Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: POUND (07/15/21)
-
TITLE: "Flesh" | Previous Challenge Entry
By
07/22/21 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
Beside me, Herm stood like a government building, blockish and cold. He tugged his hoodie lower. “Easiest bag we’ll ever make. You’ll fit right in with those teen freaks.”
“Doubt it.” I might be their age, but when I ditched foster care and took up with him, I stepped off the good-girl train. “Why them? What’s so special?”
“Clients get what clients want. You know that.” He gripped my arm. “What’s with the interrogation? I take care of you. I love you, remember?” His garlic-laced breath washed over me, and the alley shrank. I was a gnat stuck in amber. “Try anything stupid—like talking to one of the kids’ chaperones—and you’ll eat my pound of flesh.” He balled a massive fist, and heat pricked in my cheeks.
When weather from the coast rolled in, as it did then, my jaw bone ached. My failed escape last year was my fault—I’d been slow on top of not being good. I deserved his punch.
“I love you too, Herm.” Sick snaked up my throat. I wanted to run.
Instead, I obeyed the man who owned my world, and I crossed the street.
A girl stepped out of the murkiness. “Hi—I’m Jae.” If a kind spirit is a thing, then hers reached out and shook my hand. “I’m with Youth for Him.”
Impossibly, my heart softened, and despite Herm’s threat, I said in a rush, “You—your friends—you’re making a mistake.”
“Okay. Want to talk?”
“No, I mean—you’re not safe.”
I twirled a lock of hair and glanced over my shoulder. Herm had vacated the alley. He bragged about his status of being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. With his reputation and big bucks on the line, he would stop at nothing to snatch an unsuspecting girl.
Fog packed the street the same as iciness behind my ribs. Strange whispers urged me to tell someone. But telling wasn’t allowed. Telling would get me hurt.
This time if I told, Herm would kill me.
“Are you all right?” Jae said.
Her eyes of ocean blue held me like a pair of arms; without judgment. A nudging persisted that if I didn’t rat out Herm, he’d make one of these girls—maybe Jae—into me.
“There’s a man!” My voice was hoarse. “He’s out there…he…forced me. He’s going to take one of you. Tonight.”
She tensed, a bird dog, and signaled for an adult. The pair conversed, their heads bent, and when the man sized me up, his spotlight gaze wasn’t an ordinary parent’s.
The pavement dropped from under me.
He was a cop.
Cops are bad, so I’d been taught, but this one didn’t twist my hands into cuffs. He held a Bible, tipped up his ballcap, and grinned. “I’m Detective Mike Cannon—what’s your name?”
A Jesus cop wouldn’t understand someone like me. But if I warned him, maybe my lost good-girl inside would somehow find her way.
“Is someone hurting you? It’s okay,” he said. “You can tell me.”
I nodded.
Garlic filled the air—Herm was nearby—which meant he’d made the snatch. My pulse jittered. I was too late.
A silver Bronco squealed out of the mist, engine racing. The teens closest scattered from the driver’s path. The four-by-four braked hard. The passenger door opened and Herm yelled, “Get in!”
I moved to obey, but Detective Mike said, “I can protect you.”
“Where’s Jae?” I cried. “Did he—”
“I’m here.” Jae ran to me. “We’re all safe.”
My knees wobbled and I sank onto the cement. Herm cursed and tore away in smoking peels.
And then, Jae and Mike and those kids prayed for me. Their words curled around my middle and tangled down into my toes, leaving me to wonder if I’d misjudged them—and their king. Maybe it was time to find out, so I whispered, “My name is Mckinsey.”
“Flesh” is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents related to human trafficking either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
Accept Jesus as Your Lord and Savior Right Now - CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
Well done on your story telling. Keep writing.