“What’s your name?” blonde Alicia asked me.
“Brandon.” My voice strained to say my name.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Eighteen,” I whispered.
“Welcome to our room. We each have a different colored blanket, but you have to earn that from Sebastian,” she said.
Earn?
“Alicia, don’t be a bitch; he’s just a baby.” Shannon rolled her eyes and looked at me. “My blanket is the beige one. You can use it until get yours.”
No, there was some mistake. I’m not staying.
“You are so unreal. He’s been awake for five minutes and you already want to fuck him,” Alicia jabbed.
“I’m glad another guy is here. These women get kind of crazy,” Scott mumbled. “The buckets in the corner are our toilets. One of Sebastian’s guys come in once a day and takes them away and replaces them. We try to eat in the opposite corner.” He pointed to a corner with a plastic jug of water. “The corner over there is the drug corner. Don’t be doing shit anywhere else, okay?”
I nodded. I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t know what to think of any of this.
“They don’t give us needles or lighters, so you can only snort,” Scott informed me. He stretched his arms out and revealed tons of needle marks on his arms. “They will come in every now and then and inject us with stuff. It’s supposed to enhance the sexual experience during the parties.”
“The parties are amazing!” Char exclaimed from the drug corner and then lowered her head to the powder.
“They will bring food in once a day,” Shannon explained. “And we share. So we expect you to share.”
I nodded and tried looking around the room as they each told me their stories. They all had one thing in common—each had been promised room, board, sex, and drugs in exchange for “party entertainment.” Individually, Char, Scott, and Shannon had been homeless after they finished high school. Each left home after high school and ended up on the streets. Sebastian picked them up. Alicia was in college and met Sebastian at a party. She said she dropped out after her freshman semester and had been here ever since.
All of them seemed to like it here, and none were here against their will; from what I could tell so far. There had to be a mistake about me. When someone came in, I would see if I could talk to them. I wasn’t party entertainment, nor had I agreed to be.
As I curled up on the floor near the flashlight, all I could think about was Eli. He’d been my friend for years and encouraged me along. He always told me I could rely on him. Had he always known that he was going to do this? My stomach was in knots, and it wasn’t because I’d been punched so much, but because I had been betrayed by the one person that I trusted.
8
Brandon
Nineteen-Years-Old
Tonight waswhat Sebastian called an elite party. The “entertainment” had to wear black blindfolds so we didn’t recognize anyone. The others didn’t seem to care one way or another, but I did.
“It’s not like we’re going to tell anyone.” Char giggled while we waited for Sebastian’s guys to come get us.
“Like I’d leave,” Shannon chuckled and looked at me with stoned eyes. “Why do you get so uptight, Brandon?”
“Because. I’m not staying here forever,” I spat with confidence.
“Oh, Brandon, you’re so naïve. You’ll never leave,” Alicia declared with the same amount of confidence that I had. With her pinky, she pushed together a line of coke and tried pushing my head toward it. “Here, you’ll feel better,” she insisted.
I jerked my head out of her grasp and went to sit alone by the door. The four of them spent the rest of our few minutes of free time getting high. That was something I couldn’t understand. Sebastian’s guys would inject us with crap right before each party, and the others raved about the sex being so incredible.
In the beginning, I thought it was just a game and that none of them were happy here.Who the fuck would be happy in this hell?They called me their brother and promised we were a family and were supposed to look out for one another. And I could buy into that; however, I couldn’t believe they were content and happy here.
Ready to get this shit over with, I stood when the door to our room opened. The black blindfold was placed around my head, covering my eyes, and then one of the men took hold of my arm. I didn’t fight them. I knew better than to fight them when they had the needles. I took a deep breath when I felt the needle poke into my vein and then the warm, burning sensation quickly followed.
I hated the drugs. I always felt control slipping away from me mere moments after they were injected. Despite trying to hold onto the control, the drugs always won. Always.
One of Sebastian’s men put an abrasive rope around my neck and slid the knot close until it touched my skin. During my first party, I learned quickly that if I stepped out of line, one yank on the rope could instantly bring me to my knees. Never again had I misjudged the power of the rope leash.
