It was supposed to be a short walk. She’d gone down to the river with her sketchbook, headphones in, that sun-faded hoodie tied around her waist. The light through the cottonwoods had made patterns she wanted to draw.
She never heard them coming.
One minute she was crouched on a rock, pencil in hand. The next, rough arms grabbed her, a sharp zip tie. A scream that never left her throat. The stench of breath and sweat and something oily pressed against her skin.
They moved fast. She fought, bit, bled. But they had a van waiting. After that…the world turned dark and endless.
She remembered being thrown inside, metal walls, cold floor, and so many girls inside, just as frightened as she was, but there was another girl there, sitting upright, bold and seemingly fearless. Older by a few years with scraped knuckles, bruises blooming under her skin, and eyes fierce even through the terror.
When their gazes met for the first time in that van, her eyes said, We’re in this together.
Just two stolen girls breathing the same stale air. Ayla didn’t know her name yet. Only that she wasn’t alone in that moment when everything inside her cracked.
The engine roared. The doors slammed. Darkness swallowed them both.
Hours blurred into days. Two girls taken on different nights, from different reservations, thrown into the same pipeline. They didn’t speak at first. Didn’t dare. But whenever the van hit a bump, their shoulders knocked together, and neither pulled away.
When they reached the jungle, they dragged Ayla out first. Metal walls. Being shoved into a cold room. Other girls crying. Men talking like she wasn’t there.
She pretended to be sick when they looked at her the way men did when they wanted something sacred. Something she wasn’t going to give up to the likes of them. The travel was endless until the jungle.
Inside rough sacred caves, they painted her face. Made her wear white. Told her to walk the forest paths at night and not make a sound. Said it was her turn to be a ghost. She already felt like one and wished with all her might to go invisible.
If she didn’t comply? They’d kill the girl chained to the post at the edge of the cave.
The same girl from the van.
Taryn Thunderhawk. Her last name sounded like a warrior’s, and the girl was nothing but a fighter.
They locked her to the same post the next night. Still painted white. Barefoot. Meant to haunt the jungle paths like spirits.
The older girl had been nothing but encouraging the whole trip. She watched Ayla with eyes like bruised thunderclouds, face still puffy from whatever they'd done to her before.
But her words weren’t angry. They were whispered. Fierce. “You don’t look like a ghost. You look like someone who’s going to survive this.”
Ayla blinked. Taryn was her lifeline.
She took Ayla’s hand, a tether. A vow. Ayla held on, and that was the moment she stopped drowning.
They planned in whispers. At night, when the jungle swallowed sound. When guards drank too much or fell asleep in shifts. When the paint dried on their faces and the bruises were no longer fresh.
Taryn had memorized the guard rotations. Knew which ones were sloppy. Knew where they kept the stolen knives. She taught Ayla where to step, how to breathe in time with the rustling leaves, how to let the jungle hide her.
Taryn made her promise. If something happens to me, you don’t stop. You run. You run and you don’t come back.
Ayla said she wouldn’t leave her.
Taryn just smiled.
“You will. That’s how we both make it out.”
They escaped two nights later.
A guard came early. Drunk. Aggressive. Taryn struck first and kicked him hard enough to make him drop the keys, then she used the knife. Ayla caught them and turned away, knowing it was either them or her and Taryn. With the cuffs off, they ran barefoot, bleeding, hearts pounding like war drums.
For a few precious minutes, it worked until they caught up to them. Taryn fought so hard, but there were too many. They dragged Ayla away from her, and her necklace snapped as Taryn went down. She slashed with the knife, screamed for Ayla to run. But she was frozen to the spot as they violated her, beat her and beat her until she stopped moving, then they turned to her.
Ayla ran, the earth called to her, showed her places to hide, gave her directions, told her never to stop running. It was strange that the earth sounded like her brother, Taryn, and her sweet Lala.
