Ace Of Spades (Complete Raw First Draft, Unedited)

Thirteen: Promise

"Your... owners?"  I repeated doubtfully, thinking I hadn't heard right, but she nodded.  "Like, you're their property?"

"Yes," she confirmed.

I was having a hard time processing what she'd told me.  My mind seemed to have frozen, and I stood, rooted to the spot, staring, probably looking as stupid as I was feeling right then.

"You're not a fucking car or something that someone can own," I argued, finally coming up with something, but she shrugged, looking away.

"It doesn't really matter," she told me, so quietly that I barely heard her.  "He owned me.  I was his property, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it."

Everything was beginning to make a little more sense now, the reason she was so timid, why she had nowhere to go, why she was so desperate for money that she was willing to steal it, or sell her body for it.

So many questions came to mind that I didn't know where to begin.  I just stared at her, gaping.

"Why?"  I finally managed, but she shrugged.

"My mum sold me to settle a debt."

Just like that.  She said it like it was so simple, so normal, I shook my head, struggling to comprehend it.

There was a loud hiss from behind me as the pot on the stove boiled over, and I swore, turning back to it to turn down the heat.

Jenna sprung away a few steps, her face twisted in terror.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, backing up some more.

"You didn't do anything," I told her, frowning.

"I distracted you," she insisted, her eyes still darting around frantically as though she was looking for an escape, like she thought I was going to hit her or something.

"Hey, it's alright," I said softly, lowering my voice to try and calm her.  "It's no big deal, just calm down."

She seemed dubious, but she stood still.  She wouldn't come any closer, but at least she didn't back off again, I noted.  We stared at each other across the short distance, her eyes still frightened and untrusting.  I shook my head

"What have they done to you?"

She didn't answer, but then, I didn't really expect her to

I took down a plate from the cupboard and piled it with food, handing it to her, and pulled out a chair at the table for her.  Cautiously, she sat down and I handed her a fork.

"You eat," I told her.  "Then, I need you to tell me everything, okay?"

She nodded, and began eating ravenously.  All the while, I began tidying the kitchen, no longer feeling hungry.

When I was done, I sat down at the table, across from her, and watched her.

"Help yourself to more, if you want it," I said, nodding toward the stove as she finished.

"Thank you," she said softly, but remained seated.

"So..." I started, not really sure how to approach the topic, but, luckily, she started.

"My mother owed a lot of money to some people," she explained.  "She was a drug trafficker, but she double crossed the man she worked for, and sold a heap of his merchandise to some rivals."

Jenna paused for a second, tracing the grain of the wooden table top with her finger, and I waited patiently for her to go on.

"I was only five years old at the time, so I didn't know much about what was going on, but they gave her a week to repay them, and, when she couldn't, she offered me, instead."

"What did they want with you?"  I wondered, although, I had an awful feeling that I already knew.

The look she gave me only confirmed how stupid the question was.

"What do you think they wanted with me?"

I winced, clenching my jaw and stared at my hands which were balled into fists on the table top.

"At first," she continued, a little more hesitantly, "it wasn't so bad.  Actually, I was happy.  Lucas treated me well, better than my mother ever did.  He bought me presents all the time, and, after a little while,  when I was older, he told me he was in love with me."

She laughed, but the sound was bitter, not a trace of humor in it.

"I was a stupid little girl, I'd never been loved by anyone before, so of course I believed him when he said it."

"On my sixteenth birthday," she went on, "I had dinner with him at his mansion, and he told me all about the money my mother owed, and how she couldn't pay him back, and that was why I was there.  He said, now that I was a woman, instead of a little girl, I had to start repaying him for the money she owed."

"He insisted that I shared his bed that night.  It was my first time, and I figured that that would be it, and he'd consider the debt repaid and I could go home, but that was just the start of it."

She finally looked up from the table, her eyes hard and glistening as she met mine.

"He changed after that.  He stopped the sweet talking and the presents and the kindness.  He stopped asking my permission.  He said he owned me, and he could do whatever he wanted with me, whenever he wanted."

I couldn't believe what she was telling me, the shit that had been done to her.  My chest felt tight, my breathing shallow.  Pissed off was an understatement for how I was feeling right now.  I felt sick.

"I wasn't the only one, either," she said with a casual shrug.  "There were several of us, girls he'd saved from abusive homes or from the streets or whatever.  He took us in, made us feel special, treated us like princesses, then used us to go and make him his money, hired us out to the highest bidder, like we were just objects of pleasure."

She shrugged, falling silent.

"Jesus, Jenna, I'm..."

I'm what?  I'm sorry?  Does being sorry take back what was done to her, what she'd become because of it?  It felt too pathetic to say, and I shook my head, completely at a loss.

"I don't know what to say," I admitted.

"Then don't say anything," she said.  "There's nothing to say, anyway.  I'm never going back there, to that, or to him."

"And you won't have to," I promised her.  "I'm not letting them take you."