Barrel

4

EVA

It took Eva a few minutes to realize that she wasn’t on the boat anymore. For some reason, she thought the beds looked similar, as did the curtains blowing up against the window. Faint light fell upon her chained leg, sending Eva into a panic as she heard a voice creeping out of the corner.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Eva was jolted back flat onto the bed, the metal pulling at her ankle. Her vision was still slightly blurred, so all she could make out was a small person also chained to a rusty bed in the corner of the room.

“Where the f**k am I?” Eva pleaded.

“Who cares?” the woman said, indifferent. “They’re just going to use us, over and over again, no matter where the f**k on Earth they take us.”

The woman’s voice was flat and toneless, which made Eva’s heart race even faster. She instinctively sat up and rattled the chain again, breathing deeply and making her belly as round as a balloon.

“Don’t,” the woman said harshly.

Eva was about to bellow for help, but she stopped, the air filtering out of her nostrils as she tried to narrow her focus on the woman in the corner. Her mouth was still dry as the desert as she stared hard, forcing her vision to sharpen.

The woman was thin, wearing a loose T-shirt and underwear with no bra. She was staring off into the darkness like it had no answers for her.

“Why?” Eva hissed. “Tell me what the f**k is going on here.”

Eva watched as the woman moved her head like it was on a swivel. She spoke out of the darkness like a robot reciting lines from Shakespeare.

“You were taken by the Demon Ghost Cartel,” she said. “They are going to sell you and your body without your consent.”

Eva could feel the world around her shrinking, which indicated to her that a panic attack was looming. She pulled herself into a ball, a fetal position, and squeezed her eyes shut.

She rode the wave the way she was taught to. The only difference was that her life was threatened, not perceived to be threatened. She had no clue how to respond to that.

“It’s best if you don’t fight it,” the woman said plainly. “Your life won’t be pleasant, but it will be a bit easier.”

Eva breathed in through her nose, filling her belly, breathing out through her mouth like huffs from a dragon. The woman’s words irked her, even while admitting her spiraling fear.

“I’m not letting some fuckers take my body from me,” Eva whispered. “I would rather die than give that up.”

“You are going to wish you were dead,” the woman said, a wisp of a smile growing on her lips.

She looked like a sad clown in the dark. It gave Eva chills and brought about another plume of panic.

“Trust me,” the woman finished.

Eva was trying not to listen to the woman’s cryptic, dark tone. There was no way she was just going to give in to something as absurd as s*x trafficking. She considered herself an anxious woman, but she wasn’t a weakling.

The woman turned away and lay on the bed just as Eva heard the sound of approaching feet. Her vision was starting to adjust as she spotted a man standing in the doorway, holding two plates of what looked like oatmeal.

The man said something in a language she didn’t understand, then tossed one plate to the woman in the corner, the other in her direction. It slopped onto the ground, spilling onto the cool linoleum.

Eva looked down at the food, and her stomach turned. She was hungry, but she wasn’t going to consume something these kidnappers were giving her. What if it was drugged? Could that be how they took her away to be violated? She tried to turn away from the food, but her foot pulled on the chain. She curled half of her body into a ball, wrapping her arms around herself to soothe her fears.

The man finally walked away, and she felt she could breathe a little.

Eva dozed in and out throughout the day from sheer exhaustion. More of the effects of the drugs wore off, making the fog clear from her brain. She floated between wakefulness and light sleep, focusing on her breathing to keep herself calm.

A few men came to check on her, and she pretended to be asleep each time. At that point, she was able to pick a sliver of conversation from the people who were holding her captive.

“Maybe we gave her too much?”

“Maybe, maybe not. She hasn’t eaten anything.”

Eva waited until the men left, hearing the sound of another plate of oatmeal being slapped to the floor. When she rolled slightly, a small, hard object dug into her hip. She suddenly realized what it was. Relief washed over her like rain.

She slid the army knife out of the zippered pocket with two fingers, listening like a fox on a hunt for the men who may have been a few feet away. She glanced over her shoulder and then proceeded to pull the blade out from its nestled handle.

The metal reflected in the setting sun, and she sat up to pick at the lock.

She didn’t know exactly how to get the job done, but she had seen a fair number of movies where it didn’t seem too hard. The lock itself looked old, even in the dim evening light. She didn’t care how unrealistic it seemed, she had the knife, and it felt like fate that it would be the single item that would save her.

Eva used to think that a man would come into her life, bursting from the boring world, and color her existence. She felt that way at that moment, too, twisting her wrist left to right, sweat slipping into her eyes.

Why wouldn’t someone come and save her? But why did she feel like she needed someone else to do it in the first place?

She gasped when the lock snapped open. She froze for a moment, her eyes flicking upward toward the door. There was no movement, only distant sounds of laughter and fire popping. She wondered about the woman who had briefly spoken to her still on the bed.

She hadn’t moved for hours which worried Eva. But she had to focus on one thing at a time. Her body and her mind couldn’t handle it all. She was about to explode like a dying star.