When the room went dark she heard her name. “Abbey ,Abbey can you hear me ?”. With every call of her name , the unfamiliar voice grew closer to where she was sitting and the putrid   smell of stale  cigarette smoke and cheap whisky filled the room making Abbey feel a sudden urge to vomit. The overwhelming feeling of fight or flight became too much to control and Abbey screamed at the gentleman to leave her alone or she would hit him with something so hard that he’d be really sorry about ever going near her .

Abbey was only a small teenager she didn’t look anything like her true age of 15 she could easily pass for a girl who was about 12 or 13 years old.Lots of her friends looked so much older than Abbey or at least their own age anyway .

Abbey had been out shopping for her mom’s birthday present with the $30 her grandmother had given her to cover the cost of whatever she wanted to buy ,she had asked her best friend Trudy to go with her and help pick something out she thought her mom would like. Trudy and Abbey had been best friends since kindergarden and went everywhere together ,they wore the same clothes , listened to the same boybands and had crushes on the same boys at school.They were very much kindred spirits and where one would go the other would most certainly follow .

Whilst out at the mall Abbey and Trudy had met with a boy they knew through school ,not a close friend but nevertheless he was a friend they felt at ease with there was never any indication of this boy being involved in what they found themselves in now, no indication at all.

Jeremy ,the boy they met with, or Jez as they knew him as ,was always friendly and would always say hello or wave goodbye when they saw him at school.He had an older brother Troy who was about 19 now and he seemed to be totally different to Jez ,he wasn’t as friendly and seemed to be in trouble a lot of the time with the police and he had gotten himself thrown out of school and straight into juvenile detention for a spell a few years ago although no-one ever asked Jez why his brother  had ended up there .

When they were at the mall the 3 ran into Troy who asked them if they wanted to get a ride home .Jez was with them so it must of been an ok thing to do as why wouldn’t they go if Jez was there too.When they got into Troys car there seemed to be an uneasiness in the atmosphere and the conversation between them all seemed strained and forced .Abbey and Trudy must of felt the same about being in the car and Trudy said to Jez that it was ok she could be dropped off at the next corner as her aunty lived there and she had to go and see her to pass a message on from her mom , she said Abbey was going with her too as they were having a sleepover that night .They asked if Troy could pull over and let them out but both the boys kept quiet.When Trudy asked again for Jez to ask Troy to stop ,he mouthed the words I’m sorry to her and then the same to Abbey.’Why are you saying you’re sorry ?” asked Abbey “Whats happening ?why can’t you let us out?”she asked with the fear she felt now making her voice shaky.

“Jez answer her !” Trudy screamed .Both girls tried to open the car doors which were locked securely and only the driver Troy could unlock them from the drivers seat .

Troy finally spoke and said to the two girls it was ok he was only taking them to a party to have some fun.They had nothing to worry about and they were helping Jez pay off his debt to Troy which is what good friends do for each other.Troy told the girls that they didn’t want to make trouble for themselves and if they listened to him like good girls should then they had  nothing to worry about .

Abbey started crying and begging Jez to let them out of the car but Jez didn’t even look at either girls all he could say over and over was “Im sorry”.The girls held each others hands and Trudy told Abbey she wasn’t going to let anything happen to them and not for her to cry it would be ok .Trudy turned to Jez and told him to go to hell she would never forgive him for doing this to them both.

The car pulled into a dimly lit side street which continued to go on and had about 14 houses and the odd garage on it .At the end there was house that that seemed as if it didn’t belong there it was out of place compared to the other houses on the street.There were no lights on in the house ,only a lamp in the window of one of the downstairs rooms. Upstairs a broken window was covered with a piece of old wood which looked like it wasn’t very secure and could fall off at anytime.The house was dirty and run down with beer cans and garbage all across the front lawn.It didn’t look like a kind of house anyone would want to live in even be in for any amount of time. Troy got out of the car and was met by a man who handed him an envelope which Troy looked inside and then put in his inside pocket of his jacket.He walked back to the car and told Jez to leave as he had done well and he wasntneeded anymore.Jez finally looked at Abbey and Trudy and his eyes looked filled with tears although he didn’t let any out not in front of the girls anyway.He turned and walked away disappearing down the street until they  couldn’t see him anymore.

Both girls felt such a fear that they couldn’t stand up from the car without  holding onto each other due to their legs shaking.Abbey thought to herself that this is how she was going to die ,she would never see her family again and all the things she had never said to them seemed to be all she could think of now. She badly wanted to tell her brother he wasn’t as annoying as she used to tell him he was, and she really did love him.She wanted to be able to say Happy Birthday to her mom as she has done every other year or tell her father that yes he was right the music he listened to in the car was actually ok and not as bad as she would tell him every time he listened to it.Then she thought of Harry her dog who would curl up on her bed every night or wait for her by the window when she was due home from school ,how would he live without her there to make a fuss over him  and love him so much as she did.

Toby interrupted her thoughts and ordered both the girls into the house ,they both thought about running away trying to get away from him but they knew he would catch one if not both of them pretty quickly.Even screaming wasn’t an option as who would want to investigate a scream from a house like this it must be a regular thing to hear a scream when Troy was around and most people would probably be too afraid to question him about it.

Inside the house in the room with the lamp there appeared to be another 3 or 4 men all sitting down on a tatty old sofa drinking a glass of cheap whisky or Brandy or something alcoholic at least. Troy handed both girls a glass each of what they thought was water but he said it would make everything a lot easier for them and relax them a lot more.Both Abbey and Trudy drank what was in their glasses heaving as they finished the last drops of the content of each glass.After what seemed like a very long time of having the men look at them up and down and discuss their  appearances as being  very pleasing  and how Jez had done well this time with these two, Troy told the girls to follow him.He led each girl into a room filled with darkness and told them to wait there quietly  for one of the men  who wanted to get to know them better.He said if they were good and listened to him and the men were pleased with them  he would take them home afterwards and they could forget whatever had happened that night and go back to their boring lives.Anna thought she would actually give anything to have her boring life at this moment in time .Troy pushed her in the first room and told her to relax she would enjoy it more if she did.

He did the same to Trudy.

In the darkness of the room it felt so cold and so eerie Anna wasn’t familiar with this feeling and it made her feel terrified.Her heart felt like it was beating in her throat so fast so strong she thought she would faint or maybe even collapse and die .She heard the creaking of the stairs outside and footsteps which became louder until they stopped outside her door to the room she was in.The handle moved and the door opened.

“Anna, Anna where are you ? “ said the strangers voice , “Anna can you hear me?”

“Don’t be afraid” he said “I won’t hurt you, I’m a policeman ,I’m part of an undercover operation to arrest Toby ,and his gang of friends, who have been picking young girls up like you and your friend to exploit them, and make money to fund a drug organisation. Toby’s brother Jez  has been helping us.”