In the Dark

As Ellie tried to shield herself from her mother's abuse, she noticed that she had not shut the door. For a moment, she wondered if maybe she could get away from her mother's grasp long enough to make it through the open door. She dismissed this idea, the blows from the object in her mother's hand seemingly getting more and more brutal.

Eventually, her mother's anger subsided, and Ellie's tense, sore body relaxed slightly. She sat up on her sorry excuse for a mattress, which was actually just two pallets pushed together with a blanket on top. She had no pillow, and no blanket to cover up with in the cold, often damp basement.

Ellie didn't know why her mother did this to her, she hadn't always. When Ellie was a little girl, she and her mother were inseparable. Her mother absolutely adored her. Everything changed, however, the day that her father went missing. All Ellie knew, having been only six at the time, was that he had left for work, and he never came back that evening. Immediately, Ellie's mother started to mistreat her.

Ellie wondered if somehow her mother blamed her for her father leaving. She started coming out of her room less and less, but eventually, her mother burst in. The cruel woman dragged her daughter down into the basement, kicking and screaming the entire way. A brutal punishment awaited her downstairs, but she had now idea just how severe it would be.

She had been in the basement for a very long time. She had no way of knowing how long, but she was certain it was multiple years. She had gone through puberty in the basement. She had a toilet, and realizing the severity of her situation, was very grateful to have it. Other than the toilet, there was no water in the basement. There had been a sink, but it had broken years prior.

Though it utterly disgusted her, she drank out of the tank of the toilet, because her mother never brought her anything to drink from upstairs. She did bring her food, twice a day. Strangely enough, it was often a beautiful home cooked meal. The dishes from the previous meal were always removed when her mother came down with the next meal. Other than mealtimes, Ellie's mother only ever came down to beat her harshly.

Ellie tried hard to get out of the basement, but she could tell from listening to her mother on the other side of the door that there were many locks on it. Besides that, there were no windows, or any other possible escape for Ellie, one way in and one way out. Ellie had tried to run past her mother before, it never ended well. Ellie's mother was a much larger woman than she was, and when she was caught, she always paid the price for trying to get away.

Lori composed herself, she had been crying for almost an hour. She knew she had to finish her assignment, so she grabbed the flash drive containing the erotic video of David and her in the hotel room and hurried to her car. She drove out of her small town and towards the nearby city. As skyscrapers were growing near on the horizon, she took an exit off the highway and turned towards a place that appeared to offer nothing to a traveler but desolation and possibly an overheated car. She drove for several miles before turning off on a dirt road. A bit further down the road, she parked and killed the car.

There was already someone waiting for her; she had taken far too long sobbing. Cautiously, Lori exited her car. An impatient looking man had already gotten out of a sports car with darkly tinted windows. "You're late." The man growled. Lori just nodded, avoiding eye contact as she handed the flash drive, now in a small envelope, to the large man. She turned to walk away but the man caught her by the arm. "You're getting sloppy," He huffed, "You know what happens when you get sloppy." Lori caught the man's gaze momentarily, his eyes were jet black.

"Yes," Managed to escape from her vocal chords, "I know what happens." The man grunted, but let her arm go and turned away from her. Lori hurried back to her car and drove away. She spent the evening at a restaurant a few miles from her house. She was nursing a margarita, but her mind was on Ellie. Lori was Ellie's sister. She hadn't seen Ellie since her father had died.

It had been a horribly tragic event; he had left to go to work, as he did most mornings. On the way, something had distracted him from the road and he had drifted into the other lane. An oncoming semi was unable to react in time to avoid the accident. Ellie's mother had lost her mind after the accident, and she had cut off contact with Lori entirely. She had lost the ability to communicate with her young sister because her mother had cut her out of their lives.

One day, Lori had managed to talk their mother into letting her come by, but while she was there, there had been no sign of Ellie. She went up to the girl's room to find it completely empty. When she had confronted her mother, she was thrown out of the house. Ever since that day, she had been trying to find her sister. It had been ten years, and Lori was incredibly desperate. She had even pleaded for the help of her boss, a horrible man whom she didn't even know personally, in order to try and help her find her sister.

Lori was about to stand to leave the restaurant when a young, beautiful looking woman walked through the door and came straight towards her table. Without waiting for an invitation from Lori, she sat down across from her. Lori looked at her, a little perplexed. "Who are you?" She inquired. "I'm the person that knows what happened to your sister." The stranger said, leaning closer so that she could speak more quietly. Lori gasped, "It can't be, I've been trying to find her for years, who are you?" She demanded, suddenly inexplicably angry at the newcomer.

"My name is Jennifer, but that isn't important, what is important is that you need to come with me right now if you ever want to see your sister alive again." That statement was enough to get Lori moving. She stood, throwing down about ten dollars more than enough to cover her margarita on the table. Lori got into Jennifer's car, something she would have never done under normal circumstances. They drove silently for several minutes before

Lori broke the stillness. "So how do you know where my sister is?" She was almost afraid to ask the question. Jennifer gave Lori an empathetic glance. "It's sort of my job." Lori wasn't satisfied with the answer, "Is she OK?" Jennifer now looked even less comfortable, "She is alive. She needs to be rescued." Lori's heart sank; Jennifer wasn't being straightforward, but she had a creeping suspicion that she knew what Jennifer was eluding to. "She's being trafficked, isn't she?" Lori spoke so softly that it was barely audible over the rumbling of the car. Jennifer nodded, confirming Lori's fears.

Jennifer drove straight to Lori's house with no directions. "We don't have long, but I have to take care of something, be ready in twenty minutes." Jennifer commanded. Lori just nodded, she was trying her best not to let her emotions get the better of her. As she walked through the weeds that had taken over her front yard, Lori noticed something sitting on her front steps. As she got closer, she saw that it was a small, unmarked box. Her heart pounded as she picked it up. She looked around, finding nothing out of the ordinary other than the package.

As Lori opened the package, her fingers trembled. As she opened it, she screamed, nearly dropping the box. Inside was a severed finger. The image immediately burned into Lori's mind. The finger had been cut off raggedly from the hand, the fingernail bruised and splintered. It was evident that the owner of the digit had been trying in vain to claw their way out of something. Next to the finger was a business card. On the front were bold, golden letters reading TOO LATE. On the back, in slightly smaller font, it read, you're next.

TO BE CONTINUED...