Taken by E.M. Leya
CHAPTER SIX
Trenton hadn't meant to sleep, but he had. He had no idea for how long. There weren't any windows where he was being held and he had no clue what time of day it was. Hell, he didn't even know what day it was. He could have been here for a few days or a week. It was impossible to tell. He rubbed his hands up and down his arms, trying to ease the cold from his body. He hadn't been warm since being taken. He wasn't sure what they were shooting him up with, but he thought that might have as much to do with the chill as the cement floors and damp area he was forced to stay in.
He took a moment to look around the cell he was in. It really wasn't a cell. It was a cage. A large open space separated by chain-link fences. In the cage he was in there were only men. Maybe ten of them, but he couldn't be sure. Sometime in the night, they'd brought another in. He'd looked drugged as well, but he'd also looked used. In the faint light, Trenton swore he saw what he assumed was dried semen on the man's body. That only confirmed his fear of why he'd been kidnapped. This was some kind of sex ring. He couldn't see well into the other areas, but he heard women crying, and to his horror, sometimes children.
Was he still in Los Angeles? If so, how had an operation of this size not been noticed? Trenton was trained to find places like this. He knew what to look for. If people in the area were being kidnapped, then he should have known about it. That fact made him think he wasn't close to home. He had been drugged so he had no clue how far they'd driven before dumping him in the first room where he'd woken up.
He stretched his legs, moving slowly so he didn't draw attention his way. He needed time to clear his head, and he'd seen others who got up and moved around too much or screamed for help drugged again to keep them calm. The last thing he wanted was more of that shit to cloud his head. He sat up, his back against the chain-link fence. He pulled his knees to his chest, resting his arms on them.
"You're awake."
Trenton looked to his left to see Ian lying on his side a few feet from him. Keeping his voice to a whisper just like Ian had, he nodded. "What did I miss?"
"I just woke up too. I don't know. I wake up for a few minutes then fade back off." Ian wiped his hand over his eyes.
"Yeah, me too." Trenton slowly moved closer to where Ian was, trying not to draw attention as he slid his butt toward him. "This is a bigger operation than I thought. Any clue where we are?"
"I assumed we were still in San Francisco." Ian shrugged.
"Shit, they took you from San Francisco? I was in L.A.," Trenton told him.
"I was in Sacramento." A guy a few feet away from them rolled to look at them. "Pete was in Portland." He gestured to a guy sleeping beside him.
"Fuck, so we have no idea where we are?"
The other two shook their heads.
That explained how no one had noticed this. One or two missing persons from one area wouldn't draw any attention. "How long have you been here?" Trenton asked.
"I don't know. Maybe a month or more." The guy's eyes closed, then opened again as if he was fighting sleep.
"Why do they have us?" Ian asked.
Trenton bit his lip, sure that he already knew.
"Sex. They give us to men or women to use for a night, sometimes longer. If we fight, they tie us up so we can't resist. Sometimes it's easier to just do what they want so they don't beat us," one of the guys told them.
A squeak came from Ian. "They rape us?"
The guy closed his eyes again. "They do whatever they want to us."
Ian stared at Trenton with a look of horror. "We have to get out of here."
Trenton agreed, but he had to find a way first.
Before he could stop him, Ian stood, screaming as he stumbled to the gate of the cage and started to shake it. "Let me out of here. I don't belong here. You've got to let me go."
Trenton didn't dare move. He wanted to run to Ian and tell him it would be okay. That he needed to be quiet, but if he did, he was sure he'd be in trouble too.
Just as Trenton expected, the two men who had led them to the cells walked over to the gate.
"You're right where you need to be," the one with a beard said as he unlocked the gate.
"No, let me out. I need to go home." Ian was crying as he watched them with a hopeful look as they opened the gate.
"Fuck." The guy beside Trenton shook his head. "He needs to shut the fuck up."
The moment the gate opened, Ian tried to run, but the smaller of the two men was right there, throwing a fist into Ian's stomach as the other guy closed the gate then turned to Ian. "You're not going anywhere." He wrapped large arms around Ian's body, confining his arms.
Ian tried to kick out, but he was weak and it did little to help him.
The guy with the beard took Ian to the ground, using his much larger body to hold him there.
The smaller guy grabbed Ian's arm, pulled it away from his boy, and knelt on his hand. A second later, he'd uncapped a syringe and slid it into Ian's arm.
Trenton watched as the drugs had an almost immediate effect on Ian. All the fight left him as he slumped as if boneless.
"Fucking asshole. You need to learn your place." The smaller of the two men stood and kicked Ian in the hip.
The man with a beard released him and also stood. He looked around the cell as if daring anyone else to cause a scene.
Trenton closed his eyes, letting his head loll to the side a bit as if he were still weak and drugged. It wasn't far from the truth. He still felt the effects of the drugs in his body and wasn't sure he could stand, let alone fight.
The two men left Ian where he lay and left the cell, locking it again before they headed across the area to where Trenton couldn't see.
"Is it heroin?" Trenton asked.
"I'm not sure. I don't know anything about drugs. The shit just makes you weak and want to sleep. There's a high from it. One hell of a good high, but it doesn't last too long. It's the weakness that gets you. I think that's why they use whatever it is." The guy beside Trenton stared at him. "I'm Hector."
"Trenton."
"Since they just brought you guys in, they'll be back for you sometime soon. They'll drug you again and take you to another room. They take a lot of photos of you. One of the women who raped me told me there is a book with our pictures in it that they use to pick who they want for the night." Hector didn't open his eyes as he spoke.
"How often?"
"Just depends. Sometimes I'm here for days. Other times, they take me upstairs several days in a row. I never know. The only way I can tell time down here is by when they bring us food or the shifts change for these guys holding us."
Trenton looked around the cage, for the first time taking everything in. There was one toilet in the far corner, open for everyone to watch if you used it. There were several old twin mattresses around, but by the looks of them, it was cleaner to sleep on the floor. There were no blankets, nothing anyone could use to stay warm or cover their nakedness. The floor was all cement, with three drains, which Trenton assumed were used to rinse the place down. The place smelled vile, and he wondered how they could send them up to customers with the stench they would end up having on them after being held here. "Tell me everything you know about this place." If he was going to find a way to escape, he needed all the information he could get. He understood the workings of many sex-trafficking operations, but they all varied a bit from one to the other.
"Not sure what I can tell you. There are men, women, and children here. Held in different cages. I saw one kid that didn't look older than four or five." Hector's face was lined with disgust. "From what I can tell or I've been told, there is a book with our pictures. The customer picks out who he or she wants for the night and we're taken from here, forced to shower and wash, then led naked upstairs. I resisted the first few times and tried to fight so they drugged me and tied me up once I was upstairs. I don't resist anymore. The beatings were too hard to deal with and I hate being tied up." He rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. "We're forced to do whatever the customer wants us to do. If we resist or try to fight, they send people in to hold us in place or tie us to some kind of bondage equipment. When the customer is done, we're brought back down here until they come for us again."
"Are you blindfolded or can you see the people who use you?"
"I've never been blindfolded."
Trenton sighed. That meant they didn't plan to ever let them out and risk having anyone's identity exposed. "Do they kill people?"
"I've seen two die because of being beaten, and I was told that there are some customers who…" He placed his arm over his eyes and took a deep breath. "Who like fucking us literally to death and even after."
Trenton's chest tightened. He'd seen enough snuff videos on the dark web to know what happened. "Are most of your customers men or women?"
"Both. I never know who is asking for me. Sometimes it's both." Hector turned his head to look at Trenton. "About a week ago, they took a large group of us out at once. It was a mix of men and women. There were a couple of kids too. None of them ever came back. I don't know where they took them."
"Are they armed?"
"I've seen them with guns, but never when they come in here. They never come in alone. There are always two of them on duty, but I think four around during the day. Sometimes the guards will pull a woman out and rape her while everyone watches. They're sick fucks."
Trenton couldn't focus on the rape side of things right now. He had to figure out the layout of the place and where they were. "What's it like upstairs?"
"Just bedrooms. They lead us upstairs to a hallway with a lot of rooms. There are numbers on the doors. Some are typical bedrooms, others are like stuff I've seen in porn, dungeons, and stuff like that, all set up to strap you down and confine you. There are no windows, at least not in any of the rooms I've been in." Hector shivered. "They use you, then leave without a word. Sometimes you're there for what feels like hours before someone comes and brings us back here."
Trenton stared over to where Ian still lay unmoving in a heap. "Will he be okay?"
"Should be. I haven't seen anyone die from being drugged yet. A lot get sick, but no one has died. Like I said, I've seen two die from beatings, but those were from the people upstairs, not from anyone down here."
Trenton thought of the guy still in the other room who had been beaten. He needed to be careful no matter where he was. Until he figured out a way to escape or somehow get word to the team so they could come for him, he had to do everything he could to stay alive. They would come for him. He was sure of that. He just needed to focus on surviving until they did.