Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
“You’re right. Again. The truth is, you’re not my first kidnapper, Archer.” She wiggled her fingers in his direction, gesturing for him to pass her the cigar. He got to his feet and handed it to her, then sat beside her on the bed. Her shoulder brushed against him, and he inhaled her scent. He realized at that moment that he was in big trouble… but there was no turning back. He was falling for her, and had been for weeks…
“What happened?” he asked.
She took a puff, then passed the cigar back to him.
“This is what I was about to tell you… the secret that only Chasity knows. For two and a half days, I was locked in a man’s basement. I was fairly new to the field, excited, not cautious enough. We had a big story. I and a couple other reporters traveled to New Jersey from L.A. for a story about some guys from Saudi Arabia who were abducting Americans, men and women, and using them as slaves over there. They worked out of Jersey and Manhattan. I did the best I could to garner trust, and we did all we were supposed to do, but we had little information. It was a bust. We went out for drinks that night, but I wasn’t satisfied. The victims who’d lived to tell the tale were too afraid to do any interviews with us on the record. I got limited photos, for obvious reasons. Nothing worth printing. I was still trying to make a name for myself, hit the ground running. No one knew who I was. I tried calling some of the victims, but I couldn’t gain their trust no matter what I did. I decided to try again, on my own. Big mistake.”
He passed the cigar back to her and this time, she held it between her fingers like a security blanket.
“What happened?”
She turned to him, looking up with her eyes glossed over. He sensed the rage intermingling with her melancholy.
“As soon as I pulled up to the suspect’s house, Nasser Al Shamrani, I got out of the cab, and rang the bell to request an interview so he could clear his name. He yanked my dumb ass inside and beat the living shit outta me. Him and two other men, one of them named Mohamed Taaeb, then proceeded to rape me. It was surreal. I had never in my life had anything like that happen, and it was occurring so quickly that my mind could barely keep up with my body, and vice versa. When they were finished, they tossed me down in their basement. Please believe though—I. FOUGHT. THE. WHOLE. TIME! All I could see was my father’s face, Archer, telling me to FIGHT! GET UP! Just like he’d taught me when I was a kid. He told me fighting and surviving were more mental than physical.
“While I was being sexually assaulted, I bit and scratched. Punched these men. One of them I am certain I broke his nose. This made them angrier, and they beat me even harder. I remember one of them said in broken English, ‘She won’t go down!’ It was that Brooks blood in me, Archer… I refused to be on the wrong side of this news story! I was young. I had my whole life ahead of me. There was one tiny window in that basement. Every time they came downstairs, I pretended to be asleep. There was hardly anything down there but rats and dirt. The rats’ eyes glowed… one or two would try to come close to me, I’d scare them away. They got braver and more started biting me. I began picking them up by the tail, one by one, swung them around and beat ’em against the damn walls until their brains came out their ears. I was going crazy… But not so crazy that I was willing to give up. Then I saw hope. In one corner was a small, but sturdy piece of wood that possibly came from a decaying doorframe.
“With my teeth, I kept gnawing on the wood for hours until I got it into a shape where I could use it as a small shovel to pry things open. I could barely reach the window, and there was nothing to stand on but the torn mattress I’d been lying on. I used that to gain a few more inches, then I worked on that window, trying to get it to open as quietly as I could. When I heard them comin’, because the floors above were so squeaky, I’d shove the mattress as fast as I could back across the room and lie on it. Sometimes they’d come to rape me again. Other times, to give me water. They were planning to send me to Saudi Arabia and traffick me, I was certain of it.