Servant of Lust

Chapter 8

"Alex?"

I look at him, can't believe that he's standing right in front of me.

He nods and smiles. "Yeah, Mitch. It's me" he confirms and moves to sit down next to me. He keeps a little bit of distance and eyes me slowly, probably noticing the bruises that are visible through my loosely tied robe.

"How are you here? You don't want to... I mean...?" I stutter slightly, trying to get my thoughts organised.

"No... Mitch" he shakes his head. "God, no! I don't want to do... stuff with you. I'm here to help you."

I look at him with wide eyes. Help me? "But how..." My voice cracks and I'm not able to continue. Tears start streaming down my face.

"Don't cry, Little One" he says and moves closer to me, hugging me carefully.

I involuntarily hiss at the contact but melt into his embrace anyway, letting everything out. It feels so good to cry again, to have someone. And Alex is amazing. He holds me until I have no tears left.

"You okay? Can we talk?" he asks after giving me some time to calm down.

I nod and sit up again slowly, my eyes watering at the pain that radiates from the bruises. "How did you find me?" I ask him, my voice being barely audible.

"A girl named Jen contacted Scott. But he just didn't want to reply. I mean he's been trying to find you since you ran away and everytime he thought he had tracked you it was a dead end. He was tired of that. But I just took a chance and texted her and what she told me, well, it sounded horrible. I didn't want to believe it" he looks at me and sighs. "She gave me every little detail and I somehow knew that she was telling the truth. Plus I needed to come to Chicago for a business trip, so I thought I'd give it a chance. And here we are..."

"Jen..." I mumble and smile slightly.

"Yeah... anyway, Mitch. How did you get here? And more important - how can we get you out?"

I sigh and tell him the whole story of my rehab, my plans of going back to LA and how they were crushed because I was taken here.

"That sounds so horrible, Mitch" he comments. "I'm so sorry, we should've tried harder to find you."

"It's not your fault, I ran away, I didn't want your help. Well, druggie-me didn't want your help. Sober me wouldn't say no to some assistance. If y'all still want me back home?" I am still unsure. Would they really accept me after all I'd done?

"I wouldn't be here if we didn't want you back, Mitch. To be honest, getting wasted and running away wasn't your best move. We could've helped you back then but nobody deserves to live like this."

I bite my lip. "I always thought that this is what you get for doing drugs and ruining the careers of your best friends."

"Stop talking like that, Mitch! We love you and we're going to get you back to LA." His voice is firm now and I don't object. "How do we get you out of here?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I don't know. I have to work in here until my debt is payed off."

"Okay, Mitch... Can you give me numbers, maybe?"

I sigh. "I don't know that much, actually. Just that I had about ten thousand dollars of debt when I got here and have been working here for more than three months. Tracy, she used to work here, was able to leave after seven months. She had to pay eight thousands" I explain. "But they're probably betraying us anyway."

Alex nods and thinks about what I've said for some time. "So... if I do the math correctly... You owe them ten grands and we know from Tracy that you work off about one each month. That leaves something between six and seven you still need to pay!"

"That's right but I don't have the money. If I had I wouldn't be here" I argue, not getting him.

"But I have, well Scott and I have, to be precise. And I'm going to give it to you. It can be a loan, if you want to and you can pay it back once you have it. No pressure" he proposes.

"I... I don't know what to say.." I mumble.

He smiles at me warmly. "Just say 'yes', Mitch."

"Yes! Thank you! Oh my God thank you so much!" I fall right into his arms, hugging him softly, before rethinking. "What if the Boss says no?"

"We'll deal with that when he does say so. Right now we're being optimistic, alright?"

I nod in an almost obedient way and try to believe him. "When are you going to get me?"

"Well... Jen told me that the Boss, as you're calling him will be back here tomorrow in the evening. I'll try my best to talk to him and hope that I'll be able to take you with me, then" he explains and takes my hand softly. "Can you make it through the day tomorrow? You don't look too good."

"I made it through each day for the past ten weeks, Alex" I remind him. "Tomorrow will be a piece of cake compared to the rest of the time."

He sighs. "No, seriously. You're an unhealthy kind of skinny and I can see the bruises on your front. You're not okay!"

I shrug my shoulders and look down at my hands. "Welcome to my life, Alex" I simply say without thinking.

"Mitch, I would do anything in my power to get you out of here right now" I hear that his voice is cracking and bite my lip to avoid crying once again but once I see the tears in Alex's eyes I loose it, wiping at my eyes.

"I know, Alex. But looking forward to getting out of here will get me through the day. Believe me" I take his hand and squeeze it softly.

"I hope so, Mitchy. Stay strong, okay? I need to leave you now, I only have half an hour with you and you look like you need to sleep, anyway." He gets up; I do the same.

"Yeah, I probably should" I say, stifling a yawn.

We hug, carefully so it doesn't hurt me further and then he leaves me alone again.

I cuddle up under the blanket again and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.

~~~~~~~~

A/N: so, what do we think?

And can we talk about how they made it to #1?!

Hit the star or comment with your thoughts. 

too tired to write more. First day of university and chaos on the railway. Took me 2.5 hours to get home instead of 1 :(