Trafficked Read online

  Do I sound a little depressing? Sure. Probably. But when you have seen the things I have seen, felt the feelings I’ve felt, it’s hard not to be a little pessimistic. Then again, I’ve always had a flair for the macabre. But I have to wonder—which came first? Does my life reflect my obsessions or do my obsessions reflect the kind of life I have lived?

  Right now, it probably doesn’t matter. I don’t know that it ever mattered, but I have a feeling none of the poetry I’ve read or the beautiful objects I have touched can save me now. I am one of those butterflies, only worse. At least they get a momentary glory when someone walks past them and grants them a raised eyebrow or a nod of acknowledgement. Their tiny insect brains aren’t alive to appreciate it, of course, but I have to expect that their fluttery, tiny souls must take some comfort in being admired.

  I am not even given that luxury, to be looked at, to be confirmed as living. Because isn’t that the way it is? You can’t know if you’re alive or real in this world without somebody to reflect you back onto yourself. You can only be sure of your own existence when you see yourself in someone else’s eyes. Even a stranger. Even an enemy. I need someone to peek in on me and remind me that I’m still alive, because right now, it sure as hell feels like I might as well be dead.

  On top of that existential dread, my body is having a difficult time, too. Maybe that’s my proof that I’m still alive: the pain. I’ve been locked away in this pitch-dark, sealed-up cell for too long. I’ve paced back and forth for hours on end, just letting my legs burn off the frantic energy that will occasionally seize me and force me up to my feet. I have felt along the wooden walls with my hands, blindly fumbling up and down the length of my little prison. I have never been especially good at math, especially geometry. It’s hard for me to guess the size of this place, but I can tell you that it is quite small. Too small for my comfort.

  Whoever tossed me into this place at least had the decency to install a toilet and a sink before sealing me away like some ancient cloistered abbess, but that’s little comfort to me. There is also a bed, but not a nice one. Nothing like the downy mattress I slept on in that luxurious hotel in Moscow. Damn. That was really the best night’s sleep of my life.

  It marked the first time in months that I didn’t wake up in those amber-colored hours between midnight and morning, screaming breathlessly and gasping and crying so desperately that my throat ached at the breakfast table later in the morning.

  Now, don’t get me wrong: I have certainly survived some less-than-ideal sleeping arrangements in my life. I’ve been pushed and bumped from place to place so often that I never have time to really feel at home anywhere.

  And I definitely don’t feel at home here in this wretched cell. It seems to be some kind of crew room or bunker, but clearly not designed with the crew’s comfort in mind. It meets the bare minimum requirements: a stripped bed (perfect for shivering upon without any blanket in the middle of what I assume is night but could very well be daytime as I haven’t seen a clock in forever), a toilet, and sometimes, they feed me.

  So I can begrudgingly check a few items off the pyramid-shaped list of human necessities courtesy of the scientist Maslow. I’ve got about as much comfort and stability as a lab rat, and while I was only briefly a student of science before falling in love with Russian literature and changing my major, I was in STEM just long enough to find out how miserable the fates of those rats really are. I don’t shy away from death, not the way most girls I know do, but that still bothered me. Meeting a little white rat for the first time, even subconsciously giving it a name (Igor, of course), and then watching it succumb to the cruel mistress that is scientific discovery.

  A ritual sacrifice to the gods of progress.

  I never spoke up about it, of course. If there is one thing my strange and serpentine path of life has taught me, it’s how to pick my battles. So, I didn’t stand up and defend the lives of those little white rats. Not even the one I fondly named Igor. None of them are safe from the Frankensteinesque experimentation of university-level biology students.

  What a sad end to a bright beginning: to die at the hands of some frat boy in a lab coat. To be reduced to rows of data, a footnote at the bottom of a textbook page.

  I suppose I should have made peace with that sooner. I’ve always thought I would like the idea of donating my body to science after I die. Put it to some good use. I assumed it would give me an extra edge of nobility and dignity in death—the thought that my value might extend beyond the moment I shut my eyes for the final time. It seems only fair. I’ve dedicated a good chunk of my life to the dead and the dying. I might as well join them.

  However, I have to admit I had slightly higher hopes for the means by which I will exit this world. I was hoping for something a little bit more dramatic.

  Romantic, even.

  I assumed I would fall from a forlorn, wind-whipped cliff, my long white dress rippling and surrounding me like the white gauze of a bridal veil as I plummet to a watery grave, to be scooped out of the water like some modern Ophelia. Or maybe I would be stabbed in the heart by a passionate lover, left to bleed a tragically-heart-shaped puddle of crimson on the balcony of a hotel room in St. Petersburg.

  I often imagine my own death. I am fascinated by the concept. I feel like it’s probably fairly straightforward, the trajectory that brought me to this morbid place. First of all, I have seen a lot of death in my day.

  My mother.

  My father.

  My mentor.

  Not to mention, all of my favorite poets and artists and playwrights are dead.

  So, I think a lot about death. My own, and those that meant—that mean—so much to me. Some might have a hardened heart after so much loss, but I don’t see myself that way. I couldn’t fall in love with the dark poetry and literature that plucked at my heart strings if I was hard to it.

  I believe that death has simply… changed me. Made me more sensitive, but more realistic. I can see a strange, macabre beauty in death, in passing on to something wholly unknown. I tell myself stories, sometimes, about spirits and the afterlife, of heaven or hell or something completely unknowable to humans.

  I have a Ouija board packed away in some storage unit back in the States. I’ve never used it. I can never find a friend willing to hold hands and close the circle with me, and I’ve watched more than enough horror movies to know how foolish it is to use one of those things by myself. I don’t know if I one-hundred-percent believe in ghosts or demons or even a life beyond this one, but I also know better than to barking up that tree without the proper preparation.

  If there is an existence after dying in this mortal plane or whatever you want to call it, and I do get to retain some shadowy remnant of my wits, if not my soul, then god knows I am going to haunt whoever put me in this disgusting little box.

  I don’t even know who put me here. Not really. I have spent a good part of my captivity in a daze, unable to think clearly.

  I think that’s probably a reasonable reaction to being kidnapped and held captive, right?

  Panic and desperation, loneliness and despair. Those are all traits I thought I had made my peace with, but as it turns out, you never really do overcome those feelings when you’re stuck inside with them. My morbid thoughts, which used to just fascinate and excite me, have become unpleasant bedfellows as of late.

  It’s a lot less fun to think about the darker side of humanity when you are quite literally surrounded by the dark. It becomes too close to reality. I prefer to walk that delicate tightrope between realism and surrealism. That’s my sweet spot. My niche.

  It’s something my undergraduate classmates teased me for.

  They called me Wednesday Addams or Elvira or Lolita or, my all-time favorite, The Wicked Bitch of the East. Why, the East? Well, apparently my passion for Russian literature was all the encouragement they needed to find yet another thing to pick on me for. Not that it ever bothered me much. I’ve built up kind of a thick skin. Losing everyone you car
e most about one by one will harden you in some ways.

  I can’t pretend like that hasn’t affected me.

  Besides, I would rather them call me a bitch than be phony to my face. I have never really needed a solid group of friends. My books, my research, my hobbies—those are the closest things to friendship I have sought out in recent years.

  Well, with the exception of Ms. Hardwick.

  I swallow back the lump in my throat, annoyed with myself for still getting so choked up about what happened.

  It was a slow death and a sudden one at the same time. The whole time I was working with her, my English professor who turned me on to Russian lit and philosophy, she was battling an unseen illness, a common one but no less deadly: cancer. It’s so common, in fact, that I have frequently had the thought that cancer might be the face of the grim reaper himself. It claims too many lives to be a coincidence, especially when there are so very many ways a person can die.

  She was sick for years, slowly succumbing to the soulless machinations of the disease spreading through her body until finally it reached her brain in an act of final cruelty. An aneurysm. They found her slumped over her desk, the open pages of a Dostoevsky novel cradling her face as her red lipstick smeared down the paragraphs.

  My mentor, my guide, my closest thing to a mother figure I had in years and years, gone so quickly. At least she died reading what she loved, I can only assume. True to character, there was a black candle burning down to the wick at the corner of her desk. I have no doubts it would have eventually burned down the entire English department if Ms. Hardwick’s body hadn’t been discovered so quickly.

  I feel a twinge of disappointment that it didn’t happen that way. She deserved a more theatrical end. Fire might have been the most dramatic exit of all. But then, her family might not have opted for an open casket funeral if the fire had spread the way I imagine it would’ve.

  I can still see her face so clearly in my mind. Pale, caked with powder to give her already paper-thin skin some faint sheen of humanity. But it was all wrong. The makeup artist obviously never knew Ms. Hardwick personally. The neutral lipstick and demure pink blush, the lack of false eyelashes. They made her look like someone’s dowdy aunt, when she was always more than that. She was fiery and passionate and so, so brilliant. Smart enough to intimidate many—even most—of her students.

  Not me, though.

  She and I are kindred spirits, even if her spirit was now off traveling the void and mine is still riveted to this dark, dank hellhole on earth. I almost envy her, wherever the hell she is now.

  I slump back against the wall of the cell I’ve been locked in for… a short eternity. As usual, my hands instinctively reach out and try to pick at the wood paneling behind me. It’s a pity. Just before I was captured, I had treated myself to a luxurious manicure. Inky-black lacquer with sparkly crimson tips. It matched many of my outfits I had packed specifically for my legendary trip to Russia.

  I knew I would be walking around the most beautiful places known to man, the most romantic city streets, the most awe-inspiring cathedrals with their vaulted ceilings and hellish golden organs. I wanted my clothing to reflect the world around me.

  I have a proclivity for a certain kind of style, which exists at the intersection of pinup couture, vintage dresses, librarian chic, and the macabre. My philosophy is that life is short, and the afterlife is not guaranteed, so I might as well make the most out of every day I get to be alive.

  And for me, that means dressing well. Beauty for beauty’s sake. I wear what I wear for myself, not for anyone else. I take pride in my looks, not because I think I’m especially beautiful or anything, but because it’s just another way to express who I am. I’m always looking for ways to do that, to capture my spirit and put it on display.

  Again, I remember the butterflies.

  I sigh heavily. At least they are frozen in a display of glory, while I’m sitting here ruining my manicure by stripping away splintery layers of the boarded-up walls. My hands are still bound, but I’m working them out. Slowly. Bit by bit. Sawing at the rope binding with a sharp edge of wood peeled back from the wall behind me. Finally, with my heart thudding like crazy in my chest, I manage to snap the rope.

  “Holy hell,” I murmur breathlessly to myself as I hold up my arms in front of me. I can feel the splinters and bruises aching around my wrists, sensation making them prickle. It’s uncomfortable, but nothing I can’t handle.

  It feels so good to have my hands free.

  Maybe now, if I’m lucky, I can start picking away at the walls in earnest. This place feels more like a makeshift cell than a fortress, and if I can just keep stripping away the walls… eventually, I’ll have to come out the other side.

  Right?

  Except that my fingertips keep striking steel under the wood, and not even my manicured talons can break through steel. Still, I have nothing better to do. Maybe somewhere in these walls there’s a bald spot, a weakness I can exploit to my escape.

  I spin around, kneeling as I began to rip and tear at the flimsy walls, grunting with pain all the time. Adrenaline pumps through my veins.

  I’m so distracted with my endeavor that at first, I don’t hear the movements beyond the walls. It takes me a few seconds to catch on, my ears pricking up at the sound of footsteps. My body goes cold and I stare toward the direction of what I think must be the door. I’ve seen someone there before, but only when I was waking from a dream, my mind still hazy and confused.

  And he never entered the light.

  He only stood silhouetted against the dim glow, his gigantic frame cast in total darkness. And he never stayed long. Just long enough to leave me a metal bowl which bore an offensive resemblance to a dog bowl, filled with some kind of grainy slop and pickled beets. Now, I am not a picky eater, but I am human. I don’t eat slop. And I definitely don’t eat slop served to me by some anonymous kidnapper from Russia.

  I have so few options. I could wait for the man to open the door, to find me bathed in light, my wrists unbound, and they could punish me for it and tie me up again. Maybe worse, somehow, so I couldn’t move at all.

  But they never come to the door. The footsteps walk around more… aimlessly. As if looking for something.

  Whoever captured me… he wouldn’t be looking for something, right?

  So, what if it’s someone who is coming to save me?

  Before I can think better of it, I cry out, “Help me!” My voice sounds thin and hoarse from lack of use.

  I crane my ears.

  Nothing. No sound.

  No more footsteps.

  My heart sinks.

  I was wrong. I know I’m wrong. It’s not someone come to save me. I shouldn’t have let optimism creep into my heart. It was just… nothing. Hope made to manifest in reality.

  I hastily get to my feet and start fumbling around for something, anything I can fashion into a weapon to defend myself. I find a small strip of wood I peeled off the wall and clutch it in my hands as I back away into a dark corner. Facing the door, I hold the wood out in front of me while my other hand frantically tears away at the wall behind me. My fingertips don’t touch cold steel this time. Just more wood. And… is that a slight draft?

  An opening in the wall? It can’t be.

  I swivel around and begin to tear at the wall with more gusto, thinking finally I might break free after an eternity in this earthbound hell. But just as I start to feel a glimmer of hope, the whole world lurches and I fall over.

  “What the hell?” I murmur, feeling dizzy and sick to my stomach.

  Sea sick.

  My heart pounds painfully in my chest.

  I’m not just in a room. I’m in a room on a boat of some kind.

  And it’s on the move.

  Vladimir

  Nearly eight hours later, I sit in a large chair on the bridge of the yacht, swirling around a glass of the thousand-dollar vodka I found in the bar while I listen to the ringing of the phone against my ear.


  I’ve scoured the ship for the source of the noise, but I can’t find another soul aboard. If there’s an assassin with me here, he’s both well-hidden and incredibly patient. But regardless of whether he’s here to kill me, the ship needs fuel, and it doesn’t particularly care who wants to kill who when it runs out of gas and leaves us stranded in open waters.

  After a few long rings, I hear a gruff, tired male voice pick up the line.

  “Who the fuck-”

  “Nikita,” I say in a pleasant tone. “Nice to hear your voice after so long.”

  “… Vladimir?” he says, suddenly sounding a lot more alert, almost alarmed. I can’t blame him. My calling at this hour of the night usually isn’t a good sign for any of my contacts, and I do not mind having that kind of effect on people.

  “You know I hate to call this late,” I said, keeping up the pretense that this is just a pleasant conversation between friends. “I’ll keep this brief, and I’m hoping you can do the same. Are you still working the docks at Sevastopol?”

  “I… of course I am,” he asked, sounding more reluctant by the second. “Listen, if you have a drop off-”

  “Nothing like that,” I laugh mirthlessly. “This is much more, let’s say straightforward. I’ll be at your dock in half an hour. I have a large yacht that needs refueling. In addition to that, I need enough for a very, very long trip—New York. I’ll pay twice the market rate in cash, plus an early Christmas bonus. I’d really rather keep this between us, you understand.”

  There’s a pause on the line, and I can perfectly see Nikita’s disbelieving face in my head. Finally, he stammers for a few moments before finding his tongue again.

  “Yes, yes, of course! I ahh, think I can have that ready for you. Just you?”

  “Just me.”

  “Right, right, always the private man. Let’s keep it that way, yes? But ahh, should I expect anyone to come asking questions about your trip? Just so I know what I’m, ahh, dealing with, of course.”