Gummy's POV
Age: 17

"Eomma, we're leaving?" I ask, she nods in response. She seems pretty scared. I jump to the sound of the front door being broken down. My eyes widen and I duck down, "Don't move." She tells me, I gulp as I hear the heavy footsteps walk down the hall, and up to the room we're in. The door is kicked open and my eyes start to water, I wrap my arms around my knees and start to cry.

"Get up!" The man yells yanking me up by my hair onto my feet, I grit my teeth so that I don't make a sound. What I've found is that being cooperative is what's best, it keeps you out of trouble. He pushes me down the hall and I hear my mother screaming. My tears fall and I'm unable to think straight, I wish all this wasn't true.

My mother and I are loaded into a black van outside our house. My eyes widen to see other young girls tied up with their mothers, I wonder if their fathers were involved with the Mafia. But I know this isn't, we're being abducted. Because the more that I think about it, my father didn't come home last night.

It's very possible that my father is a hundred miles deep in the ground already if they even had the dignity to bury him. Just facing reality. We're all then driven to someplace I have no knowledge about. There are six teenage girls including me and six women, their mothers. They unload us and lead us into a wear house. I take mental pictures and try to remember everything thing around me if there is a possibility to escape.

They cram all of us into a kennel like an area for all twelve of us. There are only a couple of beds so I'm unsure how we would figure out sleeping arrangements. The beds have nothing on them, they look dirty. We all stare at each other for a long while, I cling to my mother. Yes, at this age I'd say that some teens want to be away from their mothers, but for me right now.. hell no, not ever. The warehouse gives off the smell of chemicals and large amounts of sweat.

I instantly know that this is a drug warehouse, these fumes aren't even healthy for us to breathe. But, that doesn't matter to the person who runs all this. We're obviously just dogs to them. In this kennel and shit, Woof.

A man walks up to the door everyone turns and looks at him. "Hi, my beautiful ladies, please make yourselves comfortable. This is your new home." He smiles. Lifting his hands up and looking around like this was some sort of palace or something. I hide behind my mother, actually, all the other young girls do. "Tomorrow I will come over and pick my little money makers, packers, and mules."

I look around and all the young girls look scared. I look back at him, "Good night my pretties." He smiles before walking off, leaving us all shaken up. All the mothers look at each other. "Moneymakers?" One of the mothers asks the group. "Let's promise our daughters one thing." My mother starts, catching everyone's attention. "If he's picking roles for prostitutes, we volunteer." She finishes.

All the women look at each other and nod. "I don't want my daughter to go through that." Another woman says. Some girls start to cry, no one ever wants their mother to go through something like that. "Eomma, you don't have to do this," I whisper to her, all the mothers are comforting their daughters. "Yes, I do. I don't want you going around and having sex with dirty men. I'd much rather it be me than it be you."

My eyes water, "But.." she shakes her head. "No buts." she grins. I look at her face, she doesn't look scared. And it makes me feel stronger. "Take the bed." She says. I look to my side and see the small bed, I shake my head. "No, sleep with me," I say. Everyone else was figuring out sleeping arrangements and getting in bed. I climb onto the flimsy mattress and lay as far as I could to the edge of the bed, my mother joins me and hugs me from behind.

I try not to start crying, this is a nightmare. I'm terrified and I want to go home. I wrap my arms around my mother's arms that embrace me, my heart is pounding at an alarming rate. I hear sniffling, I force myself to fall asleep.

**

I'm woken up in the middle of the night to cries. Just then I'm yanked on and almost thrown out of bed. My eyes shoot open, I can hear my heart racing in my eardrums. There are a couple of men in our cage, they're grabbing girls and women. "Rise and Shine ladies, time to get to work." One of them says. "We'll have you be a money maker." A man smiles as he grabs my wrist. "No, please. I'll take her place." My mother says. He looks her over and slightly nods. He throws my arm and takes my mother by her shirt.

"Eomma." My throat swells. She shushes me and smiles, her eyes filling with tears. The mothers have succeeded in taking their daughter's place. My tears fall down my cheeks, I look around and see all the girls in bed, shielding their eyes and crying. I shoot my gaze to the line of mothers being led out to another doorway. Will I ever see my mother again?

I walk over to one of the girl's bed and she looks at me startled. "It's okay," I tell her, she stares at me with watery eyes. "My name is Jiyeon, you?" I ask. She wipes her nose with the back of her wrist. "Lia." She answers. I grin. "Your mother will be okay." She looks much younger than me, which makes me feel like I have to protect her like a younger sister. I look over at the other beds and everyone is looking at me. Would I have to lead everyone? "We'll all be okay." I nod.

"How do you know for sure? How do you know that our mothers will be okay?" A girl at the end asks. "We work together, we look out for each other and nothing bad will happen to us." They slightly nod in agreement. In no time we were all introducing ourselves to each other. Everyone's story was about the same, their fathers hadn't come home in a couple of days. But they stayed put for them to come back, only to result in being taken.

For the rest of the night we stayed up, we couldn't risk someone getting taken away. We could only predict what time it was, a small crusty window in the ceiling let us guess that it was barely sunrise and it was probably only around three or four in the morning. We had moved the beds next to each other and we all sit together, huddled. We could hear clicks of footsteps come to our cage, the man.

"Ah, hello my little sweethearts. The rest of you come with me." He opens the cage door. They all look at me and I'm the first one to stand, everyone else follows along. "Now, I will have your elders teach you all that you need to know about making Cocaine." He explains as he leads us over to a station where women in only their bras, panties and face masks are making large textbook-sized cocaine packages.

My eyes widen, "Now, when I come back each of you better have five hundred kilos of coke done." He says. He counts us, there's obviously six of us. "Three thousand pounds of kilos in total, if I don't have my kilos.. there will be major consequences." He says. "Get to fucken work." He spits before walking away. I look around at the girls and they stare at me. "Let's go, guys, none of us are getting punished. We're going to make all this coke." I say.

They nod in agreement, I turn and look at the woman in the station. None of them even looked up to help us. I clear my throat. "What do you want? Little shit?" One of the women looks up at us. I raise an eyebrow, "That man said that one of you would teach us how to make coke." I say, crossing my arms over my chest. "Ah, well look at you, thinking your all strong." The lady pulls her face mask down and smiles.

"You remind me of myself when I was young and pure." She stares at me for a while. "Everyone grab a mask and a scale, let's begin." She announces and we all do as she says. It's pretty tricky, if you do it wrong, bad things can happen. She refused to explain the consequences to us because she knew we'd do it correctly. It seems to me that she's the leader of this section, everyone does as she says.

"What are mules?" One of the girls asks as we all continue to make our kilos. Ah, yes, I was curious about that also. The lady looks up at us, "Mules? They've got the hardest job." She says. "You've got to be smart and you better follow directions or he'll have your head." She explains. "They smuggle drugs, on whatever deliveries they need, you're the one they send. The hardest deliveries are the ones that take place in the airport." She wraps up her coke packages and continues on with making a new batch.

"They make you swallow up to fifteen little bags of this shit." I listen to her while I'm the first one to wrap up my first package, I feel her gaze. "No fucking way you finished that shit." She spits. I look up at her and raise an eyebrow. "Wanna taste?" I ask. She walks over to the man who is standing guard. He walks over to me and sticks the tip of his pinky into my batch, he enters his pinky into his mouth and runs his gums with it.

He hums, "That shit is smooth, you can't even make it like that." He tells her. She looks at me and nods, "You learn quick." She says, walking back to her station. I finish packing and start on my new batch. "And what happens to the coke baggies?" Another girl asks. "You throw them up or you're dead." She says. We all share glances before going back to work, I've never made myself throw up in my life. I don't plan on doing it anytime soon, hell no.

I'm making packages like nothing, it's easy as hell. I even help the girls do their kilos, they're my new friends, I wouldn't want anyone to get punished. Just then the man walks in, I still don't know his name. All I know is that he's for sure in charge. "Let's see how my sweethearts are doing." He walks over to me and looks over my packages. "You're done?" He asks, I nod, looking down. He surprises me when he pulls out a small knife and cuts the package. He uses the tip of the knife to take a bit out and he raises it to his nose, where he snorts it.

I raise my head to look at him and he's throwing his head back, "Smooth, it's so smooth." He whispers. He smiles wide, "You're going to make me money." He squishes my cheek. "You're all doing well my pretties, I'll be back in an hour. Daddies bringing more friends." I stare at him in disbelief. He wasn't done with taking girls? This sick bastard, I turn to the woman that's been helping us this whole time.

"How long have you been here?" I ask, she doesn't answer. "Answer me!" I scream. "Don't yell at me little bitch!" She yells back, I stare at her and wait for her to answer me, I know she's going to. Maybe she didn't expect me to guess that. But honestly, the way that these women are so comfortable with everything, makes me think they've been here for such a long time. Nobody just wakes up after being taken from their home, friends, and family, and just decides that they want to be a fucken mule for a drug dealer.

"I was around your age." She says. "How old are you now?" I ask. All the girls had stopped working and stared at her. "I'm thirty-five." We all look at each other. "I don't want to be here forever." Lia whimpers. My heart starts to pound. "But there's absolutely no way you'd get out, believe me. I've tried, and the consequences were lighter back then." She turns around and shows is her back, we all wince. She turns around and shrugs, finishing up another package.

"I'm sure you don't want to lose a finger or a toe." She says making us freeze. "He'll even put a bullet in your head, so play smart." She finishes. I look at the girls, "We'll get out of here, don't worry." But it seems to me that they don't believe me. We end up getting a system going, if one of us finished we helped another and it went on until we all finished. The man comes back and he smiles to see piles and piles of his product, done.

"I'll be upgrading some of you to being a mule, we need to make room for our last batch of girls." My eyes widen. "You stay here, I need you supplying." He pats my head, "I want you." He points to Lia, she's the youngest of the group. My heart starts to pound and I shake my head. "No," I answer, he looks at me surprised. "Oh? Why not?" He asks. "She's the youngest of the group, Sir. She'll be reckless." I tell him. He stares at me, "Who shall take her place then?" He asks. "Me," I answer right away. He stares at me, probably deciding whether or not he was willing to let me leave the station he originally wanted me to stay at.

"We'll see how you do, is much rather prefer you to stay here and supply." I let out a breath of relief. I turn to the group, and two more girls step forward, they're my age. "Perfect! That was easy, now, tomorrow we'll have small deliveries for you girls." He says. "You are done for today, I'll have Nauru here bring you sandwiches." He adds, he taps the guy from before and he escorts us to the cage-like room. There are four more girls in the cage, but they're all alone. I right away walk up to them. "Are you girls okay?" I ask, they nod.

"Where are your mothers?" Their eyes start to water. "They're dead." One of the girls says. We stare at them, why is it that we got to come with our mothers and these girls didn't? I gaze up at the window, it looks like it's almost dark, that's about the time that prostitution happens. I start to wonder if our mothers are scared. We all start to introduce ourselves to the new girls and Nauru brings us sandwiches, which we devoured in seconds.

We all have different conversations, when we run out of things to talk about, I could guess that it must have been midnight. This guy in charge still has people working, crazy. None of us are tired, we don't want to sleep until we see our mothers. But it never happens and we all end up falling asleep, I guess we were more tired than we originally thought. When we wake up in the morning, our mothers are still nowhere to be found. A stream of panic comes over me, I'm worried about not ever seeing my mother again.

Nauru walks into the cage, bringing us more sandwiches. Is this all we're going to eat here? Sandwiches. Wow, for a guy who has a lot of money, he sure doesn't treat his workers right. "Where are our mothers?" I ask her before she leaves. "I'm unauthorized to tell you." She says I become more worried. "What do you mean unauthorized? Those are our mothers, I think we have the right to know where they are, at least." I say.

She stares at me, I forgot to mention that she's actually wearing clothes this time, not just her underwear. "Your mothers are in the prostitution house, sorry to break it to you, but you probably won't see your mothers for a long time." She says before walking out of our cage. I stare into space, what do we do now? I turn to the girls, many are crying. "We have to stay strong, for our mothers because they are being strong for us," I tell them. They just stare at me and I just decide to pass out sandwiches.

We only stayed in our cage for a while before they took us out and separated us from mules to packers. We had small missions today, we all had a man come with us, he did all the talking and we only handed over the drugs. That was our only job. This went on for months and still, we hadn't seen our mothers. I become very worried, all of us do.

Maybe the only good thing that has come out of all this is that they've expanded our cage and given us more beds. They even gave us a place to go to the bathroom, and brush our teeth. They even had the dignity to give us bed sheets, since the nights have gotten colder. We all go to our beds and sleep with our guards high like we always do. Just then we hear gunshots and people screaming. We all sit up from our beds and look around. Just then a door is banged open and people in suits run in and shoot all the guys who have guns.

We all wait on our beds, are we being saved? Some of the men in suits look young. A guy with blonde hair catches my attention. I raise an eyebrow and stare at him, who are these people? When they clear out the warehouse the blonde boy sees me. He turns to another man and points at me, my heart starts to pound more than it already is. Two men walk over to me from the group of men in suits. "Park Jiyeon?" I stare at them, shocked. "I knew I recognized her." The blonde boy says. "We thought we lost you." The other with brown-haired man says. I become very confused. They open the door. "Come on girls, we're here to save you." The brown-haired man says.

"I'm Sehun and this is Namjoon, we are with an undercover company." The girls begin to cry tears of joy. This Namjoon kid hasn't looked away from me, I look away from him and stand up. "Sir? Can we see our mothers?" I ask him, he nods. I turn and look to the girls, giving them a sign that everything will be okay. They stand up and before my eyes bullets rip through them, I scream and cover my mouth as all their bodies fall to the floor. I see the man who was in charge, he's instantly shot in the head. I fall to my knees and shield my face.

My only friends, people who cared for me and I looked after them. We had looked after each other. I feel a handset on my shoulder, making me flinch. "Sir, we found another warehouse and all prostitutes are dead." I hear someone tell one of the guys. I cry harder, my mother. She's dead. I force myself to stand up, I face the man, Sehun. "I still want to see my mother," I tell him. He nods, they lead me to the opposite warehouse and I can't control my tears. Blood splattered on the walls and all the women dead on the floor.

I see my mother, and I break down. "We're so sorry." I turn and see the blonde boy. I stare at him and he just stares back, does he have a staring problem? "What do I do now?" I ask through whimpers. "You come with us." He says, reaching out a hand to me. My tears slowly stop. "I don't know you, what if you're just the same as the men who took me?" I ask. He keeps a straight face, "We're not." He says. He's very serious. I slowly set my hand in his, little did I know that this decision would change my life forever.

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