Stronger (The Unit Book 2) (7 page)

“Don’t let them see you cry,” Lola whispered to Dangani. Lola watched as Dangani’s features transformed into defiance. She raised her chin and wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. One-by-one they were led on into the pasture. There was a rundown farm house to the right of where the truck had stopped. Shutters hung sideways from the windows. Paint peeled off of the house like skin peeling off of a sunburned shoulder. Lola could see the screen door was badly in need of repair as the top half ripped away from the door and folded over the bottom half.

The girls, Lola counted twelve in all, stood in the middle of the pasture.
Were they brought here to work on the man’s farm?
That wouldn’t make sense.
Why did they bring them here?
When the truck moved and a guard appeared with an assault rifle in his hand and tucked under his arm, Lola swallowed down the panic that quickly rose in her throat. She had no idea what awaited them, but at least they were still together. She could watch over Dangani, Cece, and Alisha. The armed guard gestured with the barrel of his gun for the girls to move towards the big red barn in the distance.

It was strange that the barn was in immaculate condition; at least the outside looked that way. A fresh coat of bright, fire-engine red paint coated the barn. The doors were kept closed by a metal bar which hooked into a latch on each door. Lola could smell a farm. She easily recognized the smell of cow manure she remembered from her country drives with her family. She even picked up a faint trace of hay. Why did they want the girls in the barn?
Would they be taken somewhere else?
The other guard opened the metal lever and swung the right door open. The sun was still high overhead, so Lola judged it to be around one o’clock in the afternoon. The heat was unbearable. Sweat already trickled down her brow and between her bosoms. She felt droplets dribble down her back. She was still dressed in the short, blue mini-dress she had worn to the club over a week ago. Now the dress was grungy with the same dust covering the fabric from the hut. It was a clingy dress that showed off all of her curves.

When she left her hut this morning, the marks under her bed showed she’d been held captive for ten days. They had fed her well and kept her medicated. She didn’t want to admit to herself that she needed the drugs to cope. She dreaded turning into her mother, but the circumstances were vastly different. She was being held hostage. She did need the drugs to cope because not knowing what was coming was scaring her to death. She recalled a conversation she heard a few days earlier from the guards in front of her cabin. At the time, she didn’t care. But now, she had to remember exactly what they were saying because her instincts said that was the answer to what was going to happen to them.

She racked her brain trying to recall the words spoken in Spanish. Thank God her father insisted she take it starting in elementary school. She could speak it fluently and could understand it just as well. What had they said? Suddenly, dread crept up her spine like finger nails on a chalk board. She was hyper aware of what was going on around her. She noticed the man who had opened the barn door was now standing behind them. She tried to peek into the barn, but it was dark and the blinding sunlight prevented her from seeing inside the barn. She was aware of where all of the men were. They all had guns slung over their shoulders and some men had guns hanging from their sides.
Would they kill her if she tried to run?
She was readying for the run when Cece pulled her back.

“What’s wrong, Lola?” Cece asked quickly grabbing Lola’s hand. “Your face went so pale. You look like you saw a ghost.” Cece stroked Lola’s long hair down her back, trying to calm her.

“I am going to be…” That was all Lola could say before she fell to her knees, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and vomited up the bread and water she’d had for breakfast. Cece remained dutifully by her side, holding her hair back from her face. Once the heaves stopped, Lola turned her head and looked up at Cece. Lola’s blue eyes were as dark as a storm cloud. She remembered what the men had said. “Oh no,” Lola groaned keeping eye contact with Cece. Lola looked at all of the young girls that stood around her waiting to enter the barn. Tears instantly formed in her eyes. She began sobbing.

“You’re scaring me,” Cece whimpered.

Lola cried for what was going to be done to her. Lola cried for the loss of innocence the younger girls would face. But most of all, Lola cried for her new friend Dangani who was only thirteen years old. Some man was going to own her as his personal sex slave. Still on her knees, Lola began chanting a prayer over and over to God. “Please. Please. Please.”

Lola was the last to reluctantly enter the barn. What struck her first was the catwalk closed in on both sides by dark paneled glass. She couldn’t see what was behind the glass. Lola followed the girls onto the catwalk and behind the professional looking stage from which the catwalk extended. The girls were led back into a large room with mirrors and dressing tables on each side of the room. It looked like a large dressing room the stars had used when she had been invited backstage during a Broadway performance of
The Lion King
. Laid out on each dressing table were cosmetics, brushes, combs, hair products, hair bows, berets: anything one would need to make oneself attractive. In the middle of the room was a large mobile rack filled with negligees hanging from padded hangers. This is what the man who measured her had been doing: securing clothing for each girl to wear at the auction. Just then she noticed that same man with a small army of Latino women enter the dressing room.

“First you shower. Then we will get you ready for tonight. Tonight is the big night ladies,” the man cooed. The girls looked at each other with panic-filled eyes.

“The big night for what?” Cece whispered to Lola. Lola didn’t want to tell Cece, but she would want to know.

“They are selling us tonight.” Lola said defeated as her shoulders slumped forward. She had surrendered to what was to come. She reached out to grab Cece’s arm, refusing to let go.

“Selling us for what?” Cece asked confused. “You’re hurting me.”

“Sorry. I just don’t know how you are going to handle what I am about to tell you.” Lola still had her fingers wrapped around Cece’s arm, just not as tight. “Men are going to buy us and then we will belong to them. They will do with us as they please.” Lola waited and watched as her words began to register on Cece’s face. Cece paled.

“I’m going to be sick. I need a bathroom. I don’t think I can hold it in.” Cece said, panicked. Her breathing had increased and was coming out in short spurts.

“We need a bathroom. She’s going to be sick,” Lola announced to the measurement man. He pointed. Lola grabbed Cece by the hand and pulled her back through the door the man pointed to. Lola held Cece’s hair this time and stroked her back. So young. The thought of the virgins among the group had taken Lola aback. She thought of herself, still a virgin, naively waiting for the right man. To lose something so special to a man who was obviously a sick, degenerate; to a man who wouldn’t be gentle; to a man who didn’t care for any of the girls; made Lola’s face burn with anger. Lola began to shake with her rage, but what could she do? What she would give for a pill right about now so she wouldn’t care what was happening. “No,” she told herself. “I need to be here for the younger girls for as long as I can.”

When Cece was finished, they made their way, hand-in-hand, back to the dressing room. The man had waited for them. “Shower time girls. Follow me.” Lola approached the man. She shoved her finger at the man’s chest. “What gives you the right? What gives you the right to take away our choices?” To Lola, death would be a better companion. She reached over onto the table and picked up a bottle of aerosol hairspray. Without thought or warning, she sprayed the liquid right in the man’s eyes. He quickly squeezed his eyes shut, tears streaming down his face from the burn, and covered them with his hands.

“Get me some water,” he yelled to one of the Latino women. She grabbed him by the arm and led him to the sink.

Lola wasn’t finished yet. He was the only one there upon whom to take out her rage. She rushed the sink and knocked the man to the floor. He was at a disadvantage as he still couldn’t see. She used all of her might to punch him square in the nose. She erupted at the thought of what they would do to the girls once they were purchased. Another punch. She erupted at her choices being taken away from her. Another punch. Blood began to drip down from the man’s nose. Just then two strong hands tore her from her seated position on the measurement man. She was spun forward and punched squarely in the stomach. She doubled over in pain. The fight left her then. She was resigned to the fact she couldn’t escape. Another man grabbed her from behind and straightened her body. The man in front of her punched her again in the stomach. The punch knocked the wind from her chest; she couldn’t breathe. She began to hyperventilate. She managed to say, “Please.” The man stopped his assault on her stomach. He spoke Spanish to the woman standing there next to the sink, watching. The woman quickly disappeared and returned with a paper bag. Apparently, hyperventilating was something they were prepared for.

“Breathe into bag,” the man told her puffing out the bag and closing one end of it. He held it out to her. Without hesitation, Lola took the offered bag and began breathing into it. Slowly, her breathing evened out. Her eyes widened as she wondered what would be done with her now. She flew into such a rage; she was able to take down a man just as tall, with equal muscle mass as her. She had done a number on him.
What would the fat man say when he saw the measurement man?

Lola’s face was ashen and pale. Her hands felt clammy. She hugged herself tight. She was deathly afraid at what would be done to her now. To her amazement, the man whom she had punched, stood. He was presented with a clean, dry cloth. He held it to his nose. He looked at Lola with evil intent and said, “This way ladies.”

Not to be further delayed, the measurement man kept the cloth pressed to his nose and led the girls through a door in the back corner of the room. They entered another large room with numerous shower heads and half-tiled walls separating each shower. Each stall had shampoo, conditioner, and soap.

This would be Lola’s first shower in ten days. She hoped the hot water would take some of her pain away. All of her muscles were bunched into cords. In the middle of the room sat two rows of long benches. She stopped at an empty spot and reached for the hem of her dress. It degraded and humiliated her that the men with assault rifles were standing in the shower room with the girls, but she needed a shower. She would try to relish the feel of hot water raining down on her skin. She lifted the hem of her dress over her head and placed the discarded dress on the bench. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have to put it back on anytime soon. She made her way to an empty stall and turned on the faucet. The handle only moved one way: up. She pushed the handle up and lukewarm spray assaulted her body. This was not the hot shower she had imagined. Still she lingered. She could clean herself and that was all that mattered. She took her time washing and conditioning her hair. Then she started to wash her body. From her peripheral vision, she could see the guards openly gawking at the girls, but their most intense stares were turned on her. She felt them burn holes through her body. She made quick work of washing herself and stepped from the shower where one of the team of ladies was waiting with a fresh towel. She dried herself and wrapped the towel securely around herself. Sitting on the bench, she waited for the last of the girls to finish.

“Leave your clothes. You won’t need them anymore,” the measurement man said as he herded the girls back through the door and into the dressing room. He took great care in choosing a dressing table for each girl. When that job was finished, he handed each girl her negligee for the evening. Lola was handed the white one she had worn the day the ugly, fat, bald man had touched her. A day she was thankful the drugs made her temporarily forget. Now she couldn’t forget. Once she was dressed, she sat at the cushioned chair at the dressing table. A Latino woman came up to her and began straightening her hair with a blow dryer and a round hair brush. She had naturally straight hair, but she guessed they wanted it to shine tonight. While the woman was styling her hair, she looked at what some of the other girls were wearing. Dangani wore white, but Cece wore red and Alisha wore blue. White, she ventured equaled virginity, but Dangani was raped. Did that not count?
Maybe they raped her orally? Why harm the merchandise?
She could only imagine an unspoiled girl brought more money.

Next, the woman went to work on her makeup. The woman contrasted the innocence of the white negligee with sultry eye makeup and just a hint of blush. Her lips were painted a candy apple red, which made her already full lips look much fuller. The short, bald, fat man came into the room to inspect his products. He approved of most of the girls, but not of Dangani. “Get this girl another negligee. One that shows off the buds of her breasts,” he ordered in Spanish. He turned to address the girls in the room. “Girls, it has been my pleasure keeping you for the last several days, but I have some very interested men who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on you tonight. Because of that, I don’t want anyone panicking, so I have brought your drugs. Be good girls and take your pills for Papi.” Each woman at the dressing table handed a girl a pill. Lola took the pill from the outstretched hand of her hair dresser and thankfully swallowed it. “We will wait thirty minutes so your pills have a chance to take effect. Then, it’s off to the catwalk for each of you. Don’t disappoint Papi,” the ugly, bald, fat man said in a heavy Spanish accent.

Apparently, they were being called in order of their dressing tables. Lola’s was last. She watched as the girls came back into the dressing room without a care in the world. She didn’t care what was about to happen, as long as they kept giving her pills. Her turn came. The man with the gun motioned for her to rise. She rose and made her way to the catwalk.