Sicko(80)

It fucking bothers me that she obviously knew who Wicked was, though. If she’s been keeping that from me, fucking what else has she been hiding up that sleeve.

Wicked shakes his head. “Be careful with her. You don’t know how deep in she is.”

I squeeze the car door handle. “Yeah, I fucking know.”





A well-made lie will continue to burn the tip of your tongue well after you’ve been fed truth.

My fingers are twitching, my brain moving at speeds that a snail could lap. My tongue sticks to the top of my mouth like a sponge, desperate for water, or any fluid. An ice-cold Coke would satiate my thirst at levels not even water could reach right now.

“Jade?” Sloane croaks from the side, and I turn to face her. She’s lying down in a white dress, the opposite of my black but the same style. Her hair is straightened, falling down her back while mine is crinkled into waves, dropping above my butt. Red bottom heels are on my feet, pointed tips and shiny. Hers the same.

“You okay?” I ask, but the words fall out like a jumble of letters, unwilling to remain in a straight line.

She nods, sitting up from the made bed made with Egyptian cotton sheets and scattered rose pedals. “What’s happening? I feel drugged…”

“You are,” I whisper, already knowing the room I’m in. The apartment complex downtown. It’s owned by James, but instead of the usual tenants that most complexes have, his is occupied in levels. There are twelve, and at every level, someone dripping in evil occupies it. I have met evil in my life, and all those times it was right here, in the basement level of this complex. One a politician, another a software engineer, another I suspect working in some undercover legal area. When James hosts an event every month, he puts the buyers in a room. Some are reoccurring, some new. The human trafficking has worsened over the years, but what James offers is something that not many can grasp on to.

Young, beautiful, and at times, virgins. Young. Young.

“I know every corner and every hole in this place,” I say to Sloane, kneeling in front of her with my hands on her knees. “I will get you out.”

Tears prick the corner of her eyes as she wobbles to her feet. “What is this place?”

I take her hand in mine. “It’s an apartment complex right in the center of the city.” Because James was smart. He didn’t do his dealings in a dingy building. He took what everyone thought they knew about human trafficking and refined it, putting it right in the center of town, and right around the corner from the LAPD. They would never guess it. Smart or stupid, or a combination of both. I could never make up my mind, but one thing was for sure, James Doe was a tyrant.

Taking both of her hands in mine. “Listen to me very carefully, Sloane.” I can’t hear if someone is right outside the door or if they’re about to walk in. The walls are soundproof, no windows. Just a single-bedroom apartment fitted with everything you would find in any apartment. Nothing out of the ordinary. There’s a bed in the room, a dresser, a large TV, and some casual clothing. The room looks lived in, they all do, but they’re all not.

The purpose of The Complex is pure horror, despite the obvious lavishness. Things have changed. Trafficking doesn’t look the way it used to. These people have leveled up. They’re hiding behind normality, so no one sees anything out of the ordinary. It’s what makes it so much more dangerous now.

“What about you?” she asks, squeezing my hand.

The door opens behind me and James’ right-hand man steps through, his hands in his suit pocket.

“It’s time.” I smile at Sloane, hoping to ease some of her fear, but I feel like a fraud. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is that I need to save her at all costs. She didn’t ask for this. To be here, mixed up in this world. She’s here because of me.

I turn, making sure to stand in front of Sloane and bring my eyes to Isaac. “How long have we been out?”

The first day I met Isaac, I was fifteen years old.

My thighs ached. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to get out of the car and enter this fucking house. I knew what awaited me, more torture. More cruelty. All he wanted to do was inflict pain through the gentlest way. Why? I wasn’t sure. Why he made it such an effort to make my life a living hell, I will never know. Was he punishing me, or someone else through me?

I wanted it to be over.

I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror of the car. He was unmasked, but I could only see his eyes. The dark way they shifted until they were set on me. Hard. Feral.

The man in the back seat with me interrupted my staring. “He will allow you out when you’re tasks are completed.” The car came to a stop outside a small-sized cottage about an hour away from where I lived, the man beside me opened the back door, pushing it open. I followed behind him submissively until I was out on the driveway. No other houses were around us, completely gated in by a high wired white fence and shrubs that offered further privacy.

“What’s your name?” I said to the man who was leading me through the front door of the cottage.

“Isaac.” He was around the age of James. Stronger, longer, thick shoulders and a military-style cut. I didn’t know much about what James did, but as every hour passed from when he first put his hands on me, I came to realize that whatever he did, it was evil, and to do evil, one must surround themselves with evil, so Isaac was a bad man.