Repairing the Hurt

Chapter 2

Everything is shroud in blackness. My face hurts, and I can tell it's swollen, but I'm more concerned about the lack of light.

I'm moving. More accurately, whatever I'm laying on is moving.

Cold metal is pressing into my back and I feel stiff.

A loud horn blows from somewhere outside, startling me.

Oh god.

That horn was that of a boat. I'm in the shipping container, sailing to who knows where.

Jessica.

I won't panic. I refuse to. I'm here for her, and I promised Kota I would keep her safe.

I hope he finds us soon.

"Jessica?" I call out into the darkness, waiting for a response, and scared when I don't get one.

"Jessica?" I say louder, my loud voice not blending with the silence of the girls.

I hear a few groans, think I can feel people shifting.

"Jessica?" I say again, needing to find her.

"Sang?" I hear, quiet, in the back.

Thank goodness.

I make my way over to the sound of her voice, trying to navigate between the mostly unconscious forms.

"It's me, Jessica," I answer, closing in on her.

"Sang, where are we?" Her voice is high and scared, not that I blame her.

I reach her and put my hands on her shoulders, steadying us both from the waves beneath us. "I need you to stay calm, okay?"

I can feel her labored breaths brush my face. "Okay," she promises.

"We're in a shipping container. We were trafficked," I say this calmly, despite wanting to retch.

"What?" She asks, her breaths coming and going faster than before. I think she's hyperventilating

"How did you get taken? Kota thought you were at a friend's house," I ask. Despite it being too late, maybe if someone knew something back in Charleston, the guys would have an easier time finding us.

Back in Charleston. We're somewhere in the ocean. The guys aren't anywhere nearby. We're alone in a shipping container with human trafficking victims.

Now I really want to retch.

Jessica's breath catches and I know, I know that she's about to tell me something that she knows was a mistake, the reason she's in here.

"We just wanted to check it out. Kids at school were talking about it, and we were only going to be there for a few minutes," she rushes to explain.

Confused, I interrupt, "Start at the beginning."

She draws a deep breath and starts again, from the beginning this time.

"The friend I was with, we were walking around the mall and ran into some people we know. They told us about this high school party they were going to, and invited us. It was real close to the mall so we thought we'd check it out." Her voice is trembling now, but I silently urge her to go on.

"It was awful. Everyone was drinking and they were being mean, so I tried to find my friend so we could go back to the mall, but I couldn't find her. I decided to walk back to the mall myself. I made it about a block before someone grabbed me." She begins to sob, her whole body shaking. "I don't remember what happened next, Sang."