Alessa met Ebby back in her office and gave her as much of the girl’s story as she had divulged.
“Jesus, Alessa!” Ebby exclaimed when she had heard her out. “I need to call the police. Her family needs to know she’s alive.”
Alessa grasped Ebby by the shoulder, as she was about to pick up the telephone. “Not yet,” she cautioned her. “I need to find out what her family was like before we get in touch with them. For all we know, she was abused by them, too. We don’t want to send her back to a bad situation. I want to take her home with me for a couple of days. She can sleep with Lucy. She said there were other kids being kept in leg chains where she had been. We need to help them. Okay?”
Ebby was uncomfortable with what Alessa was demanding of her. Now that she knew the girl had been kidnapped, she knew of her legal obligation to call the police. However, as Alessa had pointed out, her moral obligation was to obtain a clearer understanding of the girl’s history with her family and potentially gather enough information to save the lives of other innocent kids. Ebby finally conceded that while she was taking a huge risk, Alessa was right.
“Okay, Alessa,” she agreed. “But only two days. They can close the shelter down if they find out that we withheld information on a kidnap victim.”
“You’re a cool chick, you know that?” Alessa said, poking Ebby in the belly.
“Yeah, sure! I’m cool all right. I’m not going to be so cool, though, when they shut the shelter down because I made a bad decision,” Ebby remarked wryly.
Alessa went back to the day room to find Regina lying on the love seat in the fetal position. As she approached, the girl looked up with an expression of sheer terror.
“It’s okay, Regina,” Alessa reassured her. “You’re going to be fine. I was thinking that maybe you could come and stay at my house for a couple of days. Would you like to do that?”
The girl quickly accepted the offer. Alessa called Remo to come and pick them both up. As she gave him a brief explanation of the recent developments, he silently questioned the wisdom of what they were about to do for the same reasons that had worried Ebby. However, Alessa was so sure of what needed to be done that he trusted her judgement.
“Okay,” Remo said. “I’ll be there soon, so look for me.”
“We will, but hey, pull up in the back. I don’t want to take Regina out through the front,” Alessa told him. “I wouldn’t want the wrong person to follow us.”
Twenty minutes later, he was driving back to the Outside Inn with Alessa and Regina. When they arrived at the apartment, Alessa gave Remo a look he recognized well. It meant that he needed to make himself scarce.
Before he left, he turned to Regina. “Well, welcome to our home,” he said warmly. “We are happy to have you here with us for the next couple of days. I need to run some errands. So I’ll be back later.”
Regina didn’t speak. She stood in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed over her chest. After Remo’s departure, Alessa knew that her guest’s tension was subsiding.
“Remo would never hurt you,” she told the girl. “He’s my husband.”
Regina sat down on the sofa. “I don’t really like boys anymore,” she said. “They hurt me.”
Alessa plopped down next to her. “How else did they hurt you? You told me some men took you and locked you in a basement. Then what happened?”
Regina spoke so softly Alessa had to strain to hear her. “They took me upstairs. I had to stand there while these old men bid on me.”
Alessa’s jaw tightened. “What do you mean they ‘bid’ on you?”
Regina looked down at the floor. “Whoever paid the most money got to spend time with me. This ugly, disgusting pig paid the most. He said, ‘I’d take a second mortgage to take her virginity.’ Later, the other kids who had been there longer told me what that meant.” A sob broke free. “It hurt bad, and I bled on the mattress. When that pig saw the blood, he smiled and came at me harder. It was awful and I’ll never forget it.”
Alessa felt sick to her stomach. It was the familiar feeling she thought she had left behind her long ago. “It’s really messed up that a grown man would do such a disgusting thing to a kid or anyone else for that matter,” Alessa said. “You know that, right? You understand that what they did to you was wrong and it wasn’t your fault?”
Regina shook her head. “Maybe, but how about all the other times? I was doing things with grown men so that the guys who ran the house would feed me. There was no food or water if you didn’t ‘perform,’ as they put it. Every day that I was there, men would bid on me. It was weird. You didn’t want to have sex with them, but you knew if you didn’t do a good job of it, no one would bid on you and you wouldn’t be given anything to eat or drink.”
Alessa walked into the kitchen and poured them each a glass of lemonade. She handed one to Regina. “What about your family?” she asked. “I mean, were you happy? Before they took you away?”
The girl cried. “My family was great. My mom and dad made everything so much fun. I have an older brother and we were like best friends. When they first took me, I’d pray for my family to find me. But after the things I did, I didn’t want them to find me anymore. I was too embarrassed . . . ashamed of myself.”
Alessa was relieved to hear good things about Regina’s family. “You did things to survive. Period,” she said firmly. “You were kidnapped, and those things were forced upon you. You had no choice.”
“That’s not what they told me. They told me all the time that I was a whore and my job was to sell myself to the highest bidder. ‘That’s what whores do,’ they would say, ‘they sell themselves.’”
Alessa tried to comfort the young girl. “Well, those men were wrong, Regina. I need to know something. How did you get away from them?”
Regina sat up straight, as if to brave her demons. “On the last bidding war, this guy who had always wanted me won. He told them he wanted me back in his hotel. At first, they wouldn’t allow it, but then I saw him give them a handful of money, and they agreed to take me over there. When I got to the hotel, the man who had won me told me to take a shower and wash real good. When I came out in my towel, he gave me something really sexy to wear. He told me it was a present. It was sheer, and you could see my body through it. This guy wasn’t rough with me like the others usually were.”
Alessa’s body tensed at what was coming.
“Anyway,” Regina went on, “I put it on, and he gave me some wine to drink. After two glasses, he undressed and told me to do the same. So I did. He was gentle with me—like I mattered. No one had ever done that before.” She looked down at her hands. “I liked it. We kissed. I had never really wanted to be with the men who bid on me until then.”
Alessa nodded to assure Regina she wasn’t judging her.
“So I took his hands and pulled him to me. He was really happy and asked me if I liked what he was doing. I told him I did and so he kept doing stuff, and it was great. I felt awful about feeling so good, but I couldn’t help it.”
Regina stopped to take a deep breath. “He gave me a wonderful sensation. My head was swimming, and I wanted to feel that way forever.”
Alessa wasn’t expecting this and was shocked at Regina’s description of her experiences. She found the girl’s candor an encouraging sign.
“After that,” Regina continued, “he ordered room service and let me order anything I wanted from the menu. I got a burger, fries, and a milkshake. I hadn’t eaten that much food in three years. I was in heaven. We talked a lot that night. I told him I wanted to stay with him forever, and he said he would see what he could do but wouldn’t make any promises. The next day, he was on the phone, and I heard him say he wanted me to stay with him for good. Then he said, ‘I can go as high as a hundred thousand, but that’s it.’ After he had hung up the phone, he told me I could stay with him for six months. But I’d have to go back when my time was up because they wouldn’t let me stay with him for good. The guilt eats me up,” she said, shaking her head.
Confused, Alessa asked, “Guilt about what? You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
Regina wished the earth would open and swallow her up. She had great shame over what she was about to confess next.
Regina lifted her eyes to meet Alessa’s. “I enjoyed being with him. He was tender, and he was so nice. I know I should have hated it, but I didn’t. And that makes me feel guilty. Like I had asked for it.”
Alessa was silent as she thought intently, understanding how Regina might feel responsible for the dilemma she had been in. It was confusing enough for adults, let alone for a teenager.
“Regina, it doesn’t matter that he made you feel good,” she told the girl. “If you hadn’t been kidnapped and forced to be with all those men, you wouldn’t even be here today. What they did to you, all of them—including the man who was nice to you—was wrong. You’re a teenager. You should have no guilt whatsoever. Everything you shared with me only proves how strong you are.”
Regina uncrossed her arms and her shoulders relaxed. “I never thought of it that way.” She placed her hand over Alessa’s. “I’m glad you came to talk to me. Thank you for bringing me here.”
Alessa nodded, but she was worried that helping Regina overcome her past would be far more challenging than she’d originally planned.
