Page 49 of Healing Conviction
“Trust me.” Nora’s voice lowered and took on an edge Draco hadn’t heard before. “I’ve heard my fair share of horror stories.”
The woman gulped audibly and nodded. “Alright. Here goes. Y’all know I was kidnapped when I was real young. Thank God I don’t remember much of it. I’ve always thought that was a superpower, being able to forget. All I know from that time is that I was a kid, they stole my innocence, and for years they tried to take the rest of me too. Until me and the other girls I was with were rescued.”
The way she so simply described one of the most horrendous events anyone could ever experience had him grinding his teeth hard enough to make his jaw hurt.
“A shelter helped me—”
“The Rahab Foundation?” Nora asked about the organization his team at MF7 regularly used to help reintroduce the survivors back into the world. Apprehension twisted his stomach.
“Yeah, that was them. They got me a therapist, drug counseling, helped me get back on track in school, even donated new clothes since I had a growth spurt while I was gone. After a while, they stopped contacting me. I guess they thought I was fine enough by then, but my home was even worse than before I was kidnapped.”
“How so?” Nora asked.
“My momma and I weren’t ever in a good place. Before or after.Especiallynot after. I don’t think she liked all the attention I got. Which was funny because I didn’t ask for any of it. Anyway, she always put her boyfriends above me and my brothers, and as I got older, she and I fought a lot. She hated that I wanted to get the hell outta Cambo, thought I was too big for my britches and ungrateful for the shitty trailer we lived in. So it was really weird when she was all excited one day because the Rahab Foundation invited me out of the blue to some fancy shindig. They told me that because I’d been trafficked, they could get me a full ride somewhere. I probably would’ve questioned it if it hadn’t felt so good to have Momma be happy with me for a change. And hell, they have scholarships based on height alone, so I figured, why the hell wouldn’t somethin’ like that exist for a girl like me after everything I’d been through?
“Momma got me a dress and even drove me all the way to Ashland to drop me off at the party. I realized later we never even talked about what time she’d pick me up. I’ve always wondered if she left that place and never looked back.
“The fundraiser was ritzy. A few people seemed interested in my future, but then I realized that most of the men I talked to didn’t give a shit aboutme, just my body. I’d been there, done that, and wasn’t interested in that kinda shit. I quit talkin’ to all of them and got to know the other two girls who were with me, instead.”
“Two girls?” Nora pulled her phone from her back pocket. “Not three?”
“Just two of ‘em. Jasmine and Calianne. Real sweet, too. We were all dressed to the nines with me in my red dress, Jasmine in her yellow, and Calianne rockin’ these killer orange heels. Once we all got together, we finally started havin’ fun at that godforsaken party. It was nice to meet someone with a story like mine, and we were all excited about that scholarship. We didn’t know it was bullshit at the time, though.”
“You’re good at faces, right?” Nora showed her phone to Shanna. “Are these the women you saw that night?”
Shanna leaned forward to inspect the screen. “Jasmine, for sure. I wanna say Calianne looked older than this picture—”
“Yeah, I think it’s an old pic,” Nora offered.
“Hm… maybe… Anyway, the blonde girl I don’t remember at all. She coulda been there, but I didn’t talk to her, and she wasn’t there for the Rahab Foundation’s imaginary scholarship either.”
Draco cleared his throat. “How do you know the scholarship wasn’t real?”
“Uh, maybe because the scholarship was BS and the Rahab Foundation is all a scam?”
Before he could ask another question, Nora cut in again. “We believe you, babe. What happened next?”
“I wasn’t a real big partier back then. Once you’re forced to take drugs and you quit ‘em, it ain’t so appealin’ to dive on back in, ya know? I remember havin’ two glasses of champagne one minute and then the next wakin’ up mid-fuck with some old, fat-ass white guy. Anything I blocked out as a kid… well, let’s just say I think I lost that superpower after that.”
Her voice had been bored and irritated before, but a crack during the last sentence altered her speech into that haunting monotone he’d heard so many times from the women his team had worked to save. It had an emptiness that is only born the moment all hope is lost.
“I couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything, really. It was almost like I was dead inside. I could barely make out his face until I saw it a couple of months ago on TV. Mitchell Strickland.” She scoffed. “Look who’s dead now, motherfucker.”
“His death was too easy.” The anger lacing Nora’s words made him proud.
“After that, they put me in a tiny room full of other women, I think.”
“Were Jasmine and Calianne there with you?” Nora asked.
“I’m not sure. To be honest, I don’t remember much except sleepin’ and how good it felt when they shot me up to put me out. Every time I woke up and got put down again, I was somewhere different. Hotel bed, bathroom, fabric all around me, that was when I was stuffed in a bag—” Nora shuddered beside him. He reached across the console to grip her thigh in silent encouragement. One of her hands rested over his as Shanna continued her story. “Wherever we were after that, I just remember it being cold and hard on my back. When they moved me from there, I tried to look out the bag. We’d been in a big metal box. One of those, uh—” She snapped her fingers until Nora answered with a hint of dread in her voice.
“A shipping container?”
“Yeah, one of those! When they took me away, I remember peekin’ out of the bag and seein’ a string of letters and numbers on the doors. Or maybe it was another letter. I honestly don’t know anymore.”
“What were they?” Nora asked.
“Lemme think… it was, um. C, T, and then all I remember after that was a bunch of numbers.”