I knew they were coming to get us. I just had to wait it out. But first Tasha. She climbed out of the hole looking like a coal miner. Her arms and face were caked with dust and dirt like she was an oversized earthworm or something. I felt so so sorry for her. And I mean not just about the vacant look in her eyes, but everything. How she went down there for me. How she suffered because of me. Went into the hole to protect me. When she climbed out, she looked really confused, like she didn’t know who any of us were anymore. Ricardo took her upstairs. I had to stay downstairs with the other girls. There was more work to do. Work as in $46, you know? We usually get upstairs around three in morning, or when the guys stop showing up, whichever comes first.
When I got back to the apartment, I found Tasha sitting on the edge of her bed. She had showered. Her hair was all tangled. She had a towel wrapped around her, but her skin was dry. I wondered how long she’d been sitting there like that. Looking at nothing. Doing nothing. Barely moving. I sat down next to her and told her about Angie and the phone call with FBI people and how they were coming to rescue us. Tasha didn’t even react. It made me nervous so I just kept talking, saying all these stupid things about what I would do once I got home. How I missed my own bed and my friends. How I was never going to have sex again, like I was going to become a nun or something. How I was going to do things differently. But it felt so empty to say those things because the words were meaningless to me. Basically, I was trying to make Tasha feel better, when really what I was doing was justifying what I had done by making that phone call. Deep down I’m honestly scared to leave. Like I don’t know what will happen to me. Will Ricardo come after me? Screwed up, right? But scared as I was about Ricardo, I was more so scared for Tasha. If she hadn’t gone into the hole I probably would have just stayed here. This is my normal now.
Tasha had a spark once, but now it’s gone. She is gone. Extinguished like a flame. Blown out like a wish on a birthday candle that will never come true. Why us? That’s what I want to know. Why were we chosen to live a life so absent of joy? What did we do to deserve this?
Now that Tasha’s here—well, here but not here, not really here, now that she’s out of the hole, now I’m questioning what I’ve done. Before, it seemed urgent we get out of here. Now that they’re coming it all just seems so unreal.
I have no home. Let’s be honest about it, my mom and dad won’t want me. Not after what I’ve done, what I’ve become. I’m like Tasha after she got out of the hole. Vacant and gone. And they’re still coming. The FBI will be here any minute now. Tasha is asleep. I can hear her breathing in the room next to mine. Angie tells me everything is going to be fine, but I don’t believe her. I told her I was scared about fitting in back home, and worried how people would judge me. People like Tasha wouldn’t judge me. People who knew from experience. My poor sweet friend still hasn’t said a word. Not a single word. I got a comb from the bathroom and I brushed Tasha’s long hair for thirty minutes straight. Tasha has such amazing hair. I wish my hair was like hers, but it’s not even close. The only thing similar about us is that we’re both completely screwed up.
I can see the first bit of sunrise out Tasha’s window. I haven’t slept a wink. Tasha is asleep, though. My stomach is knotted. I feel so empty, utterly lost. I’m terrified of staying here and just as scared to leave. I thought about jumping up and down when the police show up. Pretending I have a gun or something. Imagining that they’ll shoot me and this will all be over. All the pain, my dark emptiness.
I just got a text message from Angie.
They’re coming.
Ricardo is going to blame me. I know he is.
I’m sorry, Angie.
I’m so so sorry.
But I’ve got to undo what I’ve done.
CHAPTER 36
The tactical attack truck carrying Bryce Taggart bounded down rutted streets in a part of Baltimore he knew well. Plenty of fugitives wanted by the federal court system hid out in this part of the city, and it was Bryce’s job to track them down. The high profile cases—the ones Wolf Blitzer would cover incessantly—merited the Marshals Special Operations Group. But nabbing pedestrian d-bags like Ramon Gutierrez, aka Buggy, was the purview of local task forces led by guys like Bryce.