Three years free, forever a slave. That's the story of my life. I don't remember who I was before, and I try to forget who I was then, but everything that happened turned me into what I am today: Solitary, driven, stubborn, and certainly not defenseless. It's a hellhole when you're in the circuit. There's no way out, or at least, that's how it seems. That's how it is, for most of us, anyway. They snatch you when you're a child. Maybe mom's looking away for just a minute or you wander off. That's all it takes. Just a moment, and then you're gone.
I was seven the last time I saw my home.
My parents let me play out in the yard after school. It was a tiny suburban neighborhood. Not a lot happened there. The setup was innocent enough: We were playing kickball, some neighborhood kids and I. The ball came my way, rolled right past me, so I ran to get it. It bounced behind this old truck, and when I finally got to the ball, a man opened the passenger door, picked me up, and drove off. All it took was a moment. It's a moment I've tried to forget for the past fourteen years, but my mind... It just doesn't want to let go of my friends' faces.
For a long time, I hoped they would find me, that someone would look for me. They probably did, I know that now, but missing children are reported all the time. Nobody knew to take down a license plate number, and nobody saw the faces of the people who abducted me. It was a cold case from the start. As a kid, though, you don't know that. You keep up that hope for as long as the fire will stay lit. It keeps you alive. Although, in the circuit, sometimes, the last thing you want is to be alive.
Most normal people want to protect children, keep them safe from harm and bad influences. Not where I ended up. You were beaten, used, drugged, and worse. I don't know if I'll ever be scrubbed clean of those years. To be honest, I don't know if I'd want to be. Nothing about it was good, and certainly nothing I enjoy seeing again in my nightmares, but it made me who I am. Sometimes, I hate it. When I wake up screaming, drenched in a cold sweat, and I find myself in my own bed and not some stranger's or some crusty room with needles lying on the floor, at least I have the now to remind me it's not then. But that same relief reminds me that I have a job to do. It reminds me that I have a purpose.
Three years ago, a man in a hoodie approached my... let's call him a manager. Nothing out of the ordinary, the guy wanted entertainment. My manager offered me. Said I was the best he had if the client was willing to meet the price. They exchanged cash, my manager nodded, and he pushed me toward the client. That was that. A simple, dirty exchange between two sleezebags. Hoodie grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me off.
He loaded me into a beat-up old sedan and drove off. I expected us to turn into the next half-star motel we came across, but we kept driving. Eventually, we passed city limits. I asked, "hey, what gives?" expecting to be met with a slap across the mouth.
"I'm getting you out."
I'd had people ask for things in the car, but somehow I didn't think that was what he was going for. He could see the confusion in my face when he glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Out, like out of the ring, out of the trade, out of town... Out out."
"I don't belong anywhere," I told him.
"That's okay. I know people," he explained. "We're a group. We can get you set up in a shelter with clean clothes, food, doctors, safety."
"And then what?" I asked him. For eighteen, I was pretty cynical, but can you blame me?
"And then, once you're on your feet, you're free to go if you want."
I just sort of sat there in shocked silence for a while. The guy's intentions were good, but he clearly had no idea how the mind of someone who'd been raised in worse than a brothel worked. "I'm supposed to just... waltz off into society and join the working masses?"
It was his turn to be quiet. "Yeah, that's the idea. Do you... not want to?"
That was when I realized what my job was going to be.
-----
In the three years since my rescue, private organizations and to a lesser extent law enforcement have cracked down on human trafficking. They finally seem to recognize that it's a problem and want to do something about it. The downside to that is it makes the rescuers' jobs a whole lot harder. If you're new to a dealer, they don't just let you walk off with their best property anymore. You have to earn them through repeat business. If they're someone who's had "property" stolen before, chances are they aren't taking new customers.
It's even harder as a woman in the business. The other end of the business, I mean. I've bulked up, cut my hair, done just about everything I can to look like a guy. Sometimes it fools them, sometimes it doesn't. What are they going to, call the cops on me? Nah, they shoot. So, I wear a bulletproof vest. Unfortunately, that was a lesson I needed to learn the hard way. No one had ever had the balls to try what I was doing back when I worked the circuit. Interest has spiked, and while women were an oddity back in my day, they're downright suspicious now. Plenty of well-intentioned idiots stumbling into the hornets' nest unprepared. That was me once. I've got the bullet wound and the tattoo to prove it. She was the only child I ever lost. Her name was Faith. I always found it a little ironic in a way. In other ways, not so much.
-----
Faith belonged to a dealer who ran a pretty average-sized ring. Tracking him down was fairly easy, I suppose. He was the third dealer I rescued from. Our strikes were typically several in a night: Clear out as many kids as we could, then alert the cops to the whereabouts. The idea behind it was to leave behind as few kids as we could without tipping off the dealer to what was going on. If he picked up on our tricks, he might take a hostage when the cops arrived or he might high-tail it with the remaining kids. Either way, it wasn't what we wanted.
I was the fifth "buyer" of the night. I approached the alley where we'd arranged to meet, kept my hood up and my eyes down. Hands out of my pockets so it didn't look like I was reaching for something, and everything was going smoothly. He stood at the end of the alley with the little girl behind him. All of those rats have the same disgusting gleam in their eyes, the kind that makes any sane person want to vomit. I'd grown up with it. I probably shared it, for all I knew. The little girl, Faith, she was too young to know what was even happening.
"How much?" I asked. I always pitched my voice down. All the shit they pumped into me as a kid and all the smoke I had inhaled really helped sell the act.
"Five hundred."
"She clean?"
"What do you care?"
I slowly took out a few leaves of cash and handed them over. He counted and inspected to make sure they were at least a convincing set of counterfeits if they weren't actually real. He pocketed them and grabbed the girl by the wrist. I took her.
Something about my hand... I'll never understand it, but as soon as I touched her, she looked at me as if she saw everything that was happening.
"Mommy...?"
"What?" It was all I could think to say. I was so stupid. It was a reflex. I forgot to change my voice.
Immediately, the dealer drew a gun.
"You think this is a fucking game?" he demanded. "You bitch, I know what you fucking are. I knew this much business wasn't right." He reached for the girl's hand. "Deal's off. I keep the money, you leave with maybe only one bullet in you."
"No deal," I snarled at him. I swung my leg up and connected with his knee. He let go of the girl and I grabbed her. "We're leaving," I told her, and I picked her up with my arm around her torso. We took off down the alley as the bastard got to his feet again. I could hear him swearing as he cocked the gun. He fired. It missed somewhere off to my right. I kept running. The street was only about two hundred feet away. I remembered thinking how it felt like the alley would never end. He fired another shot and it missed wide again. When my ears stopped ringing, I realized my footsteps weren't the only ones.
We broke out onto the street. It was late at night in a part of town that was dead at one in the afternoon. I looked for a place to hide and then sprinted for a car parked a few shops down. The bastard behind me turned out of the alley before we'd even covered half the distance and he fired two more shots. One of them grazed my right calf. I bit down hard on my tongue until I tasted blood. I staggered.
But I kept running.
A few steps later, I heard a few more shots. Nothing else hit me until I heard Faith scream. I looked down and saw her leg hanging limp against my side, covered in blood. I didn't know if it was hers or mine, and I didn't have time to check. I kept running. Another shot. I screamed.
Both of us dropped to the ground behind the car. My side burned. I was bleeding. I knew it was my blood. It was everywhere. I ripped off my sweatshirt and tried to tie it off around my waist. My hands were shaking but I knew I needed to put pressure on the hole for... some reason. I didn't remember or care why. In that moment, I forgot about the girl.
"...Mommy?"
Her voice, I remember it clear as day, broke me out of my stupid selfish trance. She was lying on the sidewalk, her skin pale as the cement under the streetlight. In the moment I had forgotten... The moment to act had gone.
"Hey, hey..." I tried to soothe her. Every move I made felt like knives slicing me apart. I didn't care. I couldn't. "Hey... What's your name? Tell me, what's your name?"
"Faith..." Her voice was so small.
"Okay, Faith. You know, we're going to get out of here and get you back where it's safe."
"I know about you... I heard. You're one of them angels they send to save us."
That one phrase hurt more than any bullets ever could. I froze.
She reached out her hand to me. It shook. I reached mine back. Mine shook.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I always knew an angel would take me home."
And then she closed her eyes.
The street was silent. We were alone. The dealer must have run, I figured. I started to hear sirens in the distance. I didn't know what else to do, I closed my eyes too, and I cried.
-----
I slipped out of the rescue business for a while after that. Filling out police forms, appearing in court, all the shit that goes along with seeing a soul off under questionable conditions... It was all pretty scripted, except for the grief. For someone who believed they'd lost the ability to feel emotional pain by the time they were ten, I thought the hurting would never end. About a week after it all happened, I went and got my tattoo. Only one I have, and I suspect it's the only one I'll ever have. It's an angel, right over the scars of that bullet wound in my side. It says "Have Faith."
For someone who isn't religious and who doesn't really believe in the idea of life after death, there's something strange and comforting about that little tattoo. It's like I'll always be able to carry her with me, by my side. Not really like a luck charm. More like a reminder that it's the effort that matters. What drives you is what matters. Even if you fail, it can still all turn out okay.
You've just gotta have a little Faith.
I was seven the last time I saw my home.
My parents let me play out in the yard after school. It was a tiny suburban neighborhood. Not a lot happened there. The setup was innocent enough: We were playing kickball, some neighborhood kids and I. The ball came my way, rolled right past me, so I ran to get it. It bounced behind this old truck, and when I finally got to the ball, a man opened the passenger door, picked me up, and drove off. All it took was a moment. It's a moment I've tried to forget for the past fourteen years, but my mind... It just doesn't want to let go of my friends' faces.
For a long time, I hoped they would find me, that someone would look for me. They probably did, I know that now, but missing children are reported all the time. Nobody knew to take down a license plate number, and nobody saw the faces of the people who abducted me. It was a cold case from the start. As a kid, though, you don't know that. You keep up that hope for as long as the fire will stay lit. It keeps you alive. Although, in the circuit, sometimes, the last thing you want is to be alive.
Most normal people want to protect children, keep them safe from harm and bad influences. Not where I ended up. You were beaten, used, drugged, and worse. I don't know if I'll ever be scrubbed clean of those years. To be honest, I don't know if I'd want to be. Nothing about it was good, and certainly nothing I enjoy seeing again in my nightmares, but it made me who I am. Sometimes, I hate it. When I wake up screaming, drenched in a cold sweat, and I find myself in my own bed and not some stranger's or some crusty room with needles lying on the floor, at least I have the now to remind me it's not then. But that same relief reminds me that I have a job to do. It reminds me that I have a purpose.
Three years ago, a man in a hoodie approached my... let's call him a manager. Nothing out of the ordinary, the guy wanted entertainment. My manager offered me. Said I was the best he had if the client was willing to meet the price. They exchanged cash, my manager nodded, and he pushed me toward the client. That was that. A simple, dirty exchange between two sleezebags. Hoodie grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me off.
He loaded me into a beat-up old sedan and drove off. I expected us to turn into the next half-star motel we came across, but we kept driving. Eventually, we passed city limits. I asked, "hey, what gives?" expecting to be met with a slap across the mouth.
"I'm getting you out."
I'd had people ask for things in the car, but somehow I didn't think that was what he was going for. He could see the confusion in my face when he glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Out, like out of the ring, out of the trade, out of town... Out out."
"I don't belong anywhere," I told him.
"That's okay. I know people," he explained. "We're a group. We can get you set up in a shelter with clean clothes, food, doctors, safety."
"And then what?" I asked him. For eighteen, I was pretty cynical, but can you blame me?
"And then, once you're on your feet, you're free to go if you want."
I just sort of sat there in shocked silence for a while. The guy's intentions were good, but he clearly had no idea how the mind of someone who'd been raised in worse than a brothel worked. "I'm supposed to just... waltz off into society and join the working masses?"
It was his turn to be quiet. "Yeah, that's the idea. Do you... not want to?"
That was when I realized what my job was going to be.
-----
In the three years since my rescue, private organizations and to a lesser extent law enforcement have cracked down on human trafficking. They finally seem to recognize that it's a problem and want to do something about it. The downside to that is it makes the rescuers' jobs a whole lot harder. If you're new to a dealer, they don't just let you walk off with their best property anymore. You have to earn them through repeat business. If they're someone who's had "property" stolen before, chances are they aren't taking new customers.
It's even harder as a woman in the business. The other end of the business, I mean. I've bulked up, cut my hair, done just about everything I can to look like a guy. Sometimes it fools them, sometimes it doesn't. What are they going to, call the cops on me? Nah, they shoot. So, I wear a bulletproof vest. Unfortunately, that was a lesson I needed to learn the hard way. No one had ever had the balls to try what I was doing back when I worked the circuit. Interest has spiked, and while women were an oddity back in my day, they're downright suspicious now. Plenty of well-intentioned idiots stumbling into the hornets' nest unprepared. That was me once. I've got the bullet wound and the tattoo to prove it. She was the only child I ever lost. Her name was Faith. I always found it a little ironic in a way. In other ways, not so much.
-----
Faith belonged to a dealer who ran a pretty average-sized ring. Tracking him down was fairly easy, I suppose. He was the third dealer I rescued from. Our strikes were typically several in a night: Clear out as many kids as we could, then alert the cops to the whereabouts. The idea behind it was to leave behind as few kids as we could without tipping off the dealer to what was going on. If he picked up on our tricks, he might take a hostage when the cops arrived or he might high-tail it with the remaining kids. Either way, it wasn't what we wanted.
I was the fifth "buyer" of the night. I approached the alley where we'd arranged to meet, kept my hood up and my eyes down. Hands out of my pockets so it didn't look like I was reaching for something, and everything was going smoothly. He stood at the end of the alley with the little girl behind him. All of those rats have the same disgusting gleam in their eyes, the kind that makes any sane person want to vomit. I'd grown up with it. I probably shared it, for all I knew. The little girl, Faith, she was too young to know what was even happening.
"How much?" I asked. I always pitched my voice down. All the shit they pumped into me as a kid and all the smoke I had inhaled really helped sell the act.
"Five hundred."
"She clean?"
"What do you care?"
I slowly took out a few leaves of cash and handed them over. He counted and inspected to make sure they were at least a convincing set of counterfeits if they weren't actually real. He pocketed them and grabbed the girl by the wrist. I took her.
Something about my hand... I'll never understand it, but as soon as I touched her, she looked at me as if she saw everything that was happening.
"Mommy...?"
"What?" It was all I could think to say. I was so stupid. It was a reflex. I forgot to change my voice.
Immediately, the dealer drew a gun.
"You think this is a fucking game?" he demanded. "You bitch, I know what you fucking are. I knew this much business wasn't right." He reached for the girl's hand. "Deal's off. I keep the money, you leave with maybe only one bullet in you."
"No deal," I snarled at him. I swung my leg up and connected with his knee. He let go of the girl and I grabbed her. "We're leaving," I told her, and I picked her up with my arm around her torso. We took off down the alley as the bastard got to his feet again. I could hear him swearing as he cocked the gun. He fired. It missed somewhere off to my right. I kept running. The street was only about two hundred feet away. I remembered thinking how it felt like the alley would never end. He fired another shot and it missed wide again. When my ears stopped ringing, I realized my footsteps weren't the only ones.
We broke out onto the street. It was late at night in a part of town that was dead at one in the afternoon. I looked for a place to hide and then sprinted for a car parked a few shops down. The bastard behind me turned out of the alley before we'd even covered half the distance and he fired two more shots. One of them grazed my right calf. I bit down hard on my tongue until I tasted blood. I staggered.
But I kept running.
A few steps later, I heard a few more shots. Nothing else hit me until I heard Faith scream. I looked down and saw her leg hanging limp against my side, covered in blood. I didn't know if it was hers or mine, and I didn't have time to check. I kept running. Another shot. I screamed.
Both of us dropped to the ground behind the car. My side burned. I was bleeding. I knew it was my blood. It was everywhere. I ripped off my sweatshirt and tried to tie it off around my waist. My hands were shaking but I knew I needed to put pressure on the hole for... some reason. I didn't remember or care why. In that moment, I forgot about the girl.
"...Mommy?"
Her voice, I remember it clear as day, broke me out of my stupid selfish trance. She was lying on the sidewalk, her skin pale as the cement under the streetlight. In the moment I had forgotten... The moment to act had gone.
"Hey, hey..." I tried to soothe her. Every move I made felt like knives slicing me apart. I didn't care. I couldn't. "Hey... What's your name? Tell me, what's your name?"
"Faith..." Her voice was so small.
"Okay, Faith. You know, we're going to get out of here and get you back where it's safe."
"I know about you... I heard. You're one of them angels they send to save us."
That one phrase hurt more than any bullets ever could. I froze.
She reached out her hand to me. It shook. I reached mine back. Mine shook.
"It's okay," she whispered. "I always knew an angel would take me home."
And then she closed her eyes.
The street was silent. We were alone. The dealer must have run, I figured. I started to hear sirens in the distance. I didn't know what else to do, I closed my eyes too, and I cried.
-----
I slipped out of the rescue business for a while after that. Filling out police forms, appearing in court, all the shit that goes along with seeing a soul off under questionable conditions... It was all pretty scripted, except for the grief. For someone who believed they'd lost the ability to feel emotional pain by the time they were ten, I thought the hurting would never end. About a week after it all happened, I went and got my tattoo. Only one I have, and I suspect it's the only one I'll ever have. It's an angel, right over the scars of that bullet wound in my side. It says "Have Faith."
For someone who isn't religious and who doesn't really believe in the idea of life after death, there's something strange and comforting about that little tattoo. It's like I'll always be able to carry her with me, by my side. Not really like a luck charm. More like a reminder that it's the effort that matters. What drives you is what matters. Even if you fail, it can still all turn out okay.
You've just gotta have a little Faith.
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