Page 29 of Frat Row

The tattooist, sitting in the middle of the back of the van with broad shoulders and seemingly confident in his job, is almost finished tattooing all the girls, and, of course, I am last, sweating with anticipation. There are no tattoos on my body.

Half of his face is a skeleton outline tattoo; the rest of his body is covered by a sweatshirt and pants, but I’m sure he has tattoos all over.

For someone with very broad shoulders, he moves gracefully as he unhandcuffs me and moves me to the middle seat, indicating it’s my turn to be forever marked.

On instinct, I fight him off me. Anger clouding his face, he grabs my jaw and presses the tips of his fingers into pressure points on either side, causing instant pain that forces me to sit still and look into this man’s eyes.

As I suspected, they are dark and show no remorse whatsoever for what he is doing.

I guess they have to have that mindset doing this kind of work, knowing where we are headed.

He doesn’t want to speak to any of us or make eye contact because that makes it real and not just a shitty fucked up job he can go home and complain to his girlfriend about.

Gritting his teeth as if he’s forcing the words to come out, he says, “Fight me, bitch, and I’ll inject you with a drug that will make you so high you’ll be in the stars for days, understood ?

” Drops of spit land on my face, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tears begin to fall, and I nod, vigorously shaking.

Getting this tattoo will make me want to slice my skin off the first chance I get, knowing what it means.

I don’t even know what he is tattooing on us.

The other girls have completely sunk into themselves, looking like zombies and zoned out.

People deal with trauma in different ways.

Personally, I can’t shut down like the rest of them.

If anything, I am hyper-aware of my surroundings.

My adrenaline is at full blast, and I’m looking for any kind of weakness and the first opportunity to escape.

There is no fire left in most of these women. I have to remember they were locked up in those cages for a week, maybe longer, and subjected to unthinkable things, so they knew or had an inkling this was going to be their fate, and this is probably acceptance of it.

As for me, less than twelve hours ago, I was a normal college student who had been literally plucked from that life.

Jasmine makes eye contact with me. I hold her gaze because I need this connection right now to get me through this.

I’m trembling, not because of the pain but because of what this tattoo is going to mean on my body.

This is what they do to cattle, not humans.

The man with the skull face starts up the tattoo gun, and I feel the tip graze my skin.

The burn starts as he goes back over what he just drew on my right wrist. I’m too scared to look at what he is putting on my body.

Instead, I look up and notice the sunlight starting to peek through the windows, which would mean that we have been in the van for almost an hour or so. We can barely see out the windows; It looks like there are blackout tints on the inside as well.

The tattoo takes less than three minutes.

He unstraps me and puts me back in my seat, handcuffing my left wrist. My wrist is wrapped up in that clear wrap they usually use at the tattoo shops, and the tattoo is bleeding. He didn’t go easy on me. It reads “9003.”

I hold my breath, trying to process this.

So, in this sex trafficking ring, they number the girls.

I’m number 9,003? My stomach begins churning, and I have to put my head between my legs.

How long have they been doing this? And getting away with it?

Pure horror sweeps over my body, and I feel completely ill.

They’ve been able to do this to over nine thousand women.

Chills rack over my body as a memory resurfaces, the woman in the bathroom of the club’s secret basement who looked like a dominatrix.

I couldn’t make out her tattoo, but it’s in the same placement as mine, and now I realize it was numbers, too.

I squeeze my eyes shut. Those women were sex slaves as well… there against their will… to be used.

The man turns to his toolbox, which contains who knows what else.

Slowly, he pulls out and places giant syringes on top.

What the hell? Opening another drawer, he places the smallest silver contraptions I’ve seen next to them.

They begin to blink red. He retrieves a remote and a small laptop, plugging in numbers.

One by one, he injects every girl in the neck with the tiny device. Screaming in pain and clutching their necks, they cry harder. It’s my turn, and I’m so frozen to the bone in fear that I let my mind drift somewhere else.

After the injection, I do the same, holding my neck as some blood seeps out, trying to wrap my mind around what just happened. Then it dawns on me, and my eyes widen. It's a tracking device.

The van begins jostling around, and I can feel we are on a dirt road. More sunlight seeps into the van, and after about ten minutes, it starts to decelerate, coming to a complete stop.

My heart is in my throat. Full-blown panic. This is it. Our final destination where we find out what is about to happen to us. How we disappear like Archer said to me. I shiver all over.

After a minute, the van turns off, and the back doors of the van swing open, and there are about five men, all dressed in black, waiting for us.

Our tattoo artist jumps out first and vanishes from sight with his equipment. He couldn’t get out of the van fast enough. He didn’t look at any of us, just scurried away like the rat he is.

One of the drivers that had transported us commands, “I will hand you a girl. Frankie and Jon, you’ll have two. Bring them inside to the green room.”

We are roughly pulled out of the van by our upper arms. I actually trip while being manhandled, and the man who is in charge of me lets me go down, falling on my face in the dirt.

I land hard on one of my knees and can feel the scrapes and stinging start.

Stunned by the sudden pain, I just lay there, trying to get my mind to speed up on what to do next.

I lift my head up somewhat and try to take in my surroundings.

He throatily laughs at my predicament. I can tell he’s a smoker because his voice is raspy. He kicks me in the ribs and shouts, “Get the fuck up!”

I groan from the pain on my side and rollover. The wind is knocked out of me, so as I struggle to breathe, he wastes no time and kicks me again. “You dumb bitch. I said get up!” he yells.

One of the other men, who must be above his pay grade, roughly pushes him and yells, “Don’t fuck up the property.”

He frustratingly grunts and yanks me up by the collar of my shirt.

I’m sucking in air and sweating profusely from the pain on my side.

It must be the adrenaline that has me on high alert because I know I should be passed out right now with low to no energy.

We start walking—more like being dragged—toward this two-story building.

It looks exactly like an old warehouse, and there is nothing else out here.

I look around in every direction and see no trees or anything else, probably for miles.

There are just some gravel roads that look frequently used surrounding the place.

The grass that is there is dead and unattended to.

Even if I’m able to escape, it looks like I won't be able to find help for a while. Knots begin to form in my stomach as the hope of getting out of here dwindles. It’s been a while since I’ve eaten anything, and my guess is it will be a while before we’re fed.

They probably want to keep us weak throughout this process, so there is less chance of us fighting back, and if we do, we won’t have the energy to make a significant impact.

I try to commit everything I’ve seen to memory, even though it's hard when your stomach is empty and you’re mentally, emotionally, and physically drained.

I mentally catalog the names I’ve heard, the details, and the windows that I can see on the outside of the building.

This is the only thing that is keeping me remotely sane so I don’t spiral or zone out like the rest of the girls.

As we approach the building from a side entrance, a guy in front of us holding on to one of the girls uses his finger and presses down on a keypad.

He types in what looks like a four-digit code, and the sliding glass door slides back like a pocket door.

While walking into the building, I notice two heavily armed guards.

They both appear to be well-equipped, as if they are in the military, wearing bulletproof vests, boots, headsets, and multiple weapons strapped to their bodies.

The security in this place looks insane and unnecessary. There are cameras in every corner, as well as a body scanner. The amount of money it must take to run this place, let alone have been doing it this long undetected, is something I can’t wrap my mind around.

We immediately walk through the body scanner, and I’m quickly cleared.

Then, we make a left turn and walk down a hallway.

It smells and feels like a hospital hallway.

Disinfectant floods my nose, and I can’t help but scrunch it; it’s so overpowering to my senses.

Whoever owns this place must like the color white; the floors and walls are all the same color, and it goes on for what looks to be a few football fields in length.

The floors remind me of the ones you see at a hospital: the shiny white, with tiny blue and red dots scattered throughout.

Perhaps it’s fear that's making me imagine things, but this place is definitely larger than a typical warehouse.