Before you comment something offensive about Kimberly or Julian, I want you to imagine it's you in their shoes, and then somebody you love in their shoes. Then afterwards, tell me what you've ever done to help or to raise awareness for people who were/are victims of  ----  (i won't spoil it).

That's all.

✎_ _ _ _ _ 

"Get up."

Kimberly's room door opened forcefully and the cold air from the house wafted onto her already freezing body. Julian walked into the room, suit ripped, tie missing, and red-faced. He was holding his left arm tightly against his chest and didn't even bother trying to hide the bloodstain surrounding it. He looked eerily calm for the state he was in and the words he had just said. Kimberly barely had time to take it all in before he was speaking again.

"Kimberly, get up." He walked around the bed and pulled the covers from her body. "Get dressed. Quickly."

"Get dressed? For what?" Kimberly was already out of the bed as she spoke. She could tell that this was something important, both from the tone of his voice, and the current state he was in.

Even so, Julian kept his mouth closed as he moved out of Kimberly's way so she could get to the dresser. He had a habit of not explaining himself in tight situations, and Kimberly was beginning to find it increasingly frustrating.

Julian walked over to the door of the room, each step fast paced and controlled. "We're leaving." He finally answered her.

"Leaving? Julian, Why?"

Now he turned to face her, his expression a mix of anger, fear, and frustration, but with an unsettling layer of calmness blanketing it all. He didn't have to speak for her to know exactly what this was about. She could tell just from the look on his face; it was Freddy Slim.

She hadn't told him that they'd spoken, but somehow, he knew.

"He knows where I am, doesn't he?" Kimberly asked.

Julian gave his head one slight nod. "He has a man posted outside the compound right now."

Kimberly's breath shallowed, "H – How are we going to get out then?"

Julian ran a hand through his hair roughly and shrugged, as the frustration seeped through his voice. "I don't know, Kimberly!  All I know is that if we stay here, he'll kill you."

Kimberly took an involuntary step back at Julian's words.

She had been admitting it to herself all day, she knew what Freddy had promised her her own death, but at the back of her mind, she believed that Julian would find her a way out of it. Hearing him admit to the both of them that Freddy Slim very well could kill her, made it truly sink in.

She was being watched and tracked by a man who could snap his fingers and order her death. She wasn't safe. She would never be safe. If Freddy got his way, she may very well never get the chance to see her parents, or Melitta, or anyone else she knew, ever again.

Kimberly looked up at Julian whose hands were now turning paper-white as he held onto the door frame, leaned his forehead on it, and closed his eyes.

She fumbled with her jeans, trying to pull them on faster, and when she was finally dressed and packed, she put on a jacket and joined Julian at the door. He was still in the same position as before and Kimberly couldn't help the pain she felt at seeing him this way.

Placing a hand on his back, Kimberly sighed. "I'm sorry." She said, "I shouldn't have answered your phone."

Julian cocked his head to the side and peered at her from the corner of his eye. He looked her over with desperation in his eyes before he finally dropped them back down to the ground and let out a cynical chuckle. His shoulders shook as he laughed and then sighed sadly.

"Fuck!"

His outburst startled the both of them and Kimberly could do nothing but look at him as he breathed heavily. "What am I going to tell your parents?" He asked, now turning to face her full-on. "How the hell am I going to get us out of this?"

Kimberly opened her mouth to speak but had nothing to say. She didn't have any of the answers – or at least none of the ones he was looking for.

There was a honk from outside the house and Julian's head snapped to the window. He straightened himself up as best he could and placed a hand on the door, pushing it open more. "That's the limo," he said, motioning to the stairs with his head. "Let's go."

He left the room and Kimberly followed close behind him. "Are you sure a limo is the best mode of transportation if we're trying to hide from people?"

Julian shook his head as they headed down the stairs. "We're not trying to hide. We can't hide, not from Fred." He said, walking over to the living room and sifting through the messy papers littering his desk, putting some in his briefcase and the rest back in the cupboards.

"If we can't hide, then what's even the point?"

Now Julian looked up at Kimberly, his expression unreadable. "The point, Kimberly, is that this limo is bulletproof, and Freddy B. has lots of guns."

He walked silently to the door and she follow in suit, only speaking when he stopped to open the front door. She put a hand on his arm and he turned to her, their faces much closer than either had anticipated. Kimberly leaned forward and pressed a light kiss on his lips. He was wrecked because it was something that he wanted, and yet couldn't enjoy at the moment. Not with the knowledge that Fred could be everywhere and had his mind set on her death. Not right then when her life, her breathing was the only thing keeping him going. He couldn't lose her, not like this.

As she pulled away, he found himself reaching up and grabbing her jaw, holding her in place as if it were a reflex. He held her face close to his and kept his eyes on her lips. He could feel the breath coming from them and closed his eyes as he remembered that mere hours ago those lips were on his body doing unspeakable things.

"You don't have to do this alone." Kimberly whispered. "I'm here too. I know I got us into this mess in the first place...but I'm here too."

Julian sighed, squeezing his eyes shut as he leaned his forehead on hers. "Kimberly..." His voice was uneven and an octave higher than usual. Kimberly could hear the lump in his throat as he spoke, and Julian chose his words carefully, not knowing what he could and couldn't say. "I – I need you...Kimberly. I just – I need you."

He kissed her nose and then opened the door, leading them down the pathway towards a limo whose doors were already open and waiting for them both.

✎_ _ _ _ _

"So where is this limo taking us?"

Kimberly was huddled under a blanket on one side of the limo, wide awake and watching as Julian made numerous calls and typed furiously into his phone. He had stress lines on his forehead and they didn't seem to be going anywhere.

He had just gotten off of another phone call, and she couldn't tell whether it had gone well or badly. "A friend's." He said.

"Oh..." She paused. "Are you sure you want to get another person involved in this mess?"

Julian shook his head, "He'll be fine. This particular friend is also a friend of Fred's. He won't get hurt."

From the way Julian said 'friend', Kimberly knew he didn't mean a buddy-buddy, pay for their McDonald's kind of friend. He meant the dangerous kind of friend, the kind who you kept around only because and while you needed them. "So why are we going to him?" She asked.

"He can get you off the grid."

"Off the grid? Like –"

"Off Facebook, off of Twitter, and off whatever else you teens use these days. Your name needs to be clean when you're searched up online. Albeit, he can't do much with just 'Kimberly', but he has his connections."

"Julian..." Kimberly spoke cautiously, "...I think he knows more about me than just my first name."

Julian's eyes sunk as his mouth grew into a line. "Why would you say that?" He asked, knowing that he wouldn't like the answer.

Kimberly sighed before telling him, "He texted me, Julian. He has my phone number, which means he has my name, school address, since that's where the line was registered, and probably a lot of other stuff too."

"Fuck!" Julian groaned, burying his face in his hands and letting out a muffled shout. It took a minute for him to finally look back up, and his hands dragged down his face the whole way. "What did he say in the text?" He asked.

"My window was open. He told me to close it."

"Fuck!"

Julian was well versed in the kind of games Freddy played and knew that he was someone who could really mess with people's minds. He knew that if Fred had texted Kimberly, then they could both be sure that he knew a lot more about her than her name. She wasn't safe here anymore. She wasn't safe anywhere anymore. Fred could kill her, and he certainly would if it was what he wanted. He had no use for her, the only reason he would possibly keep her alive would be so that he could fuck her, and just thinking about that made Julian shake with rage. Was that really better than death?

"Julian...who is Freddy? What does he even do? And..." Kimberly narrowed her eyes in confusion, "Why are you even connected with him?"

Julian clenched his jaw. "Trust me, Kimberly, it's better if you don't know these things."

"Oh my God,  stop trying to protect me already! I'm already balls-deep in this mess and there's nothing you can really say or do to make it worse. I just want to know what we're up against, Julian. I want to know who the man after my life is!"

Leaning his head down into his open palms, Julian sighed and rubbed his face quickly before running his hands through his hair. "Kimberly..." He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he breathed out. "Kimberly, Fred is a trafficker."

Kimberly froze. "Like...a human trafficker?"

Julian nodded, and after a few seconds of Kimberly's silence, he opened his eyes and looked back down at her horror-stricken face. He rolled his eyes and groaned, "Kimberly, see I didn't want to tell you this–"

"Why the fuck are you involved with a human trafficker, Julian?"

It was a question, but came out as more of a statement, as if there were no room for Julian to mess up on his response. Kimberly was rigid in her seat and was more confused than ever, wondering whether Julian was the person she had thought he was this whole time.

"Julian...are you a trafficker too?"

"No! Kimberly–" He took in a sharp breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "Kimberly, I'm trying to get un-involved with him as we speak. That's why I come home every other day with a broken bone or another goddamn stab wound!"

"That doesn't mean anything to me, Julian! Why were you involved with him in the first place?"

"I wasn't!"

Kimberly and Julian were now both fuming, they were sitting up in their seats and glaring at each other. Julian knew that at this point, there was nothing he could say to appease her, but he had to do his best to try, he didn't want her thinking of him in the way that he was sure she was now. He wasn't like Fred or the others, and he wanted Kimberly to know that.

"Kimberly, when we went to Miami to visit your friend, Melitta, I actually went to see someone else." He sighed, leaning back in his seat, "That day you spent out with your friends, I actually did spend out with people I shouldn't have...they were old friends of mine, but they now work with – or I guess above – Fred. These men, they started off my career and helped me find the connections that I would need to begin my career. They weren't much older than me – I knew them through my dad, but now that he's dead, I'm all they have left of him. All throughout these years, I was supposed to join them, join the business...just like my father had."

Julian's voice was laced with disgust as he spoke about his father and Kimberly's chest hurt just from hearing it.

"They're billionaires now, Kimberly. I was supposed to join them and help run the business. I was supposed to become a billionaire, but I didn't want that. I couldn't do it, and they just thought it was because I was weak, so they let me off for so long, only taking a portion of my income – kind of like a stipend – to keep me connected to the business. They didn't want to just let me loose since I knew all about it.

When I went to visit them in Florida though, I told them that I wanted to be done with this, once and for all. Ever since I met you, it all just felt so much worse, which I know, is really fucked up, since either way I'm helping them traffic, but it's the truth. Being with you, an eighteen year old girl, and knowing that they target mostly girls your age and younger, was just too much. And I mean I'm sure what they got from me wasn't that much on the grand scheme of things, but the bottom line is that I was – and am – still funding a human trafficking ring and I want to get out."

Kimberly's mouth was hanging open by that point. She wasn't sure what to say to that, she wanted to comfort him and also pull his hair out at the same time.

"They're not making it easy for me to leave," he said. "They won't do anything to me themselves; they have too much respect for my father. But they're not above using pawns to do their dirty work, and that's exactly what Fred is; a pawn. He's the best at what he does though – they wouldn't hire anything but. And Kimberly, he can really kill you if he wants to, you have nothing of value to him or anyone in Miami. He can hurt me, but he can't kill me because he works for people who my life has value to. To him, chasing you is purely pleasure and nothing else."

Kimberly thought about that. "Okay – I mean – but couldn't you just like...go back and talk to your friends in Miami? See if they'll change their minds about you...and maybe help me?"

"So that I can keep funding a human trafficking ring?"

"At least until I'm safe, yes!"

As soon as Kimberly said that, she dropped her eyes to the ground. She knew she didn't understand the severity of what was going on. I mean, sure, she knew what trafficking was, whether it was for sex or labor or war, but it clearly was taking a larger toll on Julian that it was on her, and the disappointment in his eyes after she spoke was something she couldn't bear seeing. She would have lied for him. She would have told him that she didn't care about her safety and just wanted all the girls and boys in those men's ring to be safe, but her life was on the line.

The truth was that she did care, she wanted them to be safe and happy, but she also wanted to return to school. She wanted to graduate, go to college. She wanted to see her parents again, she see Melitta again. She wanted to travel the world and meet people and have fun. She wanted to see Julian again, she wanted to kiss him again, or at least feel the way she felt about him with somebody else in the future.

She wanted to live.

She couldn't lie to him about that, not with her entire future hanging by a string. She wanted to see tomorrow more than she wanted one of the people she didn't know to see tomorrow.

"Kimberly, do you know how many girls your age or younger die every single day, just because of my 'friends' in Miami?"

Kimberly buried her face in her hands and tried to calm her breathing as she shook her head. "No, Julian, I don't know! And I don't want you to tell me right now. Right now, I want to live! I just want to be sure that I'll wake up tomorrow in the same body I'm in today!"

She looked up at him through her hands and saw that instead of disappointment, his face was now riddled with confliction. He sighed and looked up at her, "Kimberly, please don't do this," he pleaded. His voice was hoarse and desperate, neither of them was their best self. "What are you asking of me? Because if you said the words, I would turn this limo around and book the next flight to Miami. I would do it, whether I wanted to or not."

"Don't put this decision all on me, Julian! I'm not forcing you to do anything!"

"I'm not–" Julian sighed, "Kimberly, I'm not putting the decision on you. Whatever we do is both of our choices, yes, but you have to make your half of it. I've already made mine. I mean, you think I don't want to turn this car around and tell them to call Fred off? You think I'm okay with the idea of you being in danger? I'm not! I just – the way I see it is that if we turn around, then everything I've done to try and get out of this is for granted. I've been helping them for far too long, Kimberly."

"Okay, so say you get out of it. You're gonna what? Just sit there and let them continue their ring in Miami? It makes no difference if you're not doing anything to help the people you've been harming for the past who-know-how-many years!"

Julian's nostrils flared, "I am helping, Kimberly! Why the fuck do you think I'm still a lawyer! Do you think it's fun? You think law is fun? I'm only still here because I'm passionate about what I fight for! Do you know what kind of lawyer I am? Because my friends in Miami sure don't!"

Kimberly flinched back at the anger in Julian's voice. She didn't know what kind of lawyer Julian was, but it had never really crossed her mind that he was fighting for something different than the rest of them. Lawyers were lawyers as far as she'd been concerned.

"I'm a corporate lawyer,"Julian said. The anger now gone from his voice, "Officially at least, that's what I'm listed as. I use the knowledge I've gained from years of work in that sector and now take almost solely human rights cases; specifically trafficking, child labor, and international labor infringements. I use individual cases and draw them back to corporations, because, if we're being honest, winning one case with one person isn't going to change anything, but winning a case against a corporation will. And I mean yeah, I'm sure there are much better ways people are helping, but I'm doing what I can, Kimberly. And I just can't keep funding them, no matter the amount of money. But if you ask me to, I will turn this limo around and take you to Miami."

Kimberly didn't even know what to say to him. He had worked and worked for this and was finally finding a way to be completely clean from the people he fought against daily, but he would give it all up just to make her feel safe? "Why would you do that for me? You've worked so hard for this." Her lips were trembling as she spoke. She wanted to go to Miami, but she wouldn't ask him to, she couldn't ask him to. Not anymore. "I can tell you really care about this, Julian. Why would you risk that all just because I fucked up and picked up your phone when I shouldn't have?"

The limo rolled to a slow stop and Julian sighed, he was looking at her straight on and it was as though she could feel what he was feeling, even if he didn't say what it was.

And he didn't say it. As the driver opened the door for them, he just looked up at the ceiling as he let out a deep breath and asked her, "Isn't it obvious?"