“I love you too,” he mouths back, reassuring me with his touch and his eyes and his cautious smile.
“Okay.” I sigh heavily as I turn around. “What do you want to know?”
22
Keanu
I’ve never felt more helpless than I do as I sit listening to my girl explaining how life on the island worked. Or more sickened. But I deliberately force my feelings aside because this is about supporting Selena. And I know it’s much harder for her to relive it than it is for me to hear it.
“When I first arrived, I was trained by some of the older girls so I’d know what to expect the first time I was raped. Master Allen sold my virginity at an auction.” She visibly shivers, and I’m struggling to breathe. “After that, I was expected to become knowledgeable in all things sexual. We watched porn, watched others having sex with clients, and were made to have sex with the guards, all in the name of ‘training.’” Derision drips from her tone and her expression. “The only positive to come out of it was after we were deemed skillful to let loose on the clients we were off-limits to the guards. Not that that stopped Freddie.”
Her eyes darken, and she clenches her teeth. Every tendon in her body is locked tight. I smooth a hand up and down her back, but nothing relaxes her.
“We were pampered and well looked after, provided we cooperated,” she says. Her eyes dart all over the room, and I know it’s hard for her to relay this, let alone look these FBI agents in the eyes and tell them directly to their faces. “We had to look a certain way for the clients, so even when we were punished, they never marked our faces.”
“And how often were clients on the island?”
“Most of the clients arrived on weekends, but some came for weeks at a time. Like a vacation.”
My stomach tightens into knots as I exchange a loaded look with my brother. He’s around this stuff all the time. He knows what kind of sick, twisted bastards prey on the weak and vulnerable, but I can tell this is especially hard for him. Because Selena is an extension of me—this hurts him too.
“And what happened when clients were there?” the SSA asks in a gentle tone.
“We were assigned certain clients,” Selena explains in a neutral voice, and I know she’s gone to that place inside where she shuts everyone and everything out. She’s on autopilot mode, clinically explaining how things went down, while she keeps a tight rein on her emotions. It’s the only way she can do this. I hold her closer, needing her to know I’m in this with her.
“Some clients would request certain girls. They had their favorites. On Friday nights, they held these massive parties in the large ballroom. Clients would get drunk and high and fuck their way through the room. There were no rules and no limitations. We did whatever was asked of us.”
She stares off into space, and I think I might puke. Sel has told me some stuff, but she’s never gone into detail, and I’ve never asked.
As she talks about orgies, double penetration, girl-on-girl action, and being tied up, I want to tear those fucking bastards who forced her into this from limb to limb. I honestly think I could murder these sick perverts and feel zero remorse. I’d be doing the world a favor wiping this scum off the face of the Earth.
They better hope I never face them because I’m liable to go nuclear. The urge to annihilate these sick fucks isn’t something that will disappear overnight. If ever.
I want to kill anyone who laid a finger on my sweet, innocent girl.
She was onlya kid. She shouldn’t have even known about this stuff, let alone been forced into doing it.
Tension is heavy in the air. Horror blatant on all our faces. When Selena starts describing the punishment Freddie and Hudson would dole out if she refused to do something, whenever she cried, or when she did something they deemed inappropriate, I can barely sit still. The need to hit something rides me hard. Pain spears my entire body like someone is stabbing me all over, pushing the knife in deep.
My eyes meet my brother’s, and there is so much pain and sorrow in his gaze it almost undoes me. I grip Selena’s hand harder, needing her touch to keep me from losing it. To remind me she got out. That she’s okay.
“On Saturdays, we had to perform in these shows,” she continues. “We had our roles and were given costumes, and if we didn’t execute our parts perfectly, Freddie would punish us Sunday night when all the clients had left.”
“Do you need to take a break?” Sinead asks after Selena finishes explaining exactly what these shows entailed.
Those disgusting bastards made her have sex with other kidnapped slaves on a stage for their sick enjoyment. I’m battling tears. And wild rage. And my heart is trying to beat a path out of my chest it’s pounding so fast.
“I’m fine,” Selena says in a monotone voice.
“How did you come to be sold to Clive Lawrence?” Keven asks, and I’m grateful he’s switching the subject. Because I’m hanging on by a thread.
“As I got older, I became more disobedient,” she says. “By that time, I’d pretty much lost the will to survive. Sometimes, I goaded the guards on purpose, hoping they’d kill me. I was in so much inner pain,” she adds in a whisper, her voice all choked up as emotion breaks through the wall she’s erected.
I close my eyes, laying my head against hers, inhaling her scent, and struggling to keep my composure. I wrap both my arms around her, hugging her tight.
She holds on to my arm, and she sounds numb again as she speaks. “Master Allen said I forced him into selling me. That I was his favorite and he would have kept me there longer if I had only behaved. But it was bullshit. The men that frequented the island liked them young, and as I was approaching fourteen, I knew my days were numbered.”
I chew on the inside of my mouth to stop myself from shouting. Those sick, fucking, perverted bastards all deserve to burn in hell for what they’ve done to my gorgeous girl and to countless others.
