NURA

Chapter 3

Nura

Jan. 2012, Morocco

"I want the mocha one." Nura heard the fat, bald American say as he pointed at her, making her clutch her uncovered head with her wild, brown curls out in the open for everyone to see. Her stomach started to roll, and she desperately tried not to vomit at the thought of the disgusting man touching her.

She kept her eyes on the ground, keeping quiet as she was taught, while they talked about her like she was a piece of meat and not a living and breathing human being.

Her head was pounding from the lack of sleep and hunger since the last time she ate or slept was two days ago.

They have woken them up in the middle of the night, hauled them in a van before driving off to an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere, and kept them there for at least a day without food or water.

Now, Nura and a couple of girls from the last place she was held in and a few girls she had never seen before sat on the damp, concrete ground, shivering from the cold.

Her headache was getting worse with each passing second, and the girl whimpering in the corner wasn't helping it at all.

She wanted to shout at her to shut up already, but she knew better than to do that. After all, one of the guards would sooner rather than later take care of it for her.

The number one rule was to keep your mouth shut, or they would close it. The girl must have been new and didn't know, but she will soon.

The one in charge, the men everyone referred to as Bear and Mr. Potato look-alike, finished with their talk and went outside, leaving only guards with them.

Nura sighed and closed her eyes, pretending for a moment that this was not her life, that she was not forced to sell herself every day to the highest bidder.

She used to hear people say that your life can change in a second, and now she realized what they had meant by that. Nura's life was over the second her father threw her out on the street.

She almost snickered at the memory of herself, thinking that the worst thing that could happen to her was having her going-out privilege taken away; she had been so naive.

The actual worst thing came the night she was kicked out of her home when Nura was on her way to her aunt's house. The woman had always been fond of her and was sure she wouldn't turn her away despite her father's wishes.

She was just a block away when she felt hands take hold of her from behind before pulling her into a van, where she was quickly knocked out.

~

"What is going on? Where am I!?" Nura asked the Russian girl sitting next to her, her whole body frozen in fear and her voice betraying the panic she was feeling inside as she looked around to see a bunch of nearly naked girls lying on the floor in what looked like an old basement.

The girl looked at her blandly, her eyes slightly out of focus and her pupils blown out wide, making Nura realize she was high as a kite.

Glancing around again, she noticed that most others were either drugged or at least homeless like her, and she immediately realized something was terribly wrong.

They all shared one thing: no one would care if they went missing.

She hugged herself tightly, shivering from fear or cold, or both, she wasn't sure, as she squeezed her eyes shut.

Why was this happening to her? Just two days ago, she was in school, spying on Ahmet and worrying about making it home for dinner. And now, she was in a dirty basement with a bunch of half-naked girls, waiting for some monster to come and do, most probably, terrible things to her.