. "You know what to do. And if I don't like it, I'll shoot you so add enough tongue."

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned away, not wanting to see anything but nothing could make me forget that I was in the room while it was happening. The atmosphere was stiff with the disgust of the people who had to witness it, the only thing noise being made was the sound of her choking and crying.

I squeezed my eyes harder, but the tears still seeped because the realisation that this was going to be my reality for a long time coming finally settled in. Before, time just blurred into one and two days had the same duration as two weeks, but know it was tick slowly. Every hour felt like days, days felt like years and years felt like centuries. Here, every second was accounted for.

Every second I had to live, hearing my fellow women get violated and know that I could do nothing about it because I didn't want it to be me next.

Thank God it wasn't me.

I thought of all the people who were there who probably had to watch this happen. The girl was being defiled and the worst part about it was that there were so many people who were there to watch.

So many defenseless people who could do nothing about it because we were all caged in like animals.

"What? Don't like a good show when it's being put on for you?" I heard the man say, but I didn't know who he was taking to. The girl really sounded like she was dying, her sobs being choked down by whatever he was forcing her to do. "Look at me right now, Venom."

There was no mistaking that name. There was no doubt. It was me he specifically wanted to watch for whatever sick reason he had.

"Look at me right now or I'll fucking shoot her!" he yelled suddenly, making me jump and snap my head over to where he had his gun pointed right at her forehead.

The girl sobbed louder, but he only closed his eyes and moaned as he continued to force her to pleasure him. I sat there, forced to watch something that I didn't want to watch with the only thing going through my mind being murder.

I didn't know how to feel. I knew I was upset, sad, helpless. But siddling on the side was rage, like a whistling kettle full of hot water wanting to boil over.

The tears that spilled out of my eyes were from anger and frustration - not from sorrow. I squeezed my fist together to take my fury out on something - not to deal with the pain. I wanted to kill them. I want to kill them all because nobody deserved to be put in a situation like this.

If it were them, they wouldn't want to be put in a situation like this either.

He told me to look at him, but I focused my eyes on his chest instead, wanting to pretend that I wasn't there and I was somewhere else. I didn't want to sit there and watch someone else's rape.

How would that make her feel? If I were in her shoes, I would want to kill myself and him.

I'm so sorry, I mentally said, hoping that somehow she would hear it. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Her sobs turned to screams as he aggressively started violating her mouth. I wanted to turn away and look somewhere else - anywhere fucking else, but he opened his eyes at the moment and made sure he met my gaze. Made sure I was looking at him while he held a gun to her head and finished in her mouth.

The tears trailed down my cheeks and I aggressively wiped them away with my shoulders because he didn't deserve to see me cry. And I wasn't the one being violated in front of God knows how many other people.

Thank God it wasn't me.

When he was done, he pushed her back into the cage letting her cry and sob as if she weren't there.

He smirked at me and came closer, letting his gun run over my face as his eyes took me in.

"You're lucky you are who you are or else it would've been you." He then stepped away, putting his gun back in the waistband of his pants before looking at the girl. "Prepare yourself, beautiful. I'll be back tomorrow for more."

And then he left.

The girl screamed and cried and wailed in terror the whole night. The side of her lip was cut and I was scared that it would get infected in a place such as this one.

I let myself worry about that and not about what I had just witnessed or what a fellow woman had just lived through or what the man had just said to me.

***

I couldn't sleep throughout the night. I only knew it was morning when the port had bustled to life, but nobody knew we were there.

Maybe the girl would have been able to yell and bang on the walls for help, but she only stopped sobbing a while ago and I knew her throat was probably sore and scratched up.

I was staring straight ahead, right at the wall like I usually did when I was thrust into an emotionally draining situation. No thoughts were going through my head and it was almost like I was in a void.

Memories didn't exist here. There was no such thing as hurting or mourning or recovering. Emotional pain was replaced by physical pain and the ultimate goal was dying - to make sure I never felt pain again.

A commotion outside had snapped me out of my thoughts. There was some sort of banging against the door. I would have kicked the girl and forced her to yell if I wasn't too tired to move.

There was more banging, but it didn't sound like banging. It sounded like a body being thrown onto the walls of the container. I could hear distinct voices, talking about money being paid back, but I didn't care.

Except for the voices sounded familiar.

The men that had driven us here the previous night.

My lips quirked up, happy that I was right. There was some bad blood between all of them and now they were having a physical fight.

More voices joined the conversation and they sounded a lot like peace keepers. Random strangers who just wanted to break up the fight so no one got hurt.

In my haze, I saluted them. At least there were still good people in the world.

The commotion continued, but somehow it seemed to get louder. I opened my eyes, not realising they were closed in the first place and looked around my surroundings.

The girl was screaming again, banging her fists on the cage, but she wasn't alone. Everyone else was banging too. They were doing all they could to make noise whether that meant wiggling around and slamming the cage doors or tipping things over so they fell.

I couldn't hear the voices outside anymore and something made me think that maybe we had scared them off instead of making them want to save us like we were hoping for.

But then we heard a loud banging from the outside and we all collectively shut up.

"Hello?" The voice said, probably yelling from outside, but inside it was muffled. "Are any of you in there?"

Everyone turned to the girl beside me, expecting her to talk because she was the only one who wasn't taped up.

"Yes. We're in here." But her voice was low and scratchy, probably worn out from all the crying and yelling she did and I understood that. She collapsed into herself, looking completely done with life once the man banged again, alerting us that he didn't hear what she said.

"Are you in there?"

They started making noise again shifting around and banging and making a general ruckus so even people with hearing difficulties would hear us from a mile away. It would be stupid for the man to just write it off.

We make noise, but then shut up just when he starts talking to us and then make noise again once he stops? It was obvious, wasn't it? There was no way he wouldn't put the pieces together.

There was no sound from him. No indication that he heard us or that he was going to help us. Minutes passed and my hope for the situation slowly dwindled until there was nothing left and I just stared at the wall blankly again.

I was going to die on the ship.

It was then that the doors pulled open and the light from the harbour streamed into the small space, making me hiss and shut my eyes.

"Oh good God, have mercy on me," the man said, looking up to the sky before coming in.

He let his eyes roam over all of us, the swell of tears and pity being noticeable in them as he took in our conditions.

"Call for back up! And get more help! There's too many in here to count."

The commotion started again. Different people, mostly men, came rushing into the container and went into different cages. It took a couple of minutes before they reached the cage we were in, but when they did, they wasted no time in using a crowbar to break the lock. They gestured for us to come out, but nobody really could without assistance.

The brunette coward away from the man into the back of the cage once he got everyone out except for us, her eyes wide with fear as he beckoned for her to come out.

"Come on out, I won't hurt you," he said, but she didn't care what he was saying. Her trust in humans was most likely gone - her trust in men completely non-existent. He sighed and called for a girl that looked half his age, but resembled him greatly. "Charlotte. You help her out. I'm gon' go ahead and get this one out."

He reached over to me, holding his hand out so I could lean into his touch. Probably just to tell him if I trusted him or if I needed a Charlotte too.

With as much effort as I could muster, I moved so the fabric of my clothes on my shoulder brushed his fingertips. He wasted no time after that and reached in and hurled me out, cradling me in his arms as he ran out to the fresh air.

The sunlight outside was much worse than the little that streamed into the container and I found myself hissing from the discomfort with squinted eyes. After that, things just kind of blurred into one. I remembered being put down and being untied. I remembered that there were different people waiting for me outside. Different cop cars and media outlets and many lines of ambulances and paramedics.

I was barely awake when I felt him hand me over to someone much stronger. The transfer scared the shit out of me and I clung onto the man's shoulders tightly as he carried me over to somewhere away from the commotion.

Some news reporters followed him and a few cameramen even stood behind his shoulders and took pictures of me once he laid me down onto a mat on the ground. About two news reporters, one male, one female, spoke into the cameras not to far from him and I couldn't help but feel my stomach drop.

What if one of them were working for Daniel? What if all of them were working for Daniel? How could I trust them? I needed to get away!

"Ma'am, please calm down," the man said, making me snap my eyes to him. "We won't hurt you. We're only here to help. See? Look at my badge."

I didn't know what I was looking at, but it was pretty hanging off his flashy paramedics uniform. I stared at it, entranced with the silver as he probed and prodded me, looking for any issues he needed.

"Can you tell me what your name is?" the man asked, making me tilt my head to look at him.

Why did he want to know my name? So he could tell Daniel?

I didn't say anything. I just stared at him as he looked back at me, not at all affected by my lack of response.

"How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked, holding up his hand and a couple fingers.

I stared at that now, wondering if that was a trick question. Was I supposed to say five or four because the thumb wasn't a finger?

My head was hurting and I groaned and collapsed onto my back, wanting to rid myself of the pain.

He then spoke into he walkie-talkie, making me snap my eyes to him agaim. "Female. No visible breaks or fractures. Confusion and... And she's becoming unconscious. Ma'am? Ma'am, please stay with us! Ma'am!"

But I was too far gone.

*****

Yall this whole missing updates things is getting out of hand. I'm giving myself one more week before I address it with myself.

Anyways, sorry for the heavy chapter. I swear, in time things will get better.

Can't help but wonder how Daniel's going to get himself out of this one though 🤔 I doubt apologising in the shower will have the same affect.

Anyhoo, in Monday's chapter, we'll see a little character change in Araceli. Wonder what that will be.