Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“Yes, that’s right. Although what happened to me happened eight years ago, so it’s been a while.”
“What was it that happened to you exactly?”
Evan took a deep breath and gave Lars the basics of what he’d experienced, ending with their escape through the desert. He wanted to gain the man’s trust, but he held back on details, also mindful not to sway Lars’s story in any way. Lars had watched him as he spoke, but now he looked out the window to his right, staring at the chain-link fence, which was the only view.
“Similar,” he said, and Evan was almost taken aback by the way his voice had changed, the tone suddenly fearful.
“Will you tell me about what happened to you?”
Lars rubbed a hand over his short-cropped hair, still staring out that window. He sighed, training his eyes back on Evan. “Yeah, I’ll tell you. I was nabbed coming out of a bar at two a.m. They musta struck me from behind, or maybe put a shot in my arm. Hell, someone coulda slipped something in my beer, for all I know. I was pretty wasted, so I have no memory of what exactly happened. All I know is that I woke up in the dark, in a cage.”
“Shit,” Evan swore.
“Yeah,” Lars said. “Shit is right.” He paused for a moment. “I freaked, yelled, screamed, but it became real clear that no one was gonna answer. So I calmed down and went Zen. You know what Zen means?”
“Uh . . . like Buddha Zen?”
“That’s right. Zen is all about transcendent virtues. Moral training. Patient endurance. Meditation. Wisdom. I was a POW in Nam, and a guy I met there taught me about it. Kept me sane until my guys got me out.”
Damn. This man had been a prisoner not once but twice? Three times, as a matter of fact, if you counted his present circumstances, and Evan had to figure he absolutely did.
“So anyway,” he went on, “I remembered those teachings. Funniest thing, because I’d been through some shit since I got back to the States, and never once had I thought to practice some Zen. I guess I associated it with war, and waking in that cage definitely applied.” He shook his head as though clearing it. “When the lights came on, there was another cage in the cellar with me, and there was a guy in it.”
All the hair was standing up on Evan’s arms. This was it. Exactly what he’d experienced. It had to be connected. All these years later. Evan’s head was spinning. “Who was he? The guy?”
“Hanh. I don’t know his last name. Don’t even know how to spell his first name, so in my head I pictured it h-a-n-h.”
Evan picked up his phone and opened the notes app, typing in the name. “Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”
“Not a clue. We got separated during the escape, and I don’t even know if he went to the police. He wasn’t a legal citizen, for one thing, so he might not have for fear of being deported.” He gave a low chuckle that held little humor. “Like that would be worse. I’d want to get the hell out of Dodge after that, but . . . evil shit happens everywhere. I told all of this to the cops, by the way,” Lars said. “As for me, the police thought I was having a psychotic episode. I’d spent some time in the mental ward, diagnosed with PTSD. A few times, I even wondered myself if I’d imagined it all.”
“I don’t think you did,” Evan said. “Although whether that’s a comfort or not . . .”
Lars gave a distracted smile. “No, I know I didn’t. Those memories have edges, just like the ones from Nam.”
“You don’t have to go through every specific, obviously,” Evan said. “But if you could sum up what they did to you and Hanh, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Sick mind games is what they did. They tried to make us sell each other out to avoid something worse. Just like you, it sounds like.”
Words failed him for a moment. A nod sufficed.
“See, but I wasn’t gonna do that,” Lars went on. “I saw enough sick shit in that jungle over there, and I knew what giving in to the monster inside would do to you. Maybe not right away, but later.”
“Were you . . . rented?”
“Rented? You mean like sex trafficked?”
Evan nodded.
“Not me. Maybe Hanh. We didn’t talk about what had happened to us when they took us out of our cages. Hanh was . . . prettier, though, let’s say. And definitely younger. If any of that even makes a difference to sick fucks who do stuff like that.”
Evan swallowed. He figured there was a market for everything. But, yeah, youth and attractiveness were always going to be hot commodities in the trafficking business. Some people simply had less of a likelihood of being victimized in that specific way. Case in point: a seventy-year-old man. And yet . . .